Trending on Billboard The seed for BMG and Concord’s agreement to merge into a recorded music and publishing giant with the kind of heft that immediately puts it in league with the majors got its start at Thomas Coesfeld and Bob Valentine ‘s first meeting. The duo became CEOs of BMG and Concord, respectively, on the same day — July 1, 2023. Soon after, they met for the first time to discuss their respective approaches to leading their rival but quite complementary independent music businesses. Related “My takeaway from that initial meeting was how similarly we both thought about not just the industry, but how to build a modern music company,” says Valentine, who is slated to lead the combined BMG company if the deal goes through this year as expected, in an interview with Billboard .…