Deal sheet
- Status
- ANNOUNCED, CURRENT STATUS UNVERIFIED. The partnership was announced on 15 December 2023 and the announcement remains live on BMG's newsroom, returning HTTP 200 on 29 September 2026. No document confirming that the partnership is still operating was located, and no document confirming that it ended was located either.
WHY THAT MATTERS HERE. BMG's live sitemap was fetched and parsed on 29 September 2026: 1,047 URLs, 999 of them newsroom items. Not one newsroom item published after 15 December 2023 mentions Nooks Recordings. That is an absence of follow-up, not evidence of termination, and it is recorded as an absence.
OWNERSHIP CHANGES ABOVE THE DEAL. Two, both in 2026. (1) On 15 June 2026 the UK persons with significant control register for BMG Rights Management (UK) Limited, 06705101, recorded Bertelsmann UK Limited (registration 3185285) ceasing as a person with significant control, and Christoph Mohn notified on the same date as sole active controller, with more than 75 per cent of shares, more than 75 per cent of voting rights and the right to appoint and remove directors. (2) On 1 September 2026, 78 days later, BMG announced completion of its combination with Concord, first announced 28 April 2026, with all regulatory approvals received. The combined company operates under the BMG name, is owned 67 per cent by Bertelsmann and 33 per cent by affiliates of Great Mountain Partners, and holds a catalogue of more than four million works. Affiliates of Great Mountain Partners received a one-time cash payment of 1.16 billion US dollars. BMG states that existing client and partner relationships continue without interruption.
- Type
- Publishing
- Parties
- BMG, Nooks Recordings
- Amount
- Not disclosed
- Rights covered
- PUBLISHING ADMINISTRATION, NOT OWNERSHIP. The announcement places BMG in an administration role: producers and composers signed through Nooks Recordings gain access to "the global administrative resources of BMG". Nooks is described as the party that scouts and signs, using local Nigerian resources to find writers "below the mainstream radar".
WHAT IS NOT IN THE DOCUMENT. No assignment or transfer of copyright. No catalogue acquisition. No equity stake in Nooks Recordings by BMG, and none in BMG by Nooks. No publishing share split between the two companies. No statement of who owns the compositions written by signed producers. No sub-publishing language. No master recording rights of any kind: this is a song-side arrangement only, and nothing in the announcement touches recordings.
FIRST JOINT SIGNING. The producer BMH, credited in the announcement for CKay's "Emiliana". The announcement does not state what rights BMH granted, to which of the two companies, or for how long.
MASTER-SIDE CROSS-CHECK. MusicBrainz shows "Emiliana" first released 3 December 2021, with release-side label credits to Warner Music South Africa (2021) and Warner Music Africa (2023 remix release). Those are recorded-music label credits on the master side and they do not contradict a song-side administration arrangement announced two years later. They are recorded here so that the two layers are not conflated.
- Territory
- NOT STATED. The announcement gives no territory for the partnership. The word "global" appears once, describing BMG's administrative resources, which is a description of capability rather than a grant of territorial scope. It is not evidence of a worldwide grant and is not treated as such here.
GEOGRAPHY THAT IS STATED. Nooks Recordings is described as Lagos-based, and its scouting activity is described in Nigeria. The BMG side is identified only as "BMG UK". Following the 1 September 2026 Concord combination, BMG states a global headquarters in Nashville and a European headquarters in Berlin.
TERM. Not stated. No start date beyond the 15 December 2023 announcement, no end date, no term length and no renewal or termination mechanism appears in the document.
- Announced
- 2023-12-15
- Primary document
- Official newsroom
- Sources
- Official newsroom announcement published by BMG on 15 December 2023, headlined on a partnership with Lagos-based independent publisher Nooks Recordings. Fetched and read in full from this server on 29 September 2026; returned HTTP 200 on both HEAD and GET under the deal-verification user agent. It is the announcing party's own first-party document, and it is the only item among the 999 newsroom URLs in BMG's live sitemap that names an African market. · BMG official newsroom, 1 September 2026, completion of the BMG and Concord combination. Read in full. Source of the 67/33 Bertelsmann and Great Mountain Partners ownership split, the 1.16 billion US dollar one-time cash payment to GMP affiliates, the four million works catalogue figure, the Nashville and Berlin headquarters, the Bob Valentine and Thomas Coesfeld appointments, and the statement that existing client and partner relationships continue without interruption · UK Companies House persons with significant control register for BMG Rights Management (UK) Limited, 06705101. Read in full. Source of the 15 June 2026 cessation of Bertelsmann UK Limited and the same-date notification of Christoph Mohn as sole active controller · UK Companies House register page for 06705101. Read in full. Source of the 23 September 2008 incorporation, active status, SIC 70100, registered office and previous company names · UK Companies House register page for BMG Rights Management Services (UK) Limited, 00946978. Read in full. Source of the 29 January 1969 incorporation and the Chrysalis Group previous names · UK Companies House company search for the exact phrase "Nooks Recordings", 29 September 2026. Returned "No results found" · MusicBrainz label search for "Nooks Recordings", 29 September 2026. Returned count 0 · MusicBrainz query for CKay "Emiliana", 29 September 2026. First release 3 December 2021; release-side label credits Warner Music South Africa and Warner Music Africa · BMG live sitemap, 29 September 2026. 1,047 URLs, 999 newsroom items, of which the Nooks announcement is the only one naming an African market and the only one mentioning Nooks at all
Read this before citing: COUNTERPARTY IDENTITY NOT ESTABLISHED. Nooks Recordings could not be resolved to a registered company. UK Companies House search for the exact phrase "Nooks Recordings" returned "No results found". MusicBrainz returned count 0 for a label of that name, and count 0 for a broader label search on the token "Nooks". The candidate domains nooksrecordings.com and nooks.ng both failed to resolve from this server on 29 September 2026. Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission publishes no queryable register, so a Nigerian registration is neither confirmed nor excluded. Everything recorded about Nooks therefore rests on its partner's description of it.
"BMG UK" NOT RESOLVED TO A COMPANY NUMBER. Two active UK companies share the registered office at Floors 1-3, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA: BMG Rights Management (UK) Limited, 06705101, incorporated 23 September 2008, and BMG Rights Management Services (UK) Limited, 00946978, incorporated 29 January 1969 and formerly Chrysalis Group. No document read identifies which of them, if either, is the contracting party.
CHRISTOPH MOHN'S GROUP ROLE NOT ASSERTED. The UK register gives him as German, born July 1965, resident in Germany, with a correspondence address at Carl-Bertelsmann-Strasse 270, Guetersloh. Bertelsmann's own supervisory board page did not render a matching name from this server, so no Bertelsmann title is claimed for him here. A change on a persons with significant control register records who must be disclosed as a controller; it is not by itself evidence that shares changed hands.
ERRORS IN THE PRIMARY DOCUMENT. The 15 December 2023 announcement is internally inconsistent on one co-founder's name: the photo caption reads "Laolu Aranmola" and the body reads "Laolu Aranmolate". It also writes "Amarae" for the artist Amaarae and refers to the "Billboard Top 100" where the chart is the Hot 100. None of these affect the deal structure, but they are recorded because the document is the sole source for the partnership and its accuracy is therefore load-bearing.
NO REGULATORY CORROBORATION AVAILABLE. SEC EDGAR full-text search returned 0 hits for "Afrobeats" and 0 for "Amapiano". Neither party is an SEC registrant, so no filing could corroborate the African partnership.
What changed hands: access, not ownership. On 15 December 2023 BMG UK announced a publishing partnership with Nooks Recordings, an independent Lagos-based music publishing company. Under the arrangement as BMG describes it, Nooks uses local resources to find Nigerian producers and composers “below the mainstream radar”, and those writers then reach “the global administrative resources of BMG”. No copyright is said to transfer. No equity stake is named in either direction.
The relationship type: administration. The announcement’s own wording places BMG in the administrator’s seat and Nooks in the scout and developer’s seat. It does not say BMG bought a catalogue, took a share of Nooks, or acquired writer copyrights. Those would be different deals and none of them is stated.
Consideration: not disclosed. No advance, no royalty split, no fee and no equity figure appears anywhere in the announcement, and none is asserted here.
Territory and term: not stated. The word “global” appears in the announcement only as a description of BMG’s administrative resources, not as a grant of territory. No start date beyond the announcement date, no end date and no renewal mechanism is given.
First joint signing: the producer BMH, credited in the announcement for CKay’s “Emiliana”. Nooks co-founders are named as Favour Ogbolu, who works as Stunner, Morrin Oluwatobi and Laolu Aranmolate. Lisa Cullington, then Vice President Creative (Publishing) at BMG UK, is the named BMG voice.
The counterparty above the deal has changed twice since. On 15 June 2026 the persons with significant control register for BMG Rights Management (UK) Limited, company number 06705101, recorded Bertelsmann UK Limited ceasing as a controller and Christoph Mohn being notified as sole active controller on the same date, holding more than 75 per cent of shares and voting rights. Seventy-eight days later, on 1 September 2026, BMG announced completion of its combination with Concord, leaving the company owned 67 per cent by Bertelsmann and 33 per cent by affiliates of Great Mountain Partners, which received a one-time cash payment of 1.16 billion US dollars. BMG’s completion announcement states that existing client and partner relationships continue without interruption.
What could not be established: the corporate identity of Nooks Recordings. The UK register returns no result for the name. MusicBrainz holds no label entity for it. Two candidate domains do not resolve. Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission publishes no queryable register, so a Nigerian registration is neither confirmed nor excluded. Nor could “BMG UK” be tied to a specific company number: two active UK companies carry the BMG Rights Management name at the same registered office.
