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Message: [QUOTE="Bombastus, post: 91332, member: 2178"] Bertelsmann said on September 1 that it was securing about $1.25 billion in equity capital from Apollo alongside the completed BMG and Concord combination. Apollo is acquiring a minority interest in part of BMG's rights portfolio, not a direct slice of the 33 percent held by Great Mountain Partners. Those are two different ownership layers. The parent company still has the structure announced for the merger, with Bertelsmann holding 67 percent and Concord's former owners holding 33 percent through affiliates managed by Great Mountain Partners. Bertelsmann also says it will fully consolidate BMG in its financial statements. Apollo sits below that parent-level split through a BMG subsidiary. That distinction matters when reading [B][URL='https://goldmidi.com/community/threads/bmg-and-concord-completed-a-merger-under-the-bmg-name.76731/unread']the ownership structure created by the BMG-Concord deal[/URL][/B] because the headline percentages do not describe every investor attached to every asset underneath BMG. Apollo's position is narrower. It is tied to part of the rights portfolio and the financing around it. [HEADING=2]Apollo did not replace either main BMG shareholder[/HEADING] The 67-33 split tells you who owns the combined BMG at the top level. Bertelsmann controls the majority, appoints three of the five board representatives, and consolidates the company, while Great Mountain Partners affiliates hold the remaining minority position and appoint two board representatives. Nothing disclosed about Apollo changes those percentages. Apollo instead acquired what Bertelsmann describes as a minority interest at the level of a BMG subsidiary. The company has not publicly framed Apollo as a third parent shareholder alongside Bertelsmann and Great Mountain Partners. That matters because saying Apollo owns part of BMG without explaining the level can create the false impression that the original merger ownership was diluted or rewritten. The wording around the transaction is deliberately specific. Apollo is acquiring an interest in part of BMG's rights portfolio, which means the investment is connected to a subset of assets rather than an equal claim across every publishing, recorded music, theatrical, distribution, and screen operation housed in the combined company. The disclosed structure is therefore a [B]portfolio-level minority investment[/B], not a new three-way parent cap table. [HEADING=2]The $1.25 billion also serves a financing job[/HEADING] Bertelsmann says the Apollo capital will help BMG refinance and repay outstanding asset-backed securities liabilities connected with BMG and Concord. That makes the investment more than a passive bet on catalog appreciation. It also provides equity capital that can change how the combined company's existing music-rights debt is financed. Asset-backed securities, usually shortened to ABS, turn predictable cash flows from assets into collateral for notes sold to investors. In music, royalties from large groups of songs and recordings can support those notes. Concord used this structure extensively before the merger, including a $1.765 billion issuance in 2025 secured by a catalog containing more than 1.3 million music copyrights. That 2025 transaction followed earlier Concord securitizations, so the liabilities referred to after the merger did not appear suddenly when BMG and Concord combined. They grew from financing structures already attached to music catalogs. Bertelsmann's statement does not say that every historical Concord note will disappear immediately, only that the additional equity creates a basis for future refinancing and repayment of outstanding BMG and Concord ABS liabilities. Equity and ABS debt also behave differently. Debt investors hold notes with contractual payment terms, while an equity investor owns an interest whose value depends on the underlying business or assets. Using fresh equity to deal with existing securitization liabilities can reduce dependence on debt financing without requiring BMG to sell the whole company or surrender parent-level control. [HEADING=2]Apollo's Concord relationship started before this deal[/HEADING] Apollo was not a stranger arriving after the BMG transaction closed. Its Capital Solutions business structured Concord's $1.8 billion music-rights ABS in 2022 and formed an investor syndicate led by Apollo-managed funds. That transaction was secured by more than one million copyrights and was designed to provide long-term financing for Concord's growth. Apollo and related entities were also involved when Concord closed another $850 million securitization in 2024. Apollo Global Securities and affiliate Redding Ridge Asset Management helped structure the deal and led an investor syndicate. The 2026 equity agreement therefore extends an existing financing relationship with Concord's catalog rather than creating one from nothing. The structure has changed, though. Earlier Apollo involvement centered on arranging and investing around securitized debt backed by royalties, while the newly disclosed agreement gives Apollo equity exposure to part of BMG's rights portfolio. That shifts Apollo closer to the asset ownership side of the capital structure while leaving Bertelsmann in control of the combined company. The unresolved detail is the exact portfolio covered by Apollo's minority interest. Bertelsmann has disclosed the approximate capital amount, the subsidiary-level structure, and the intended refinancing purpose, but it has not publicly identified every catalog or right included in that portfolio. Any claim that Apollo owns a specific artist catalog because of this deal would therefore go beyond the information currently disclosed. [/QUOTE]

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