Warner makes yet another move into South East Europe by investing in Croatian label Dancing Bear

Warner Music Group’s expansion into South East Europe has been fast and furious enough to warrant a pun.

At the beginning of this year, Warner Music South East Europe (WM LOOK) presented Balkan Electro, an EDM label focusing on Balkan and Ukrainian artists. A month earlier, it had acquired a small stake in an indie label based in Slovenia GIVE.

That followed WM SEE’s 2022 investment in the Serbian label Mascom Records.

(The company also worked in other parts of Eastern Europe, for example by acquiring part of the Hungarian label. The Magnetotonand participated in a Czech hip hop label Mike Roftboth in 2023.)

Now the company has taken another step in establishing a presence in the Balkans with the acquisition of a minority stake in a Croatian indie music company. The Dancing Bear.

Under the deal, Dancing Bear artists will be able to sign to Warner’s international label, and use services from ADA WorldwideWarner’s global distribution arm.

The deal also includes an expansion of the licensing agreement between Warner and Dancing Bear, which includes Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and North Macedonia.

Dancing Bear has been Warner’s licensee in Croatia since 1996, along with its publishing arm, Dancing Bear Publishingi am Music by Warner Chappell‘s local representative.

Founded in 1990, Dancing Bear is “one of the longest-running and leading record companies in Croatia,” Warner said in a statement released on Friday (June 21).

The company also has a network of record stores and an online store, where it promotes the sale of portable music formats such as vinyl and CDs.

Dancing Bear has signed prominent artists in the region, including Dalmatian, Dino Dvornik, Daleka Obala, Darko Rundek, Hladno Pivo, Kojoti, Kawasaki 3P, Zdenka Kovačiček, Goribor, Vlado Kalember & Srebrna Krila, Alen Vitacasović, , Majke, Gustafi, The Bambi Molesters, and Baba Yaga.

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“Many of these artists’ releases are considered the most important and iconic records in Croatian and regional music history, and their success has helped shape the industry’s growth there over the past four decades,” Warner said.

Some of these artists, such as The Bambi Molesters and The Strange, as well as newcomers Bruno Pietri and Pete Spruce, have built a following outside the Balkans, but Dancing Bear’s biggest act is the pop duo Dalmatino , an act based in Split, Croatia. it regularly surpasses the top international artists in its country, and has accumulated more than that 250 million streams.

“This investment by Warner Music is a vote of confidence in the future of music from the Western Balkans,” it said Silvie Varga, Founder and Managing Director of Dancing Bear. “We look forward to working together to take music from our existing catalog to the world, and discover the next generation of local talent.”

“I am very pleased that we are extending our agreement with Dancing Bear, which has an incredible reputation in the field of participation in the industry. We are already working on joint releases in the EDM space and plan to expand our collaboration in the coming months,” he added Izabela Ciszek-PodziemskaGeneral Manager of WM SEE.

Compared to Western Europe, the music market in the Western Balkans is small, but offers significant opportunities for growth.

Croatia’s GDP grew by 3.9% YOY in the first half of 2024, one of the fastest growth rates in the European Union. Household consumption grew by 6% at that time, and the world saw it 14% salary growth in the past year.Music Business Worldwide