music_news 91 posts

Last week there was news that Virgin Megastores might be opened in Russia. A Russian gambling holding Ritzio was negotiating with the company.

This Monday Virgin announced that the UK and Irland Virgin Megastores business was sold to a management buy-out team. The chain will undergo rebranding and the stores will be renamed “Zavvi”.

Read more:
Ritzio plays Virgin, Kommersant (In Russian)
Ritzio Owners Plan Virgin Megastores, The Moscow Times
Branson sells Virgin Megastores, The Guardian

The European Commission has approved the acquisition of BMG music publishing business by Universal.

This deal got the approval after Universal proposed a plan to prevent excess market power consolidation. The EU Commissioner’s concern was that the copyright for using music online (for example, sell in a Internet music store) would be held by an entity close to a monopoly. In some countries the new venture would own publishing rights to more than a half of chart hits. While traditional publishing rights are still administered via independent fee collecting societies, copyright for digital downloads is managed by chosen entities controlled by the labels. If so the online stores could face unfair prices after the Universal-BMG merger.

To prevent this Universal has promised to sell off some part of its catalogue. So it doesn’t become too big. Such measure had satisfied the European Commission and won the approval for the deal. So now the No. 3 and No. 4 music catalogues can be merged into one.


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It has all been only rumors with no official statements that EMI is up for sale or at least its catalogue could be available in DRM-free MP3 to anyone who offers a handsome advance payment. According to Bloomberg, potential buyers interested in the catalogue included Microsoft, Apple Inc., RealNetworks Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. However, no one had offered enough for EMI’s music and the talks were suspended.

At the same time Warner Music Group Corp. and reportedly a number of private equity groups were in turns trying to buy EMI. Those negotiations haven’t produced any result yet as well.

For the time being EMI keeps reducing its revenue and profit forecasts. It has warned about its falling profits already twice this year. Nevertheless, EMI’s shares rose a few percent after the news of a potential acquisition.

More news might follow, but so far nobody seems to want either the company or its catalogue for the price demanded.


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