Simply Red and Universal sign deal for activity beyond Europe. (International).

Simplyred.com is plotting the roll-out of its mould-breaking project beyond Europe after inking a licensing deal with Universal Music International.

The self-financed Simply Red album Home, which bypasses the usual route of an artist signing to a record company, fast week hit stores across the continent in a release strategy mainly utilising a network of independent labels used by Ministry of Sound Germany.

The link-up there followed the success Ministry had previously enjoyed through a similarly structured set-up for local artist Xavier Naidoo, which resulted in him selling more than 600,000 copies of his double album in Germany alone.

From there former Warner Music Europe marketing director Rainer Focke, brought in as the Simply Red project's international consultant, and Mick Hucknall's co-manager Ian Grenfell then travelled around Europe last November looking at potential label partners, although they mainly opted for the ones Ministry was already working with.

"The beauty of the concept was that we were able to hand-pick our strategic partners in local territories, always with a view that we wanted to retain our copyrights on this project. What we were doing was giving them the distribution and marketing and it's a short-term agreement but we keep full control," says Focke.

However, attention now is also turning to outside Europe following the striking of a deal with Universal to handle the project in Australasia, Latin America and South East Asia. Universal is also the only major within Europe involved in the project, last week issuing the album ...