VIRGIN, DOWNTOWN CONSUMMATE ACQUISITION

UMG's Virgin Music Group is acquiring Downtown Music Holdings LLC in a $775m cash deal due to close by the second half of next year.

The two companies will continue to operate independently while offering "a broadened and enhanced suite of services to clients, including digital and physical distribution, release marketing, business intelligence, neighboring rights, synchronization, royalties and rights management."

Since Justin Kalifowitz launched Downtown Music Publishing in 2007, he and CEO Andrew Bergman have transformed the pubco into a leading music company, one that manages 23m+ assets on behalf of more than a million artists and enterprise clients in 145 countries.

Its affiliated businesses include FUGA, Downtown Artist & Label Services, Curve Royalties, CD Baby and Songtrust.

“On behalf of Andrew, [President] Pieter [Van Rijn] and me, it's very exciting for Downtown to be joining forces with Virgin Music,” said Kalifowitz. “This is tremendous recognition of the importance and vitality of independent music and the value our company brings to its clients every day."

“Justin Kalifowitz, Andrew Bergman and Pieter Van Rijn have built Downtown Music into one of the most diversified and respected operations in the world,” said Virgin Music Group Co-CEO JT Myers. “This combination enables us to expand on the Downtown legacy and offer the independent music community a dynamic and innovative global infrastructure in terms of service offerings and territorial footprint."

The newly wedded entities toasted their success by vowing to not ever tell HITS anything.