GERMAN MUSIC publisher BMG is eyeing the purchase of UK rivals – although not, for now, EMI – as it tries to make good on its ambition to become a dominant music rights manager alongside Universal or Sony.

Fresh from an eye-catching deal on the other side of the Atlantic, Hartwig Masuch, BMG chief executive, said: “We’ve positioned ourselves in the US and now we want to do the same kind of thing in the UK.”

BMG, owned by Bertelsmann, the German media group and KKR private equity, took a big step in March when it bought Cherry Lane Music Publishing, which represents US artists from Elvis Presley to the Black Eyed Peas.

Mr Masuch said BMG was looking at “something like 50” potential deals. “There could be two or three larger acquisitions in the coming months,” he added.

He ruled out any near-term bid though for debt-laden EMI – at the centre of an ownership tussle between parent Terra Firma and Citibank – as “no one knows” which of the two would be able to decide EMI’s future.

While record labels still battle the effects of declining CD sales, music publishers are doing well as more music is played on electronic gadgets. In its first 18 months, BMG has signed individual artists and bought rights catalogues, expanding a roster of 200 European artists – hand-picked from Bertelsmann’s old music units – to one with about 100,000 song-rights.

Although still a minnow in comparison to music-rights majors – EMI has 1.3 million songs in its catalogue – Mr Masuch made no secret of his ambition to challenge the establishment.

Paul McCartney recently moved his catalogue of post-Beatles work away from EMI.

“We can already see that artists are taking away their catalogues from some of the big companies,” Mr Masuch added. If rights owners did want to switch publishers, they would surely “also start talking” to BMG.