SAbba have been back on stage since the end of May. However, as is well known, as digital images that “perform” in a specially built “Abba Arena” in London. Pophouse Entertainment is largely responsible for the complex project. A Swedish company founded by Abba member Björn Ulvaeus and Conni Jonsson – founder of private equity firm EQT.
Pophouse has also been behind the Abba Museum since 2019, under the direction of manager Per Sundin, who was formerly responsible for Universal Music’s Swedish business. A Pippi Longstocking musical also premiered in July. But the company is also active in a completely different field. At the end of March, Pophouse took over the rights to the recordings and the author’s rights from the electronic group Swedish House Mafia. Part of the deal was a joint venture to jointly market the brand in the future. As with most catalog deals, no financial details were disclosed. The same applies to the company’s most recent acquisition.
Avicii’s parents keep 25 percent
Pophouse announced on Wednesday that it would acquire 75 percent of the rights to the recordings and 75 percent of the author rights from Avicii. The star DJ and music producer, real name Tim Bergling, was found dead in 2018 at the age of 28. Here, too, further marketing is to be carried out via a joint venture.
Klas Bergling and Anki Lidén, the artist’s parents, said the sale would secure long-term funding for the Tim Bergling Foundation, established in 2019, on whose work they wanted to focus. The foundation focuses on supporting the mental health of young people and educating them about mental illness. Pophouse had previously built an interactive Avicii museum in collaboration with the family. It was also Per Sundin who signed Bergling to Universal Music in 2010.
In recent months, numerous artists from Bruce Springsteen, Shakira, Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks to David Guetta, Neil Diamond, Tina Turner and various other artists have sold their rights to their work. At the end of last year, Springsteen assigned the rights to its recordings to Sony Music, while the rights to the underlying texts and compositions went to Sony’s publishing division and the US holding company Eldridge Industries. The sale is considered the largest catalog deal by a single artist. In industry media there was talk of a price in the amount of 500 to 550 million dollars. Pink Floyd has also been negotiating a possible sale of a rights package for a few months.
The growth of the music industry, which was primarily fueled by streaming, and the prospect of ever new marketing opportunities have also drawn the attention of financial giants such as KKR, Blackstone and Apollo Global Management (again) to the field, which drove up prices. The rising interest rates should tend to lower them, but the basic attraction of popular music catalogs remains.
There had also been sales by heirs in the recent past. In early 2022, for example, Warner Music acquired the author’s rights from David Bowie, while the investment company Hipgnosis secured shares in lyrics and compositions by Leonard Cohen through a fund financed by Blackstone.
