BMG Rights Management, the music venture owned by Bertelsmann and KKR, is eyeing a number of potential U.K. investment projects, the Financial Times reported.
BMG was looking at “something like 50 deals,” including two or three large acquisitions in the coming months, the company’s head, Hartwig Masuch, told the paper in an interview.
“We’ve positioned ourselves in the U.S. and now we want to do the same kind of thing in the U.K.,” Masuch said.
BMG had no plans to make a bid for British music group EMI, the FT said, but Masuch signalled the music publisher could be in a position to benefit from EMI’s troubles.
“We can already see that artists are taking away their catalogs from some of the big companies,” he told the paper.
German media giant Bertelsmann AG and private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co announced the BMG Rights joint venture in July 2009, saying it would be a more efficient way of managing music rights under one roof.
KKR has committed to investing about €250 million ($328.2 million) in the business in which it owns a 51% stake. Bertelsmann owns the remaining 49%.
