Dhe list of renowned artists who have sold packages of rights to their work has grown rapidly in recent months. And it must not be forgotten that by no means all catalog deals are made public. The next big one, however, is now known.
Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford sell their author rights to the Genesis works and their solo releases to the US music company Concord Music. A Concord official confirmed the deal to the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Accordingly, in addition to the author’s rights, there is also “a mix” of income from the marketing of the trio’s recordings in question. This means that in parts Concord apparently only takes over the part due to Collins, Banks or Rutherford. However, the rights to the recordings in question remain with the respective label.
This is where it gets more complicated: the British rock band, founded in 1967 – Collins joined in 1970 – has released 15 albums. Incidentally, the rights and shares due to Peter Gabriel and those of other former band members are explicitly not part of the deal. He left the band in 1975. Phil Collins subsequently took over the vocal part and also recorded eight solo works, Banks six. Rutherford has released two solo albums and nine with the band Mike + the Mechanics. According to Spotify, parts of the rights to the recordings of Collins’ solo works were held by Warner Music, at least until now, under a license agreement. That of Mike + the Mechanics in turn holds the music division of the Bertelsmann group, BMG. It was not initially known how long these deals would continue or whether they had expired.
Current prices should be treated with caution
As is the rule with catalog deals, Concord did not name a price for the catalog takeover. However, the Wall Street Journal reports a sum of more than $300 million, citing people familiar with the agreements. Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, but also David Guetta, Stevie Nicks and Sting, among others, had previously sold rights packages. It was only on Wednesday that the Swedish company Pophouse took over 75 percent of the author’s rights and the recordings from star DJ Avicii. Springsteen’s deal with Sony Music and, in the case of the author’s rights, also with Eldridge Industries is considered to be the largest catalog sale by a single artist to date, at a price of between $500 million and $550 million.
The trio on a farewell tour in Berlin in March.
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Image: dpa
However, such figures should be treated with a certain degree of caution. Different rights packages are often sold, which makes comparisons difficult. In addition, as a rule, nothing is known about any clauses in addition to the actual price. “Sometimes catalogs are sold for a certain price, but the parties may agree on options linked to further growth or other clauses,” said Barry Massarsky, one of the leading evaluators of catalogues, in February in an interview with the FAZ the buyer might change the partner for the administration of the catalog after a fixed period of time “and keep a higher share of the sales volume with a cheaper provider”.
Concord also in the running for Pink Floyd
The low interest rates for a long time and the constant growth of the music industry, fueled by the streaming boom and other digital marketing opportunities, have recently also brought various big names from financial institutions (back) onto the scene. KKR, Blackstone, Blackrock, Apollo Global Management and others have invested in music rights. In view of the rising interest rates and the economically uncertain situation, the price level is likely to have fallen in the meantime. However, the attraction that the constantly flowing income from the primarily digital marketing of music exerts on buyers is still intact. Especially since the music streaming area has so far been comparatively crisis-proof.
Two years ago, in the wake of the recent boom and very high valuations, Concord Music’s majority owner, the Michigan State Pension Fund, began exploring the market to explore a possible sale of the music company. According to the Bloomberg news agency, those responsible ultimately rejected an offer worth more than five billion dollars. Since then, Concord itself has been on the buyer side again. Only in September did the company take over part of the Hitco Entertainment label’s catalogue. Concord had previously bought the author rights of the band Imagine Dragons in August 2020 and later took over a large catalog with author rights to 145,000 works from Downtown Music for around 400 million dollars – including songs recorded by stars such as Adele, David Bowie and Ray Charles . According to industry media, Concord is now also among the parties vying for a coveted rights package from Pink Floyd.
