WARNER MUSIC GROUP JUNK

It seems everybody wants to buy music. Not actual CDs, the sales of which continue to decline, but entire music companies.

Michael Miliken, who shall forever be known as “former junk bond king Michael Milken” is part of Nelson Peltz’s investment group, which wants to buy Warner Music and Warner Chappell publishing, according to the New York Post. The New York Post, of course, is also the place that first hipped us to the Paris Hilton sex tape.

Peltz is CEO of the Triarc Companies, the parent company of Arby’s, makers of such fine musical products as the Beef ’N Cheddar. He's also got a net worth of $1 billion, according to Forbes, which has yet to weigh in on the Paris Hilton sex tape.

In other merger-news, The London Daily Mail is reporting that the WMG-EMI deal is “on course” and expected by Christmas. The paper also cites a source as saying a deal with a private equity groups would be a “fallback” and that EMI is “still the one.” And they’re still having fun, and they’re still the one. That same story posits that a Sony-BMG deal won’t be done before the end of the year.