Sony Corp. will buy Bertelsmann AG’s 50 percent stake in Sony BMG Music Entertainment for $900 million to gain full control of the world’s second-largest record company and artists including Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake.
The music company will be renamed Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and will become part of Sony’s U.S. unit, according to a joint statement today. Guetersloh, Germany-based Bertelsmann will also get another $300 million for its share of the cash on Sony BMG’s books, Tokyo-based Sony said in a separate statement.
Controlling Sony BMG will allow Sony, the world’s second- largest maker of consumer electronics, to use artists’ music in games for the PlayStation video-game console and in ads to promote Cyber-shot cameras and Bravia flat-panel TVs.
Bertelsmann, which created Sony BMG in 2004 to cut costs amid a drop in music sales, is leaving the 50-50 venture as new Chief Executive Officer Hartmut Ostrowski gets out of underperforming businesses to try to revive profit growth.
“This has more to do with Bertelsmann’s current media strategy than it does with the state of the music industry,’’ said Mark Mulligan, a music industry analyst with Jupiter Research in London.
“They have sold at a time when the market is somewhere near its bottom and Sony clearly believes that this record label is going to provide value in the long term.’’