MBW Reacts is an ongoing collection of remark items from the Music Enterprise Worldwide group. They’re our analytical (and generally opinionated) reactions to main current leisure information tales.
“Music property are successful when rates of interest are low, however will traders change their tune because the Fed introduces hikes?”
It was a query requested by the Wall Avenue Journal in March 2022, and it was forward of its time.
The Fed ended up elevating rates of interest on no fewer than seven events in 2022. The music M&A market, inevitably, felt the ripple impact.
Debt clearly turned costlier, as query marks hovered over whether or not traders attracted by music money flows had entry to the ‘value of capital’ required to be aggressive within the new market.
On the vendor aspect, artists and songwriters needed to contemplate whether or not they’d settle for decrease multiples than they may have within the heady days of 2021.
By October final yr, following a summer season cooldown in big-money M&A offers, Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks associate, Joe Brenner, concluded: “I don’t assume the present market is what it was.”
Summing up the panorama in a Billboard interview, Brenner added: “Multiples have contracted some, and I don’t assume the urge for food is similar — which means the feeding frenzy for purchasing these property that existed final yr.”
Brenner was beforehand concerned in large nine-figure offers for catalogs from artists corresponding to Bruce Springsteen, Sting, and David Bowie, all of which closed in late 2021 or Q1 2022.
And it was particularly offers above $50 million and into these nine-figure sums ($100m+) that appeared to decelerate in Q2 and Q3 final yr, following a 2021 M&A market that noticed greater than USD $5 billion spent on music rights.
As Denise Colletta of Metropolis Nationwide Financial institution informed Selectionin December final yr, when requested a few cooldown within the music rights M&A market: “As an alternative of the $400 million or the $200 million deal, there are plenty of $20 million and $50 million offers nonetheless taking place.”
One deal that undoubtedly wasn’t taking place, and whose failure summed up the late-2022 stoop in music M&A: Pink Floyd’s catalog sale.
Rumors rumbled for many of final summer season that the legendary British band was trying to promote their grasp rights and different rights (neighboring rights, title & likeness) in a GBP £400 million-plus deal. However, in the long run, nothing occurred.
Merck Mercuriadis, founding father of Hipgnosis Track Administration, successfully declared the Pink Floyd bidding course of over in a Q&A along with his traders in December, noting: “It’s no secret to anybody that the Pink Floyd [recorded music] catalog was on the market not too way back, and in the long run that catalog received’t commerce [at least, at the expected level].”
The previous 4 months, although, have introduced a noticeably extra thrilling local weather for music’s M&A market – because the actually huge cash begins shifting once more.
A sudden flurry of acquisitive exercise suggests confidence could also be swarming again in the direction of the capitalization of music rights on Wall Avenue.
Exhibit A: Hipgnosis is spending huge once more
There’s maybe no higher barometer of final yr’s cooldown in nine-figure offers than an organization many have come to look at because the talisman for the fortunes of the fashionable period’s catalog rights enterprise: Hipgnosis.
With this billion-dollar pot of capital to play with, HSM started final yr in a rush, asserting the acquisition of two rights portfolios – linked toKenny Chesney and Leonard Cohen – in Q1 2022 alone.
In whole, Hipgnosis Track Administration introduced three main offers final yr utilizing Blackstone’s cash: the third, a $100+ million deal to purchase Justin Timberlake’s track rights, arrived in Might 2022.
Worryingly for the broader music M&A market, issues then went quiet at HSM. In truth, within the latter seven months of 2022, HSM did not announce a single acquisition – not to mention one within the nine-figure realm.
Trade speculators recommended to MBW behind the scenes that Hipgnosis was discovering market situations (significantly associated to ‘value of capital’ calculations) too robust to efficiently deploy its $1 billion of Blackstone funding.
That tide, although, now seems to be turning.
In January 2023, Hipgnosis Track Administration – utilizing these Blackstone funds – introduced the acquisition of Justin Bieber’s track portfolio, in addition to the pop star’s earnings stream from his recorded music (owned by Common).
That deal, in response to sources, was valued at round $200 million. Considerably, it marked HSM’s first nine-figure deal since H1 2022.
After an arid second half of 2022, the Bieber deal appeared to open the floodgates for Merck Mercuriadis’s firm. Inside per week, HSM had additionally introduced the acquisition of a track catalog from British hitmakers TMS, an acquisition thought to sit down within the eight-figures.
And earlier this month, only a fortnight after its Bieber deal, HSM introduced its acquisition of the complete track catalog of Tobias Jesso Jr. – who’d simply been topped Songwriter of The 12 months on the Grammys.
(MBW additionally believes that Hipgnosis has, with out making official bulletins, acquired different catalogs from acts corresponding toNile Rodgers and Nelly Furtado in current months.)
MBW can’t be 100% positive on the worth of the Jesso Jr deal, however sources near the personal Hipgnosis fund inform us with certainty that HSM has now deployed roughly $700 million of Blackstone’s cash.
Contemplating that, after the closing of the Justin Bieber deal in January, that lifetime spend determine was at roughly $600 million, in response to our sources, it’s an affordable wager that HSM simply closed two offers cumulatively price within the area of $100 million… in two weeks.
One well-placed supply near the personal Hipgnosis fund informed us this week: “Hipgnosis isn’t stopping there. It’s very close to to a take care of a rock legend based mostly in Los Angeles – a number of tons of of tens of millions of {dollars}, in all probability introduced in April. And there’s extra to come back after that too.”
If these “a number of tons of of tens of millions of {dollars}” in that “rock legend” deal high $300 million, it’s going to imply that HSM may have, by MBW’s calculations, exhausted the preliminary billion {dollars} of Blackstone’s personal Hipgnosis fund.
There would look like no lack of additional dedication from Blackstone; when Hipgnosis introduced its billion-dollar fund in late 2021, sources recommended that Blackstone was doubtless ready to deploy a number of billions extra within the years forward.
Exhibit B: The King Of Pop – and the remainder of the nine-figure set
In truth, 2023 is wanting so bullish, M&A-wise, that its greatest artist catalog acquisition could show to be the greatest of all time.
Through the news-blitz of Grammy Week 2023, Selection reported one thing of colossal significance: The Michael Jackson property is seemingly “nearing” the sale of half of its pursuits within the King Of Pop’s music catalog.
The front-running suitor, stated the report, is Sony Music Group, which is teaming up with an as-yet-unknown monetary associate* to discover the acquisition of the rights, which embrace the property’s pursuits in Jackson’s publishing and recorded-music revenues.
The mooted worth of the Michael Jackson deal? $800 million to $900 million.
(*Sony has type doing this; it beforehand teamed with Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Industries to fund a $500 million+ acquisition of Bruce Springsteen’s mixed publishing and recorded music rights. Eldridge added funding to assist bankroll the publishing a part of the acquisition.)
The potential Jackson sale isn’t the one nine-figure pricetag bouncing round music’s M&A market within the wake of the $200 million Hipgnosis Bieber deal.
For one factor, Dr Dre has this yr reached a $200 million-plus deal, reported in January, to promote a bundle of music earnings streams and another catalog property to a mix of Common Music Group and Shamrock Holdings.
As well as, Scooter Braun – recent from serving to promote Justin Bieber’s songs to Hipgnosis for $200 million – simply introduced the ≈$300 millionacquisition of hip-hop label High quality Management by home-of-BTS, HYBE.
(Braun, pictured inset, is CEO of HYBE America, following the $1 billion acquisition of his Ithaca Holdings by HYBE in 2021.)
And in the case of ‘main’ music corporations presently burning by means of acquisition capital – spanning each catalog acquisitions and company mergers – HYBE is unquestionably one to look at.
Including to its High quality Management acquisition, the Korean agency additionally lately splashed round USD $330 million on a 14.8% stake in its Ok-Pop rival, SM Leisure.
In response to an investor observe despatched to shareholders, HYBE now needs to up its spend to ≈$900 million as a way to safe a 40% stake in SM Leisure… a lot to the annoyance of SM’s current administration group.
Exhibit C: Major Wave, and its $1bn+ freedom funds
Amongst the doom and gloom of the “catalog slowdown” naysayers in 2022, one occasion actually caught out as operating counter to the narrative.
Major Waveintroduced in October a brand new $2 billion take care of Brookfield Capital.
As MBW defined on the time, as soon as varied inner fiscal to-ing and fro-ing had been accounted for, this settlement left Major Wave with north of $1 billion in unspent, extra capital to play with within the market.
Larry Mestel, CEO and founding father of Major Wave, informed us on the time that his firm had $600 million in agreed-but-not-yet-closed offers out out there, having already spent $300 million within the first three quarters of 2022.
“We’ve truly by no means been busier,” stated Mestel of Major Wave’s M&A exercise, considerably flying within the face of the Fed-related doom and gloom. “We’ve got an unlimited quantity of deal move within the pipeline.”
4 months on, we’ve got a greater concept what Major Wave’s deal move right now regarded like.
Extra lately, there was Major Wave’s “monumental acquisition” – introduced in January – of a catalog containing rights created by Robby Krieger and the late Ray Manzarek of legendary US rock band, The Doorways.
Trade rumor-mongers say this was a ≈$70 million acquisition, including extra proof to the concept 2023 is already seeing extra large-scale ($50m+) catalog buyouts than we noticed in the entire of H2 2022.
(The sparse however notable exceptions to H2 2022’s big-money catalog offers slowdown included Harmony‘s ≈$300 millionacquisition of a catalog related to Genesis.)
Credit score: QuiteSimplyStock/Shutterstock
Exhibit D: Different traders filling their cabinets with money
For an extra indication that 2023’s catalog acquisitions market is warming again up, you solely have to have a look at who’s elevating what.
Shamrock, who have been concerned within the aforementioned Dr Dre deal and have beforehand purchased artist/author catalogs masking the likes of Taylor Swift and Stargate, lately introduced a brand new fairness fund – partly focused at shopping for music rights – with greater than $600 million in commitments.
And over in Korea, Ok-pop and media large Kakao Leisurelately secured an funding price round $1 billion from sovereign wealth funds, a part of which it plans to make use of to develop its music operation through acquisition. (Kakao, like HYBE, has this month introduced that it’s acquired a minority stake in SM Leisure.)
In the meantime, the CEO of New York-based Reservoir, Golnar Khosrowshahi, confirmed on her firm’s quarterly earnings name earlier this month that: “Our pipeline is strong at practically $2.3 billion in whole worth for potential offers.”
Reservoir, which has acquired catalogs created by the likes of Dion and Leroy Clampitt in current weeks, has usually acquired catalogs within the sub-$50 million vary – explaining why Khosrowshahi final yr stated the macro-cooldown in music M&A offers hadn’t vastly affected her firm.
Nonetheless, because it confirmed when it purchased Tommy Boy Information for $100 million in 2021, Reservoir has the ambition and monetary firepower to enter the world of nine-figure offers when the time calls.
With Sony doubtlessly targeted on the Michael Jackson deal, what would possibly the opposite main music corporations swoop for within the months forward?
This portfolio of property contains the soundtracks to a raft of traditional motion pictures and TV exhibits, from the Batman movies to Fame and Singin’ In The Rain.
Our sources inform us that highly effective music trade lawyer, Allen Grubman, is operating level on this sale, and discussions have already begun throughout Main Music Firm Land.
The vendor is doubtlessly searching for a 20-times a number of on NPS for the library, we’re informed – which, if reached, would put its worth comfortably above USD $1 billion (aka: a ten-figure deal).
Whispers counsel that Anthem’s majority-owner, Ontario Lecturers, is now contemplating a piecemeal sale of the corporate’s property, which span verticals together with Movie & TV music, Manufacturing music, and Music Publishing.
Whether or not Anthem’s bought in bits, or in a single go, anticipate a number of nine-figure agreements to be reached sooner or later sooner or later.
The conclusion of all of this exercise?
After the curiosity rate-driven ‘huge freeze’ of massive-money music rights acquisition tales, rhythm appears to be choosing again up on the market.
That rhythm will flip from a canter right into a gallop if that Michael Jackson sale is pulled off at wherever close to $900 million.
That might be round double the scale of the Bruce Springsteen rights sale to Sony in 2021 – at $500m-plus, presently the all-time greatest single-catalog music acquisition.Music Enterprise Worldwide
