Germany’s music publishing landscape transforms via €10m+ acquisition: Roba teams with fund to buy GERIG – Music Business Worldwide

The music industry hasn’t been short of eight-figure ($10m+) acquisition deals in the past week.

First BMG swooped for Germany’s largest independent record label, Telamo. Then Concord announced it had acquired Australia-born music publisher, Native Tongue, down under.

Today, another headline-worthy acquisition in the eight-figure range arrives, as it’s announced that German music publisher, ROBA, has teamed with AP Music Royalties Fund to acquire the catalog of German music publisher, GERIG.

The deal price isn’t being officially disclosed, but sources close to the transaction have confirmed to MBW that it sits in the EUR €10 million to €20 million range.

Founded in 1946, GERIG consists of more than 20 separate owned and administered music publishers. It houses approximately 30,000 songs and thousands of master rights.

For many decades GERIG Music Publishing was the leading music publisher in Germany and had a workforce of more than 80 people in Cologne.

The GERIG catalog includes a number of evergreens in Germany, including some of the biggest hits from the Oktoberfest and many German carnival and party songs.

Among the owned and administered works represented are well-known pop rock songs like “Verdammt lang her” plus GDR hits like “Über sieben Brücken musst Du gehen”, “Der blaue Planet”, “Melodie D’amour”, and “Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen”.

Leading German-speaking musicians who have performed GERIG songs down the years include Freddy Quinn, Peter Alexander, Bill Ramsey, Hazy Osterwald, Gus Backus, Catarina Valente, Heintje, Roy Black, Nina Hagen, Peter Maffay, Karat, Spider Murphy Gang, BAP, DJ Oetzi, Jürgen Drews and Ikke Hüftgold.

ROBA Music Publishing, headquartered in Hamburg, is led by Managing Director, Dr. Christian Baierle.

In addition to handling its own repertoire across music publishing, label services and production music, ROBA is the sub-publisher in GSA (Germany, Switzerland and Austria) for the likes of Reservoir Media, CTM and Ultra Music Publishing.

The GERIG deal was advised by Reinher Karl (BKP Law), Andreas Lichtenhahn (SBL Law), Sven Metger (EbnerStolz), Marzio Schena (Anote), Jens Schippmann (Schippmann Law)Music Business Worldwide