The bombshell business story of Grammy Week was unquestionably the potential multi-billion dollar acquisition of Concord Music by Bertelsmann, parent company of BMG, which would see the two biggest independent music companies in the Western world join forces to create what would be a fourth major music group, at least in terms of volume.
The deal, which sources place between $6.6 billion and $7 billion, would form a company that is considerably smaller than the two dominant major music groups, Universal and Sony — but not far from the third, Warner, at least by some metrics. (News of the deal was first reported by Bloomberg and advanced by Billboard.)
Reps for both Berlin-based BMG and U.S.-based Concord declined comment with boilerplate “we don’t comment on rumors and speculation” non-statements, which nearly always mean that something is definitely going on. Billboard reported last week that the two companies are “in active talks but still negotiating the equity and stock components of the deal.”
One advantage of such a story breaking during Grammy Week is that a reporter doesn’t even have to pick up the phone, and can just commandeer knowledgeable sources for a quick off-the-record conversation at any of the dozens of brunches and cocktail hours taking place all week (which made for a comical scene when a rep introduced BMG Chief Financial Officer Mathis Wolter to Variety, then swiftly steered him away before we could even say “Nice to meet you”). However, more than a dozen other knowledgeable top executives — none of whom work for BMG or Concord — were willing to share off-the-record insights.
Several of them told Variety that the deal is “definitely” happening, although months of antitrust bean-counting lie ahead, as approval would be required from regulators in the U.S., the European Union and the U.K. However, few see the deal facing significant opposition, unlike Universal’s $775 million acquisition of Downtown Music, which has been under E.U. antitrust scrutiny for more than a year.
All agree that the proposed BMG-Concord union makes sense for any number of reasons, as the companies share similar publishing-and-catalog-heavy business models and multiple organizational synergies. It would also solve BMG’s succession issue, as Concord CEO Bob Valentine would likely take the helm of the combined company when Bertelsmann scion Thomas Coesfeld, BMG’s CEO since 2023, elevates to the top post at the parent company next January.
But would such a merger truly create a fourth major? Not really, all agreed.
The major label game has always been about stars, hits and sizzle as much as numbers, and the recorded-music divisions of both BMG and Concord don’t have anyone in the same galaxy as a Taylor or Bruno or Harry.
Their approach is a moneyball, slow and steady, more-tortoise-less-hare game that emphasizes catalogs and publishing over recorded music, favoring safe investment rather than big risks.
“Neither BMG nor Concord are big record labels,” one insider says. “They’re asset owners rather than asset managers,” an appropriately dry assessment that reflects the unlikeliness of this deal creating a traditionally glamorous, hard-charging, big-swinging major music company. Tortoises may be slow and not so exciting to watch, but they probably sleep better.
The one exception is BMG’s powerful Nashville division, where recorded-music president Jon Loba and company have launched superstars in Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson; it also acquired the country label Broken Bow for $100 million in 2017.
Yet its foundation lies in heritage acts and a formidable catalog, a sturdy if unexciting set of assets built by former CEO Hartwig Masuch, who founded the company in 2008 as a Mark II of Bertelsmann’s previous major label group, which was also named BMG and included RCA, Arista, Jive and J Records. (It united with Sony in an ill-fated joint venture in 2002 before being fully acquired by the Japanese giant for $1.2 billion four years later.)
Masuch specialized in veteran artists such as Lenny Kravitz, Blondie and Iron Maiden and catalogs like Motley Crue (which they acquired for a reported $100 million), ZZ Top ($50 million), Tina Turner and John Legend, who are past their commercial prime but retain solid and loyal fanbases, particularly outside the U.S., and also sell respectable quantities of profitable physical product.
However, that approach has evolved since his departure in 2023, as the company has become more frontline-facing and even scored surprise hits from veteran pop artists like Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen and Marina, along with the occasional big acquisition (like last year’s 1,000-song-plus $250 million deal that included the catalog of MAGA-stumping country singer Jason Aldean).
Concord’s recorded-music divisions are even less superstar-heavy — their frontline artists include Ghost, Sierra Ferrell, Margo Price, Sarah McLauglin and Korn — but they make up for it in volume with a catalog of more than 16,000 albums that sprawls across genres, from jazz to theater to classical, from children’s music to punk, from Latin to Americana. Its vast array of labels includes includes alternative powerhouse Loma Vista, roots-leaning Rounder and the catalogs of the legendary soul label Stax, iconic Latin imprint Fania, jazz giants Prestige, Riverside and Savoy, and the rock labels Fearless, Victory and Wind-up. It also acquired the distribution and artist-services company Stem last year in a mid-eight-figure deal.
The combined publishing divisions, however, would be massive. BMG represents Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bruno Mars, Diane Warren, Lewis Capaldi, John Legend, Pitbull and many others, and over the years has acquired such publishers as Bug Music, Cherry Lane, Chrysalis and Union Square Music.
Concord, which paid some $300 million for the song catalogs of the three main members of Genesis and $217 for Daddy Yankee’s, also has a wide roster ranging from Daft Punk to Leonard Bernstein as well as the pop/rap-oriented Pulse Music Group, the 150,000-song catalog of Round Hill Music (for which it paid $468.8 million), the 30,000-song Mojo Music catalog, and the world’s leading classical music publisher, Boosey & Hawkes. It has fewer top-flight pop songwriters but many major cowriters, such as country writer Chris LaCorte, Olivia Dean collaborator Zach Nahome and Rosalia/ Kanye West collaborator Noah Goldstein.
One top publishing executive (who does not work for one of the majors) waxed enthusiastically about the potential clout of a publishing-focused fourth major. “Because the three majors are more focused on recorded music,” which has bigger margins on successful music than publishing, “it’s been in their interest to treat publishing like a stepchild. BMG-Concord could help change that.” Indeed, recorded-music receives approximately 75% of streaming royalties while publishing garners around 25%.
While the year-end reports for 2025 are not yet available, for the previous year BMG was at around 7% global market share, per Goldman Sachs (fourth, as opposed to market leader Sony’s 24%, Universal’s 23% and Warner’s 12%). And although Concord’s holdings were grouped with a collection of indies into an “other” category in that tally, it would certainly put a combined publishing company well within reach of Warner, if not surpassing it.
And, one insider suggests, “Who’s to say that BMG would stop there? What if they bought Kobalt?,” the Sweden-based publishing giant that is of comparable size to BMG, with a top-shelf roster that includes Paul McCartney, Max Martin, Gunna, Foo Fighters, Dijon, Beck, Phoebe Bridgers and many others, and takes a much more active, asset-management-centric approach than BMG or Concord.
That acquisition, which would also reach several billion dollars, would create “extraordinary combined synergies,” the insider said — and conceivably could give all three major publishers a run for their money. (It also goes without saying that “synergies” are usually synonymous with layoffs, as the merged companies eliminate duplicative roles, particularly in the back offices.)
Still, the lack of major recording artists would keep it in a second league. Stars, especially superstars, shape culture, and the smart record labels are actively promoting their artists’ entire brands as well as music, embedding themselves more extensively into the infrastructure of those artists’ careers and identities, and thus culture.
And as the majors have long since settled into a standoff with regard to overall market share, with UMG at No. 1, Sony at 2 and Warner a distant third, it’s unclear how much a BMG-Concord would truly change things.
“It would be a big psychological shift,” one insider says. “But really, it would mean two majors and two mini-majors.”
English (US) ·