May 30, 2007

By By Susan Butler, N.Y.

Crossroads Media and Bug Music have acquired music publisher Windswept Holdings, Billboard.biz has learned.

Tokyo-based Fujipacific Music and Fuji Television Network each held a 50% share in the U.S.-based Windswept Holdings. The publisher was formed in 1999 with rights in more than 150,000 compositions after the sale of the Windswept Pacific catalog to EMI Music Publishing. Details of the acquisition are not available.

Crossroads is a private equity firm headed by former Viacom COO Tom McGrath. Last year, Crossroads and Spectrum Equity Investors acquired a controlling interest in Bug. John Rudolph, who helped orchestrate that deal, became CEO of Bug and acquired an equity stake in the publisher.

The new deal brings Rudolph full circle with Windswept. Rudolph, former CFO of Windswept Pacific, helped engineer the sale of that publisher to EMI.

Windswept Holdings has landed in Billboard's Top 10 Publisher Airplay Chart, which measures publishers' quarterly U.S. market share based on radio airplay, every quarter since the chart was launched in 2006.

Subscribe to Billboard magazine today!