Sony has completed its take-over of the Sony BMG music joint venture from partner Bertelsmann, the German media company said Thursday. Originally it was an equal joint venture, set up four years ago as a way for Bertelsmann to withdraw from the troubled music recording business. Bertelsmann said Sony had paid the purchase price for its 50-percent stake and that the takeover had cleared all anti-trust hurdles and was finalized Wednesday.
Apparently the price paid by Sony was less than 1 billion euros. The newly formed company, SMEI is expected to have annual revenues of 3 billion euros ($4 billion) and will employ around 6000 people. Bertelsmann, based in Guetersloh, Germany (seen in the photo above), will keep the BMG brand and re-direct its remaining music business into music rights management, representing artists and authors mainly in Europe.
BMG Rights Management would retain “selected European music catalogues” with the work of more than 200 artists which had previously been managed by the joint venture.
(Via Deutsche Welle)
