BMG strikes deal to buy Sanctuary Records In December 2012, BMG announced it had agreed in principle to buy from Universal the Mute Records catalogue of recordings from the likes of Depeche Mode, Erasure, Moby and Nick Cave. Bloomberg has reported that Sanctuary was sold for £40m, citing two sources close to the transaction. Earlier this month Vivendi sold music label Parlophone to Warner Music for £487m, topping industry expectations, as part of its asset sales required by the regulator. The European Commission cleared Vivendi's deal to buy EMI last September, but only on the condition Vivendi's Universal Music sell some of its music assets to protect competition in the music industry.