Concord Bicycle Music Acquires Imagem To Create 6th Largest Music Publisher Globally
[UPDATED] Concord Bicycle Music has acquired Imagem at a record breaking price reported to be between $500 million and $600 million. The combined companies create the world's sixth largest music publishing company.
Imagem Music Group controls 250,000 copyrights clustered in three business units: Rodgers & Hammerstein (theatrical), Imagem Music (pop), and Boosey & Hawkes (classical), with offices in London, Berlin, and New York.
Contemporary songwriters with works represented by Imagen include Phil Collins and Genesis, Daft Punk, Pink Floyd, Mark Ronson, Linkin Park, Sammy Cahn, Iron Maiden, Chet Faker, M.I.A., R. Kelly, Billy Ocean, Will Smith, Steve Miller, Cathy Dennis, Lionel Richie, Kaiser Chiefs, 30 Seconds to Mars, The Revivalists and others.
Concord Bicycle Music's portfolio of more than 10,000 active album recordings includes at least 243 GRAMMY winners and 370 RIAA certified gold, platinum, and multi-platinum releases. With the acquisition of Imagem, Concord Bicycle Music's songbook now includes over 380,000 copyrighted works. Concrd labels includes Bicycle, Concord, Craft, Fantasy, Fearless, HighTone, Kidz Bop, Loma Vista, Milestone, Musart, Nitro, Prestige, Razor & Tie, Riverside, Rounder, Specialty, Stax, Sugar Hill, Telarc, Vanguard, Vee-Jay, and Wind-up.
Concord Bicycle Music is owned by Barings Alternative Investments, Sound Investors, and seventy institutional and individual partners, including forty members of the company’s management team. Barings Alternative Investments is an investor in intellectual property assets, including music, other copyrights, filmed content, and patents and trademarks, with over $7.2 billion in total assets under management.
The transaction team leader for Concord Bicycle Music was Chief Business Development Officer Steven Salm. Concord Bicycle Music was advised by Lisbeth R. Barron and Barron International Group, LLC and Reed Smith LLP. Imagem was advised by David Dunn and Robert Law of Shot Tower Capital and Venable LLP.
