As the value of music companies and copyrights continues to grow, so do the deals being made in the industry – and the involvement in private equity in those transactions.
In monetary terms, the biggest deal of 2024 (so far, anyway) came courtesy of Hellman & Friedman, a PE firm with $120 billion in assets under management.
In September, MBW revealed that H&F had struck a ten-figure agreement to acquire a stake in Irving Azoff’s US-based PRO Global Rights Management (GRM).
Another aspect of the music industry that’s grown rapidly in 2024 is the securitization of music assets. This year saw a number of major asset-backed securitizations from music copyright holders, including Hipgnosis Songs Fund, Concord, and Kobalt.
On the catalog deals side, Sony Music dominated this year, buying all or parts of the catalogs of Queen, Pink Floyd, and Michael Jackson.
Below, you’ll find the 21 biggest music deals of 2024 to hit MBW’s headlines, in order of financial weight.
(Before that, though, a brief couple of notes: (a) This list includes only deals whose value is known, either through official announcements or sold-gold sources. For that reason, it doesn’t include catalog deals like, for example, Litmus Music‘s recent acquisition of Randy Newman‘s share of recorded and publishing rights. (b) We also haven’t included re-financing of traditional/convertible debt offerings by the music industry’s largest companies including Universal, Sony, Warner, and Live Nation.)
Private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, with $120 billion in assets under management, struck a deal in September to acquire a substantial stake in Irving Azoff’s US-headquartered performing rights organization Global Music Rights (GMR).The ten-figure agreement valued GMR at $3.3 billion.
Under the deal, Azoff retained a stake in GMR, but long-time co-owner TPG cashed out. Moelis & Company managed the process.
“Irving Azoff and his team did an amazing deal that’s been years in the making,” a source told MBW. “Hellman & Friedman will now be turning everyone’s heads. And Moelis just landed on the map in music M&A in a major way.”
Shamrock Capital, the investment firm best known for buying the master rights to six Taylor Swift albums from Ithaca Holdings in 2020, announced in November it had raised $1.6 billion across two investment funds.
The Growth VI fund, which raised $1.25 billion, will participate in equity investments of at least $45 million, while Clover I, which raised $320 million, will participate in investments under $45 million.
It might not be accurate to consider the entire $1.6 billion to be a music deal, as Shamrock plans to invest that money in a variety of target sectors, including media, entertainment, content, communication, sports, marketing, and education.
It was one of the most closely-watched dramas in the music biz this year: The bidding war between investment giant Blackstone and Apollo Global Management-backed Concord for control of Hipgnosis Songs Fund.
In the end, the very deep-pocketed Blackstone, with $1 trillion in assets under management, outbid Concord, bringing Hipgnosis’ vast music catalog (including the songs of top earner, Red Hot Chili Peppers) into Blackstone’s portfolio of investments.
The final sale price? An impressive $1.584 billion.
Early this year, a consortium of EQT, TCV, and Believe founder and CEO Denis Ladegaillerielaunched a bid to take Believe private for EUR €1.523 billion (USD $1.64 billion).
The effort took something of a detour when Warner Music Group emerged with an eye to acquiring the France-headquartered digital music company, but after WMG backed out, the way was cleared for the Ladegaillerie consortium to take over.
They did so in June, ultimately capturing 94.99% of the company’s shares for $1.54 billion.
Fresh off its acquisition by Blackstone (see above), Hipgnosis Songs Fund secured $1.47 billion in funding through an asset-backed securities (ABS) transaction.
The ABS deal, referred to as Lyra 24-2, saw investment giant Blackstone issue bonds backed by royalties from the 45,000-song Hipgnosis Songs Fund portfolio it acquired in July.
The borrowed money would be used to “repay existing debt in full and support future acquisitions,” the company said in November.
The sixth-largest deal on this list also involves a performing rights org – this time, New York-headquartered BMI. And it also involves a private equity firm, New Mountain Capital.
New Mountain’s controversial deal to buy BMI was announced in November 2023 but closed in February of this year. Although the value was never officially disclosed, sources at the time reported it to be worth around $1.7 billion. More recently, sources have suggested it was closer to $1.4 billion.
Notably, Alphabet/Google’s “independent growth fund” CapitalG took a passive minority stake in BMI as well.
Investment giant KKR acquired European festival operator Superstruct Entertainment from private equity firm Providence Equity Partners in June for the equivalent of $1.39 billion.
It was later joined by another investment firm, CVC, which took a stake in Superstruct via an investment into KKR.
It was long rumored, but in June it became reality: Sony Music Entertainment acquired the rights – both recorded and publishing – to the music of legendary rock band Queen, for a reported GBP £1 billion (USD $1.27 billion).
It was the largest music catalog deal in history. However, it’s understood that Queen’s recorded music rights in North America remain owned by Disney; Sony has them for the rest of the globe.
According to MBW’s sources, Sony didn’t fund the deal entirely on its own: It was joined byApollo Global Management, though it’s unclear how much of the funds came from Apollo, or whether the investment firm took a stake in the catalog, or lent Sony the money.
9) $1 BILLION: ICONIC ARTISTS GROUP RAISES MONEY FOR MUSIC ACQUISITIONS
It was a busy year for Irving Azoff. Besides the $3.3 billion deal with Hellman & Friedman for a stake in Global Music Rights (GMR), Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group secured a strategic investment from HPS Investment Partners.
HPS is an investment firm with $107 billion in assets under management.
The investment from HPS, along with financing from third parties, gave Iconic Artists Group access to $1 billion in capital, giving the firm some serious dry powder for future rights acquisitions.
Concord Music Group closed an $850 million asset-backed securities (ABS) transaction in October, giving the company “fuel” for “strategic growth and acquisition[s].”
Concord didn’t waste any time with the money borrowed against its catalog of music rights.
Within a few weeks, it emerged that Concord had spent $217.3 million to acquire part of the publishing and recorded music catalog of reggaeton star Daddy Yankee (pictured inset).
An appeals court in California gave the final green light this past August to Sony’s acquisition of half the publishing and recorded masters rights of Michael Jackson.
Sources close to the deal tell MBW that Sony is paying $750 million for those rights, though reports have suggested the initial price is lower, closer to $600 million. The $750 million price-tag implies that MJ’s publishing and recorded catalog is worth $1.5 billion, even more than the $1.27 billion Sony paid for Queen’s catalog. (Although it should be noted that the Queen deal didn’t include the band’s masters in North America, where they’re owned by Disney.)
Following a joint venture with Morgan Stanley, Kobalt announced two transactions that added more than $700 million to its ability to acquire music copyrights in the coming years.
One was a $450 million revolving credit facility from a Truist Securities-led syndicate, the other being Kobalt’s first ever asset-backed securities issuance, worth $266.5 million.
Combined with the capital from the Morgan Stanley JV, Kobalt said it now had more than $1 billion “to continue to grow and execute on… strategic initiatives.”
Elsewhere, in January, SESAC Music Group put pen to paper on a slightly different type of securitization – a whole-business transaction – that was also a nine-figure agreement.
Apollo Global Management – believed to be a co-investor in Sony’s acquisition of Queen’s catalog – confirmed in July that it was the lead investor in a “capital solution” for Sony Music Group.
Apollo said the money is intended to fund “investments in the music industry.”
Apollo has some $671 billion in assets under management, and has been active in the music rights market in recent years.
HarbourView Equity Partners announced in March it had raised $500 million in debt financing through a private securitization backed by its music assets.
The debt financing round was led by investment giant KKR, via its Asset-Based Finance (ABF) platform.
KKR launched the ABF platform in 2016 and now has $48 billion in asset-backed debt under management.
UK-headquartered Cutting Edge Group completed a $500 million debt refinancing in April through a syndicate of four banks led by US-based Fifth Third Bank and Toronto-based private investment firm Northleaf Capital Partners.
Cutting Edge said the funds would be used for a combination of “corporate purposes” and the acquisition of music rights in the film, TV, theater, gaming, and wellness arenas.
Cutting Edge said at the time it had identified a roughly $1.5 billion pipeline of potential investments.
Downtown Music secured this spring an additional $500 million in available credit from the Bank of America, to be used to expand its artist and label services.
The new facility expanded Downtown’s ability to offer advances to indie artists, which range from the tens of thousands of dollars to several million.
Downtown initially established a relationship with BofA in 2022 with a $200 million loan in exchange for “a short-term share of future royalties.”
At the beginning of October, Sony Music completed its third blockbuster catalog acquisition of the year: The recorded music rights of legendary rock band Pink Floyd.
The transaction is understood to have also included neighboring rights and ‘name and likeness’ rights, but not publishing rights (unlike the Michael Jackson and Queen deals). The price of the transaction, say sources, landed at approximately USD $400 million.
For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023, the two companies collecting recorded music royalties for Pink Floyd earned the equivalent of $50 million.
Germany-headquartered live music giant CTS Eventim completed its acquisition of Vivendi’s ticketing and festivals businesses in June.
The transaction, which had a total enterprise value of about EUR €300 million (approx. USD $322.6 million at current exchange rates), was initially agreed upon through a put option agreement signed in April 2024.
Vivendi’s ticketing arm, including the See Tickets brand, generated €105 million ($113 million) in revenue in 2023, with the UK and US markets being their strongest performers. The festival business added another €32 million ($34 million) to the total.
Ticketing platform TickPick made ticket sales history in August, announcing “the largest fundraise in the ticketing industry to date.”
The platform raised $250 million from Brighton Park Capital, an investment firm focused on growth-stage companies.
“TickPick has demonstrated tremendous growth by offering a strong value proposition that both enhances the customer experience and removes one of the biggest pain points for consumers with its no-fee model,” Brighton Park Partner Kevin Magan said.
Cinq Music Group confirmed in February that it had just raised another $250 million from its parent company, GoDigital Media Group, to acquire music rights.
As of that time, Cinq had raised a total of $410 million from its parent company, funds it used to build a catalog of 80,000 assets, which it said achieve “several billion video and audio streams per month.”
The company said it planned to use the additional funds to focus on four “fast-growing” music genres: reggaeton, Musica Mexicana, Afrobeats, and country.
In February, Universal Music Group and Dundee Partners announced that UMG would take a 25.8% stake in Chord Music Partners, the platform established by Dundee and investment giant KKR.
UMG paid $240 million for the stake, valuing Chord at $1.85 billion.
Under the deal’s terms, KKR sold its stake in Chord to Dundee and its investor consortium, giving the consortium a 74.2% stake in Chord.
Universal also got busy with its own balance sheet at the top of this year. The company announced its majority-acquisition of Nigeria’s Mavin Records in February, in a deal believed to be worth over $100 million.
UMG later confirmed that its acquisition of Mavin, plus its minority acquisition of the Complexmedia/entertainment brand, jointly cost approximately $250 million.
UMG’s other deals this year included the acquisition of the remaining 51% of shares from [PIAS] co-founders Kenny Gates and Michel Lambot, for an undisclosed fee.
