The Bertelsmann music division BMG has acquired a rights package from Simple Minds.

The acquisition, completed with the Scottish band's two founding and core members, Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill, includes the author's rights to all of the band's albums, as well as neighboring rights, according to a statement Tuesday.

Benjamin Fisher

Editor in Business.

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In addition, there are the two royalties due from the marketing of the recordings, which go to BMG from now on.

BMG has not taken over the rights to the recordings themselves, as a BMG spokeswoman confirmed to the FAZ.

The rights to their debut "Life in a Day" (1979) as well as to "Sparkle in the Rain" (1984), "Once Upon a Time" (1985) or "Street Fighting Years" (1989) belong to Universal Music.

BMG was already responsible for evaluating the group's author rights, and BMG will also release the new studio album "Direction Of The Heart", which has been announced for October.

The most famous song is excluded

BMG also points out that the author rights to the song "Don't You (Forget About Me)" are not part of the takeover.

Although it was recorded by the band and is one of the band's biggest hits, it was written by Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff.

In the future, however, BMG will be responsible for collecting the royalties from the evaluation of the recording and ancillary copyright of the song.

Overall, the band has sold more than 60 million albums, according to BMG.

Eighth catalog deal in the UK in 2021

As is the rule with catalog deals, financial details were not disclosed.

Not all of them have been made public, as a reference in the message to the Simple Minds deal underlines.

The acquisition of the Simple Minds catalog is BMG's eighth acquisition in the UK this year.

In April, BMG announced the purchase of 50 percent of the author rights of the Scottish band Primal Scream.

However, the company did not provide any information on the other six deals when asked.

The music division of the Gütersloh-based media group, which was newly founded in 2008, is the fourth-largest music company in the world - behind the three so-called majors, Universal, Sony and Warner Music.

In 2021, BMG generated sales of 663 million euros, with the publishing sector contributing around two thirds.

The Ebitda amounted to 144 million euros.

Many well-known artists have sold

In the course of the recent catalog boom with sales of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks and, most recently, Justin Timberlake, BMG has already made a number of acquisitions.

In October of last year, for example, the company took over an extensive rights package from Tina Turner and a few weeks later the rights to the recordings of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe and rights to the work of ZZ Top.

The ZZ Top Deal was the first deal made public by the alliance formed by BMG and the financial investor KKR in March 2021 to jointly acquire music rights.

BMG lifted the Simple Minds deal alone, while KKR had also been working on its own in the past few months: KKR and a partner took over a catalog with around 62,000 rights to works from Kobalt Capital for $1.1 billion.

Financial investors find the rights lucrative

In addition to KKR, various other financial investors such as Blackstone, Blackrock and Apollo Global Management are active in the field.

The three majors have also made various acquisitions in recent months.

Sony took over the author's rights from Paul Simon and the rights to the recordings from Bob Dylan.

Universal, in turn, holds Dylan's author rights and most recently acquired both author and recorded rights from Neil Diamond, while Warner Music earlier this year bought the author rights of the star, who died in 2016, from David Bowie's heirs.

While rising interest rates are likely to depress the high prices for rights to coveted hits, various experts believe that catalogs will remain attractive as a long-term, stable form of income in view of the further growth of the music industry and various new exploitation options.

Pink Floyd is also currently negotiating the sale of a rights package.

BMG is also mentioned as a possible buyer (of a part).

There are certainly contacts in this case too: BMG is Roger Waters' publishing partner.