Private equity group Thomas H. Lee is involved in two of the most-discussed deals in the music industry currently. The group is one of the major buyers attempting to take Clear Channel private, while it also is a large shareholder in Warner Music Group, which is hoping to purchase EMI.

Thomas H. Lee co-president Scott Sperling spoke yesterday at the Reuters Hedge Funds and Private Equity Summit on both deals. Sperling said that the group is not ruling out raising its bid on CC and said that they are "evaluating the situation pretty carefully," noting that he is prepared to lose out in the deal, which has been received with negativity by many CC shareholders.

Clear Channel shareholders will take a vote on the buyout deal next Thursday, April 19. "What we do know is that a majority of the shareholders are going to vote in favor of the deal, it's just hard to tell the exact magnitude," Sperling said. "Every vote is crucial, to be honest. I really have no idea how it will go."

As for WMG and EMI, Sperling said, "We want to be very realistic about what we would be buying and what we could do with the company, [as] the base level of profitability and the growth becomes increasingly problematic," According to Reuters, Thomas H. Lee owns 37.2 percent of WMG, which has been attempting to join forces with EMI for quite some time.

Sperling added that "EMI has announced a series of disappointing results and we don't see it turning around." However, he also noted that he thinks a merger still makes sense. "If you look at the ability to scale a combination of Warner and EMI so that it's roughly equivalent to Sony BMG, what you would have is a company that's able to eliminate some of the duplicative parts, particularly on the physical side's cost structure and that's highly accretive to the shareholders of both companies."