Talking of publishing companies, HitsDailyDouble have been doing some sums and have concluded that it is not a forgone conclusion that the combined Universal/BMG publishing company will be the biggest in the world. Recent market share figures show Universal and BMG have a 12-13% share of the global music publishing market, while EMI Music Publishing has a 25% share, so they'll be pretty even in size after the Universal/BMG merger.
Universal will want to be able to say that their publishing entity is the biggest, because that means they are the biggest in both the publishing and recording sectors, though it might be to their advantage to play up EMI's claim to the 'biggest publishing firm' title while Universal try to convince EU regulators that them acquiring BMG's publishing company doesn't raise competition concerns.