BMG Acquires Assets Of R2M Music
Bertelsmann’s music rights subsidiary BMG has acquired the American music catalogue R2M Music, thereby securing 12,000 copyrights. They include worldwide Number One hits such as 2Pac’s “California Love”, Neil Sedaka’s “Laughter in the Rain”, “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain and Tennille, and “Knock Three Times” by Tony Orlando and Dawn. The assets sold by R2M pursuant to the transaction include the LeFrak catalogue, home among other things to U.S. singer/songwriter Jim Croce’s greatest hits, including “Time in a Bottle.”
Perhaps of greatest interest for the German music market is that R2M catalog also includes nearly all of the songs by the famous German punk band Die Toten Hosen, i.e. the majority of songs on the six albums the band has recorded since 1996, five of them Number Ones in Germany. The R2M assets acquired by BMG as part of the transaction also include the music publishing assets of former Transcontinent Musikverlag GmbH, including rights to an extensive German Schlager music catalogue.
BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch said, “R2M had assembled a high quality catalogue of outstanding copyrights, and we are delighted to be able to extend our services to their writers. We are confident we will do a great job for them.” R2M was founded by former Sony/ATV Music Publishing executives Paul Russell, Richard Rowe and Phil May in 2006.
BMG’s last major acquisition was Bug Music, one of the world’s leading independent music publishing companies, in September 2011. Founded in 2008 by Bertelsmann and the financial investor KKR, the joint venture has since established a presence in eight core music markets around the world and manages a catalog of close to a million copyrights.
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