Dome love “Last Christmas”, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” or “Driving Home for Christmas”, the others hate the Christmas classics. In any case, Hartwig Masuch, that much is certain, will (still?) much prefer to hear Chris Rea’s classic lately. Because recently, the shares formerly entitled to the British from the marketing of the recording and many other of his publications have gone to the Bertelsmann music division BMG – the rights themselves remain with Warner Music.

The deal, announced on December 6, is one of several acquisitions that BMG has announced in recent weeks that are smaller than the sale of Springsteen, Dylan or Phil Collins & Co. There would still be the rights to many recordings by the band Fools Garden (“Lemon Tree”), a package by Peter Frampton or the recorded shares by Haddaway (“What Is Love”). Overall, BMG has made more than 30 rights purchases this year, although not all have been announced. That’s how it works in the industry. The public rarely learns about financial details from the parties involved.

“300 million for Genesis or thirty times 10 million for smaller catalogues, it comes to the same thing”

“2022 was a good year for us,” summarizes the BMG boss in an interview with the FAZ. “We were also active on the acquisition side until last week, while some competitors are understandably having a hard time. Of course it makes a difference whether I can fall back on corporate capital or have to finance myself in some other way.” Masuch is probably alluding to Hipgnosis, one of the most active rights buyers in recent years, founded in 2018 by the busy ex-artist manager Merck Mercuriadis. In the course of the crisis, the price of the Hipgnosis Songs (HSF) fund, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, had recently fallen significantly.

“There’s been a bit of a gasp as interest rates have risen significantly and the big non-music companies have had to look at their financial and credit structure first,” says Masuch. However, the 68-year-old industry veteran does not expect the market, which is booming when money is cheap, to cool down significantly in the long term.

“What’s currently happening: There are a lot of artists who had to accept that they might have missed the peak, but if you don’t take the level of 2021 as a benchmark, but for example the level of 2011, then we are 100 percent above it.” . As soon as the first disappointment has subsided, the market will pick up speed again – “not least because so much relevant repertoire is now owned by people who are between 70 and 80 years old and, for example, want to regulate their inheritance more easily”.

“A significant flattening of growth is not to be expected”

In addition, the prospects for the music industry are good and thus also for the rights holders of popular songs. The industry is still proving to be very stable during the crisis. Masuch predicts that this will remain the case: “A significant flattening of growth is not to be expected, there are simply too many major factors that are playing into our hands: global growth and the opening up of new age groups in audio streaming and the very strong further expansion of video streaming”. The latter is always treated a little neglected, but there are a number of households that have subscribed to Disney +, Hulu, Netflix and Co in parallel. “All of these services pay a portion of their revenue for the use of music. There are already many millions at stake.” Even at the local level, new providers are constantly being added.