Media analyst Conor O'Shea of London brokerage Teather and Greenwood said BMG publishing would appeal to competitors such as Vivendi and EMI, as well as to Elevation and other private equity "rms. "Private equity loves music publishing because it is a great business. You can gear it up a lot."

Elevation Partners, which specialises in "intellectual property and content-oriented businesses", has recently raised a 1.5bn fund and is on the look-out for new investments.

BMG music publishing has a catalogue of hundreds of thousands of popular titles by artists such as Coldplay, Britney Spears and Robbie Williams, which provides a recurring revenue stream in royalties from radio and licensing arrangements for ads and "lm soundtracks.

Music publishing is a low-cost, high-margin business and the move towards digital distribution, through online services such as Apple's iTunes, has reduced overheads still further. These characteristics make the sector attractive to private equity groups, O'Shea said.

BMG, a private company controlled by the Mohn family in Germany, is selling the publishing business in order to raise funds to buy out Belgian billionaire Albert Frere, who owns a 25% stake in BMG valued at 4.5bn.

Bono is also fronting a new ad campaign (pictured) for the IDA that launched in US editions of The Wall Street Journal last week. The ads, highlighting "The Irish Mind" as the best reason to invest in Ireland, feature Louis de Brocquy's portrait of Bono from the National Gallery and will also run in Fortune, Forbes and