After months of rumors, Katy Perry has sold her music rights to Litmus Music, the Carlyle-backed company co-founded by former Capitol Records president Dan McCarroll, for $225 million, the company announced Monday. The deal includes Perry’s stakes in master recordings and publishing rights for the five albums she released between 2008 and 2020.
Source: Katy Perry Sells Catalog Rights to Litmus Music for $225 Million
Wiedenfels said that the media company had been “hopeful” the strikes would be over by early September. They weren’t — so WBD issued the warning to investors that the strikes would lower its total earnings given that content releases would be “subdued” in Q3 and Q4.
UK-listed Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF) has today (September 14) issued its shareholders a proposal to sell 29 catalogs from its portfolio for USD $440 million to another Hipgnosis fund – the private, Blackstone-backed Hipgnosis Songs Capital (HSC). In an announcement to its investors this morning, Hipgnosis Songs Fund makes no bones about one of its primary motivations for selling the 29 catalogs to HSC: That it will act “as a catalyst for a re-rating of [HSF’s] share price”.
New York-based Round Hill Music LP has acquired Austin-based Rident Royalties, expanding its neighboring rights platform, Sound Hill, with the addition of 1,000 new clients. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed in a press release announcing the acquisition on Wednesday (September 13). Round Hill Music said its acquisition of Rident Royalties brings additional expertise, industry networks, technology and territorial reach to Sound Hill.
Alchemy Copyrights, LLC, trading as Concord, has agreed terms on a deal whereby it will acquire the entirety of Round Hill Music Royalty Fund (RHM) – the UK-listed fund operated by Round Hill Music. The deal values the entire issued and to-be-issued share capital of RHM – which currently trades on the London Stock Exchange – at approximately USD $468.8 million, the two companies said in an announcement today.
Source: Concord set to buy Round Hill’s UK-listed royalty fund in a huge $468.8m deal
The SEC said the NFTs issued by Impact Theory were unlicensed securities. The company agreed to a cease-and-desist order, paid $6.1 million in penalties, and agreed to destroy all of the NFTs in question still in its control. Impact Theory will also eliminate any royalties that it might have received from sales of those NFTs on secondary markets.
Source: SEC takes first action against an NFT project as an unregistered security
Songwriters have been left wondering if, when BMI generates additional revenue in future, it will indeed“pass on higher amounts to its affiliate songwriters” or instead “keep the additional amounts for its own investors.” Nowhere was this concern better articulated than in a letter penned by multiple songwriter rights groups (namely: Black Music Action Coalition, Music Artists Coalition, Songwriters of North America, SAG-AFTRA, and the Artist Rights Alliance) earlier this month.
Source: If BMI is sold, could a cull of its huge songwriter membership be on the cards?
Earlier this year, BNP Paribas Exane analyst William Packer memorably double-downgraded his outlook for Universal Music Group’s stock, with AI being a key reason for the move. Pershing Square, the NYC-headquartered hedge fund management company run by billionaire investor Bill Ackman – and the owner of approximately 10% of UMG – is at the other end of the spectrum.
Following reports that a source close to the situation revealed to Billboard that performing rights organization Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) was in talks to sell itself to private equity firm New Mountain Capital, rumors continue to surface over whether the deal will close. If true, the supposed price tag for the transaction is a whopping $1.7 billion.
Source: The On-Again, Off-Again Sale of BMI — Where Are We Now?