Imagem Music Group Acquires Rodgers & Hammerstein

Imagem Music Group Acquires Rodgers & Hammerstein

Imagem Music Group, which acquired the music publisher Boosey and Hawkes in April 2008, has just signed an agreement to acquire the rights to the songs and musicals of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, as well as The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization (RHO); RHO represents a total of 12,000 songs, 900 concert works, 200 writers, and 100 musicals including the oeuvre of Irving Berlin and Adam Guettel.

Written By

NewMusicBox Staff

Imagem Music Group, which acquired the music publisher Boosey and Hawkes in April 2008, has just signed an agreement to acquire the rights to the songs and musicals of Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) and Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960) as well as The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization (RHO). RHO also represents many other works—in all 12,000 songs, 900 concert works, 200 writers and 100 musicals—including Rodgers’s earlier musical works created in collaboration with lyricist Lorenz Hart, plus the oeuvre of Irving Berlin (1888-1989), Ricky Ian Gordon, Stephen Schwartz, and Adam Guettel (who has appeared as a Cover of NewMusicBox), among others. RHO will retain its existing management team, led by President and Executive Director Theodore S. Chapin; in addition, Mary Rodgers Guettel and Alice Hammerstein Mathias—daughters of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and the now former owners of RHO—will continue to serve as consultants. Discussions are also underway for RHO to continue to act as the North American representative for Really Useful Group which administers the rights for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals.

Imagem Music Group is the music publishing investment fund of the Netherlands-based Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds (ABP, the world’s third largest pension fund) and the European media company CP Masters BV. In addition to Boosey and Hawkes, and now RHO, Imagem also controls the rights to various pop music catalogs from Universal Music Group—such as Zomba UK, Rondor UK, and 19 Music—as well as the majority of the BBC music catalog. With this latest acquisition, Imagem Music Group now generates annualized revenues of more than 100 million euros and holds the rights to more than 200,000 pieces of music. (—From the press release)