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Private company

EMP Merchandising

Logo: E.M.P Merchandising, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons4

German company

EMP Merchandising, also known as Large Popmerchandising (in the Netherlands and Belgium), is a German-based music mail order and merchandising store. The abbreviation EMP stands for Exclusive Merchandise Products. The company distributes a quarterly catalog to customers.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1986Founded1
  • Industryretail1
  • HeadquartersLingen1
  • Websitewww.emp-online.com
  • Legal formGesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung1
  • LEI39120001TNOQJEPQNS073
  • StatusActive3
  • LEI statusIssued and current3
  • Registered addressDarmer Esch 70a, 49811 Lingen, Germany3
  • Registered withLocal Court Osnabrück, HRB 1002993

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EMP Merchandising, also known as Large Popmerchandising (in the Netherlands and Belgium), is a German-based music mail order and merchandising store. The abbreviation EMP stands for Exclusive Merchandise Products. The company distributes a quarterly catalog to customers. In a 2003 report, the Osnabrück Chamber of Commerce considered the company to be the largest mail order business for hard rock and heavy metal music in Germany. In September 2018, Warner Music Group acquired EMP from Sycamore Partners.2

The story

EMP was founded in 1986 by Felix Lethmate. The business started in an apartment in Lingen in Emsland and developed in a short time into a company that employed more than 500 people across Europe in December 2016.

Distributed are sound carriers and merchandising items (fan shirts, banners, etc.) of metal and rock bands, music videos and recordings of live performances, movies of all genres, gaming, fun slogan shirts and other clothing items and accessories. A separate category for hip hop recordings was discontinued after the hip-hop mail order company MZEE.com was taken over, which was temporarily a subsidiary of EMP Merchandising HGmbH. Today, the company distributes its merchandise throughout Europe.

From Wikipedia’s article on EMP Merchandising, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5

Products and brands

On 31 January 2014, a store opened in Vienna, other stores are located in Wietmarschen (EMP Outlet Store A31), Essen, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Dortmund and Lingen.

In July 2015, the company, previously owned by its founders, was sold to the U.S.-based private equity company Sycamore Partners, also the owner of Belk Inc., among others. In September 2018, Warner Music Group acquired the company at a company valuation of 155 million euros.

From Wikipedia’s article on EMP Merchandising, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5

Timeline

  1. 1986Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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