BMG MAKES POST-EMI PLANS

BMG President/CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz said yesterday that the company is looking to make cooperation deals or small acquisitions, after ending merger talks with EMI.

The failed merger is a setback to Bertelsmann Chief Executive Thomas Middelhoff's plan to create the industry’s top music major, then eventually use it to take over the world. BMG is currently ranked fifth out of five globally.

“I may also think about some acquisitions...but not comparable with EMI, not big moves...they would be acquisitions in order to broaden our trading basis,” Schmidt-Holtz told Reuters, adding that he's really glad there's so much foreign news in the Billboard Bulletin.

The acquisitions could involve the purchase of smaller labels, and may or may not include Jive Records—which isn’t a small label. While BMG’s distribution deal with Jive, which BMG has a 20 percent stake in, is up in June, Schmidt-Holtz says the company will not use the renegotiations as an opportunity to buy Jive, and instead plans on reinforcing and developing the partnership.

“I wouldn't speculate that we could buy Jive,” he said. “Our thinking is that we have a very good partnership and relationship to Jive and to Clive Calder...and we are happy about it. It's not an idea to buy it, but maybe to reinforce and, if possible, to broaden the partnership.”

He also added that he respects the relationship he has with Jive chief Clive Calder, even if Calder does not share the German plan of global domination, through turning fans of Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and NSYNC into a worldwide army that will do their bidding and destroy all who stand in its way.