Finance

The round saw participation from Australian based institutional investors including Regal, Aware Super, Perennial, Argo and Greencape, as well as a follow-on investment from the founder and CEO of Wisetech Global, Richard White. Now, there’s talk of a potential IPO for Songtradr – perhaps even as early as the second half of this year.

Source: Songtradr raises $50m in series D funding round

PSTH confirmed earlier today (June 20) that it had entered into a definitive agreement with UMG’s majority owner, Vivendi, to acquire 10% of outstanding ordinary shares in UMG for approximately $4 billion. Later this year, after Vivendi completes the previously announced listing of UMG on Euronext Amsterdam, shares representing 10% of the music company will be distributed to PSTH shareholders.

Source: Done deal: Pershing Square SPAC is buying 10% of Universal Music Group for $4bn

The money will be used to “to acquire a substantial pipeline of songs”, said Hipgnosis, including “some of the most influential and successful songs of all time.” The placement opened today, and is expected to close on July 6 – although Hipgnosis reserves the right to close it earlier or later than this date.

Source: Hipgnosis is raising another $210 million via a new share issue on London Stock Exchange

The music catalog acquisition game continues to hot up – with the major music rightsholders getting stuck in. Today (June 17) it’s Warner Music Group‘s turn to make a splash. WMG has confirmed that it has acquired the entire recordings catalog of French DJ/producer superstar David Guetta. A deal for future recordings has also been agreed.

Source: Warner Music spends over $100m to buy David Guetta recordings catalog

The gaming platform is becoming increasingly attractive to artists, who can earn money by cultivating fan tribes that express their loyalty through patronage. Central to Twitch’s popularity among musicians is its economic model, which is quietly revolutionizing the business by providing an alternative to the winner-take-all system of on-demand services like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.

Source: Can Streaming Pay? Musicians Are Pinning Fresh Hopes on Twitch.

Opulous is a DeFi company that gives artists loans by using their future royalties as collateral (which sets it apart from other DeFi companies which typically use cryptocurrency as collateral). These are loans that artists normally can’t get from banks, even when their income is stable and predictable. Opulous lets crypto investors ‘stake’ their assets, which are then used for loans for musicians.

Source: Music is getting its first peer-to-peer decentralized finance platform

In intellectual-property-hungry Hollywood, NFTs have fast become the new frontier, and their popularity has set off a gold rush mentality as studios, producers, and even talent agencies scour for new revenue streams in the wake of COVID-19’s crushing effects. “It’s all upside. It’s found money,” says Chris McGurk, chairman and CEO of Cinedigm Digital Cinema.

Source: NFT Mania Hits Hollywood

Catalogue sales keep dominating the news, but would anyone actually invest directly in a musician or a band? What would the return need to be to get interest for this? And, can we move beyond investing related to future streaming revenues? Perhaps towards tokenized fandoms?

Source: Would you invest in a musician or band? Towards tokenized fandoms

New York City-headquartered Primary Wave and Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management revealed their multimillion-dollar agreement on June 11. The transaction will see Oaktree – which in May of 2020 fronted most of a $260 million loan to Endeavor, per reports – take a minority interest in the 15-year-old publishing company, with a new total of roughly $1.5 billion in capital and holdings under Primary Wave’s management.

Source: Primary Wave Receives $375 Million Investment From Oaktree Capital

For some time, influential voices in the industry have called for the unrecouped balances of heritage artists to be written off by record labels. This would see modern-day royalty earnings of these acts get paid into their pockets, rather than being swallowed by a record label with whom they may have ended dealings decades ago.

Source: In historic move, Sony Music is disregarding unrecouped balances for heritage catalog artists