Stones leave longtime record firm

The Rolling Stones, the world’s top-earning music act last year, have signed a long-term, exclusive worldwide contract with Vivendi’s Universal Music, dealing a major blow to the group’s former recording company, EMI Group.

Universal said Friday that the new deal covered both future albums by the Stones and their back catalog, including such albums as “Sticky Fingers” and “Black and Blue” and songs “Brown Sugar” and “Start Me Up.”

Universal, the world’s biggest recording company, did not disclose terms of the deal.

The Stones’ departure from EMI, where they’d been for more than 20 years, is a low point in a bumpy ride for Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd., the private equity firm that bought the London-based recording company last year. New EMI boss Guy Hands failed to re-sign British band Radiohead.