Sony Music Group is on the verge of pulling off the most important artist catalog deal in music historical past.
The corporate has reportedly agreed to amass the catalog of legendary rock band Queen in a landmark deal reportedly value roughly GBP £1 billion (USD $1.27 billion at present change charges).
Sony is known to be shopping for the band’s world music publishing rights, their ‘title and likeness’ rights, plus their recorded music pursuits — together with their recording copyrights exterior of North America, the place their masters are owned by Disney Music Group.
(Sony already administers Queen’s publishing rights, whereas the band’s recorded music is at the moment globally distributed by way of Common Music Group.)
On the finish of Might, Bloomberg reported that Sony was negotiating a take care of Queen and that the key music firm was “working with one other investor” on the transaction.
In response to MBW’s sources, noises are getting louder that stated investor is Apollo International Administration.
It’s at the moment unclear how a lot of the $1 billion+ Queen catalog pricetag Apollo is concerned in, and whether or not its participation within the take care of Sony is predicated on a debt settlement, fairness settlement, or a mix of the 2.
Sony has teamed up with exterior capital for catalog investments earlier than.
The agency’s ~$550 million acquisition of Bruce Springsteen’s publishing and recorded music catalog in 2021 was (on the publishing aspect) part-financed by Eldridge Industries. On a smaller scale, in 2022 Sony co-invested with Area Capital to amass the publishing catalog of hit nation author Ashley Gorley.
Apollo’s mooted involvement in Sony’s Queen catalog deal comes after the funding large lately backed Harmony within the latter firm’s bid to amass the belongings of Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF).
Harmony formally pulled out of the HSF bidding warfare in Might, leaving world funding large Blackstone because the frontrunner within the takeover battle for HSF.
Earlier than that end result, Apollo had dedicated each debt and minority fairness to a bidding entity (Harmony Refrain Ltd) that provided $1.51 billion to amass HSF.
In the meantime, in Might, Sony Music‘s sister firm, Sony Footage, was reportedly in talks to companion with Apollo on a potential $26 billion bid for Paramount. (At the moment, it appears seemingly that Paramount will find yourself merging with Skydance.)
Apollo International Administration has additionally been lively elsewhere within the music rights market in recent times.
In 2022, Apollo International Administration led what it claimed to be the “largest-ever” ABS (asset-backed securities) transaction for Harmony, when the latter firm priced a $1.8 billion bond providing backed by over 1 million music copyrights.
In the meantime, in 2021, former Tempo Music CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares arrange HarbourView Fairness Companions with backing from Apollo. HarbourView has since amassed roughly $1.6 billion in “regulatory managed belongings”.
As of March 31, 2024, Apollo itself – throughout a number of industries – had roughly $671 billion of belongings beneath administration.
Queen’s catalog, together with each publishing and recorded music rights, is collectively and equally owned by the band’s surviving ‘basic’ line-up (Brian Might, Roger Taylor, John Deacon) plus the property of Freddie Mercury.
Disney Music Group (by way of its possession of Hollywood Data) owns Queen’s recorded music rights in North America; the band owns them all over the place else on this planet. (DMG has a world distribution settlement with Common Music Group.)
Hits reported final month that UMG, as Disney’s distributor, will retain distribution rights in North America, though Sony will obtain the royalties.
UMG’s worldwide distribution rights will then switch to Sony in 2026 or 2027, making Sony Music the only distributor and proprietor of all Queen content material globally.
Queen band members Brian Might, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon – plus the Freddie Mercury property – every personal equal shares within the firm Queen Productions Ltd, which owns the group’s recording catalog exterior the US and Canada.
Queen’s members (plus Mercury’s property) additionally personal the worldwide rights to Queen’s music publishing catalog by way of their firm Queen Music Ltd, which is run by Sony Music Publishing.
Queen Productions Ltd posts its annual financials on the UK Corporations Home. The newest, printed final week, reveals the corporate’s fiscal efficiency in FY 2023 (to the tip of September final yr).
The corporate reported GBP £39.47 million in income for the fiscal yr ended September 30, 2023. On the common change price for 2023, that’s equal to USD $49.1 million.
That represents a small YoY income decline of 3.5% from the £40.89 million ($50.41 million) that the corporate reported for the 2022 fiscal yr, in accordance with the monetary report filed with the UK’s Corporations Home.
Of the £39.47 million in revenues for FY 2023, royalties accounted for £36.1 million, down 2.0% YoY from fiscal 2022.Music Enterprise Worldwide
