A busy day for Universal Music yesterday as the company continued its post-EMI reshuffling. The big news in the UK was the launch of Virgin EMI Records, merging Virgin and Mercury Records into a single label. UMG notes that the merger will see Virgin “return to being a full-service record company for the first time since its heyday”. The new label isn’t entirely merged though: it’ll have two A&R and marketing arms: Virgin and EMI, in order to preserve the latter brand (for now, at least). Existing Virgin president Ted Cockle will boss the new label, as Mercury boss Jason Iley departs to launch an “international marketing and management venture”. In separate news elsewhere within UMG, current Universal Music Sweden boss Per Sundin has been promoted to SVP – Nordic Region, and will now oversee Denmark, Finland and Norway alongside Sweden. His “front row seat for the streaming revolution over the last few years” in UMG’s Frank Briegmann’s words remain key to the group’s Scandinavian strategy.
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