BMG Rights Adds Evergreen

Joel Katz

In a deal reportedly valued at $80 million, KKR-backed BMG Rights Management has gone shopping, gobbling Evergreen Copyright Acquisitions, its fourth company this year.

Earlier this year BMG Rights snagged Cherry Lane Music, Adage IV and Stage Three music.

Richard Perna

According to reports in the New York Post, Evergreen was founded in 2006 and owns rights to over 65,000 songs. It’s run by co-founder and co-CEO David Schulhof. Additional senior management includes Co-Chief Executive Richard Perna; co-founder and music lawyer Joel Katz; and Chief Financial Officer John Lipman, a principal, of Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking which provided the firm’s founding investment.

Schulhof and Perna, Co-CEOs of Evergreen, stated: “We are proud of the company we have built and thank all of the great songwriters and artists we’ve had the opportunity to work with.  We wish to thank Trilantic Capital Partners for their unwavering support as we built Evergreen into the well-established global music publisher it is today. Most of all, we would like to thank all of  our exceptional employees, without whom we could not have built this great company. We wish BMG continued success. We are very honored that they have selected Evergreen to join their growing family.”

Controlling Evergreen shareholder, Trilantic Capital Partners becomes a BMG co-investor under the deal, reports NYP.

Billboard reports, BMG Rights recently received equity injections of over $260 million for acquisitions from shareholders KKR investments and Bertelsmann.