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Fuller may bid for US independent Concord too

By | Published on Monday 3 December 2012

Simon Fuller

Simon Fuller doesn’t just have his eyes on the Parolophone label, according to Sky News. It seems the ‘Idol’ creator and XIX Entertainment chief is also interested in buying American label the Concord Music Group, which counts recordings from the likes of Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis and Dionne Warwick on its roster.

The Concord Music Group was created by the merger of Concord Records and Fantasy Records in 2004, and was the Starbucks chain’s industry partner in its short-lived label adventure Hear Music, via which Concord hooked up with Paul McCartney, who then moved the distribution of his solo catalogue from EMI to the independent in 2010.

Concord’s current owner Village Roadshow has put the business up for sale, and Fuller is said to be considering a bid. As previously reported, the 19 Entertainment founder and talent manager is also leading a consortium bidding to buy many of the assets Universal is being forced to sell in Europe as part of its deal with regulators regards its EMI acquisition.

It seems almost certain that if Fuller were successful in both his bids for Concord and EMI’s Parlophone Music Group, he would merge the two entities, one having a stronger foothold in the US and the other in the UK, therefore making them a good combination for anyone looking to launch a new music rights company with established operations on both sides of the Atlantic.

So much so, Sky’s Mark Kleinman reckons other Parlophone bidders may also concurrently bid for Concord, adding that bankers co-ordinating the Parlophone sale for Universal have gone as far as advising bidders for the EMI assets that a combined Parlophone/Concord business is worth considering.



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