Global music company BMG and global investment firm KKR have formed a new alliance to jointly pursue acquisitions of recorded music, music publishing, and other music-related assets. The collaboration is designed to offer artists, songwriters, and rights owners flexible options to realize and expand the value of their catalogs and intellectual property.
Through this arrangement, the two companies will collaborate to identify and acquire music catalogs, leveraging BMG’s global presence and expertise in maximizing long-term value for artists, combined with KKR’s investment resources and relationships across the media and digital sectors. The agreement does not involve any sale of equity in BMG nor the establishment of a joint venture. BMG remains wholly owned by Bertelsmann.
The partnership marks a renewed alignment between the companies. KKR previously held a stake in BMG from 2009 to 2013, a period during which the company completed numerous catalog and label acquisitions and expanded into one of the most prominent global music rights organizations in the streaming era. BMG has completed over 100 music rights acquisitions in the last decade, including significant publishing and catalog transactions.
KKR has a history of investing in music and broader media and digital platforms, including Gibson Brands, Alpha Theta, ByteDance, Jio Platforms, Epic Games, AppLovin, RBmedia, WebMD, and other content and technology companies. Both BMG and KKR have recently completed high-profile catalog acquisitions, including KKR’s acquisition of a majority stake in Ryan Tedder’s music catalog and BMG’s purchase of Mick Fleetwood’s recorded interests in Fleetwood Mac’s catalog.
For Bertelsmann, the alliance supports its continued expansion in global content markets and follows other strategic initiatives across its portfolio. Bertelsmann views the partnership as an opportunity further to scale BMG’s position in the global music ecosystem.
Advisor: Latham & Watkins served as legal advisor to KKR.
KEY QUOTES
“BMG and KKR can jointly pursue opportunities for acquisitions of major catalogs of music rights from now on. Together with KKR, we are ideally positioned to make attractive offers to rights owners. KKR was already the ideal partner and catalyst once before, following the reestablishment of our music subsidiary in 2008. We subsequently bought back all of the BMG shares held by KKR in 2013 and since then, BMG has developed into one of the most successful music companies of the streaming age, and one of Bertelsmann’s three global content businesses. Now we will ignite the next stage with KKR.”
Thomas Rabe, Chairman & CEO, Bertelsmann
“BMG has become an innovative leader in the music industry by embracing digital trends early on, while always placing artists at the center of everything they do. We are delighted to reunite with BMG’s talented team to pursue future opportunities together, leveraging our complementary platforms.”
Richard Sarnoff, Partner, KKR
“Our early partnership with KKR helped us rapidly become the first new international music company of the streaming age, winning the trust of artists and songwriters with great service and 21st-century levels of fairness and transparency. This new relationship with KKR will offer artists and songwriters a well-funded, financially stable home for their music assets with the confidence that their songs and recordings will be managed both professionally and respectfully.”
Hartwig Masuch, CEO, BMG
