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Business News Deals Labels & Publishers
BMG and KKR acquire John Legend catalogue
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 10 January 2022
Turns out that BMG and KKR’s rights acquiring joint venture acquired itself some John Legend rights last year. And why the hell not?
BMG and investment firm KKR – who previously collaborated on the launch of the current iteration of BMG back in 2008 – announced a new JV last March via which they planned to enter the ‘let’s grab some heritage artist catalogues’ frenzy. A deal with ZZ Top was then announced last month.
The earlier deal with not-really-a-heritage-artist Legend, seemingly completed in September, was spotted by the Wall Street Journal in a regulatory filing. It covers rights and royalties stemming from songs written between 2004 and last year. Both KKR and BMG each took a 50% stake in the catalogue.
BMG already provided publishing administration services to Legend and – according to WSJ – has also secured a new deal with the musician in that domain too.