TOKYO - Japanese entertainment giant Sony on Tuesday announced a US$1.9-billion deal to acquire EMI Music Publishing, one of the world's largest music publishing companies with rights to songs by the likes of Queen and Pharrell Williams. With this purchase, Sony "is becoming one of the biggest music publishing companies, both in name and reality", Yoshida told reporters. "We are thrilled to bring EMI Music Publishing into the Sony family and maintain our number-one position in the music publishing industry," Yoshida said in an earlier statement. The agreement values EMI Music Publishing at $4.75 billion, the Sony statement said, adding that "the closing of the transaction is subject to certain closing conditions, including regulatory approvals." - 'Over the rainbow' -EMI is the second-largest music publishing company by revenue and either owns or holds the rights to 2.1 million pieces of music.

Source: Bangkok Post May 22, 2018 01:52 UTC