New York-headquartered Reservoir Media has raised its financial outlook after recording another quarter of double-digit revenue growth, despite some headwinds to the music rights company’s bottom line. In an earnings release on Tuesday (November 7), Reservoir reported revenue of USD $38.4 million for its fiscal Q2 2024, which corresponds to the third calendar quarter of 2023, ended September 30.
Source: Reservoir Media’s revenues grew 15% YoY to $38.4m in calendar Q3
Naylor and Keeling each bring with them experience from Round Hill Music Royalty Fund Ltd (RHM). Formerly a UK-listed entity like Hipgnosis Songs Fund, RHM was last week officially acquired off the stock exchange by Concord via Alchemy Copyrights, LLC. Until that acquisition, Naylor was non-executive Chairman of RHM over the past year.
Source: Hipgnosis Songs Fund names Rob Naylor as new Chairman, Francis Keeling as non-executive director
A rebound in performing rights and heightened demand for physical product helped the value of global music copyright reach $41.5 billion in 2022, surpassing the $40 billion mark for the first time, according to a report released Monday (Nov. 6). While record labels commanded a majority of the global market, the $5 billion annual increase was “evenly shared” between recorded music and music publishing, noted the report’s author, Will Page.
Source: Global Value of Music Copyright Climbed to $41.5B in 2022
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Kobalt has today (November 1) announced a new partnership with investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Tactical Value to invest more than USD $700 million to acquire music copyrights over the next few years. As part of the venture, Kobalt will manage the creative, synch, licensing, administration, and investment services for the copyrights.
Source: Morgan Stanley is investing more than $700m to buy music copyrights in partnership with Kobalt
Google has agreed to invest up to $2 billion in the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, a spokesperson for the startup said on Friday. Google is already an investor in Anthropic, and the fresh investment would underscore a ramp-up in its efforts to better compete with Microsoft a major backer of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, as Big Tech companies race to infuse AI into their applications.
Source: Google agrees to invest up to $2 billion in OpenAI rival Anthropic
Hipgnosis Songs Fund is facing an uncertain future as some 83.2% of its investors voted Thursday that a new board make major structural changes to the overextended company. Investors also rejected a proposal by its leadership to shore up its finances by selling off around $440 million of its 65,000-song catalog to a sister fund backed by Blackstone.
Source: Hipgnosis Songs Investors Vote Overwhelmingly for Reorganization, Reject $440 Million Catalog Sale
In a note to shareholders today (October 24) , HSF’s board said that “following substantive engagement with a number of parties”, it did not receive a “Superior Offer” as part of the ‘go shop’ process. HSF’s board said in a shareholder update that it had “received feedback through the process [from] a number of the parties assessed that they could not justify paying a higher price” than the $440 million offer from HSC.
Source: Blackstone-backed $440m acquisition offer for Hipgnosis Songs Fund assets sees off rival interest
The headline stat from the company’s filing today (October 24): Spotify’s global Premium Subscriber base grew to 226 million paying users in Q3. That was up 16% YoY, and up by 3% YoY, or 6 million net subscribers, on the220 million that SPOT counted at the end of the prior quarter (Q2 2023). The music streaming company’s 6 million net subscriber additions in Q3 were 2 million ahead of guidance.
Source: Spotify added 6m Premium subscribers in Q3 – and posted a quarterly profit
Ahead of two key investor votes, Hipgnosis Songs Fund has launched a ‘strategic review’ that will look to enhance shareholder value. While investors appeared poised to vote in favor of HSF’s continuation – the Fund has also teed up multiple executive pivots – Hipgnosis stock earlier this week plummeted to a record low following the abrupt cancellation of a previously announced dividend.
Source: Hipgnosis Launches ‘Strategic Review’ Ahead of Investor Meeting