Follow the Money! Big Capital in the Music Rights Market – Part 1: A Short History

Two years ago, I wrote a blog series called ‘Music as an Investment’, in which I analysed the boom in music rights sales. In it, I highlighted the role of the newly emerging music IPR companies such as BMG Rights Management, Primary Wave, Round Hill Music, Hipgnosis and Reservoir Media Management. They have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in acquiring music catalogues as a new asset class and as objects of speculation. But who is behind these mega investments, and who benefits from the cash flow generated by the music catalogues? To answer this question, we should follow the money, as the informant known as Deep Throat advised the two Washington Post investigative journalists, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, in the Watergate affair.

By following the money, we can identify the largest companies in the financial and investment industry, including BlackRock, Blackstone, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), The Carlyle Group, Brookfield Asset Management and Apollo Global Management, among others. The aim of this blog series is to present the brief history of big capital in the music rights market and shed light on the background to the billion-dollar investments.

Follow the Money! Big Capital in the Music Rights Market –   Part 1: A Short History*

The Prelude (2009-2018)

In April 2009, Pegasus Capital Advisors provided US $50 million for the Spirit Music Group to buy music catalogues. It was the first time that a private equity company entered the music rights market. Since its foundation in 1995, Spirit Music had acquired a catalogue of 10,000 songs featuring the complete works of reggae superstar Bob Marley, as well as music by Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson and punk legend Lou Reed. It also bought the publishing catalogues of the legendary independent labels Cameo Parkway (Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, The Orlons), Laurie Records (Dion & The Belmonts, The Chiffons) and Brunswick Records (Jackie Wilson, The Chi-Lites). The financial support enabled the purchase of further music catalogues, including the publishing catalogue of The Who co-founder Pete Townshend. In September 2014, Spirit Music received its next capital injection of US $50 million from Fortress Credit Corp. to continue its expansion.

However, the big game changer was, when, in September 2009, the EU competition authority approved a joint venture between Bertelsmann AG and the US investment company Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR), which led to the creation of BMG Rights Management. BMG contributed its music catalogue to the new company and KKR provided a total of EUR 250 million for the acquisition of publishing catalogues in return for a 51 per cent share in the joint venture. This time a large private equity company, with billions of dollars under management, entered the music rights market with a significant investment. It took further seven years, when another investment giant, BlackRock provided US $300 million to establish Primary Wave’s first IP fund in September 2016.

2019 – The Year the Music Rights Sales Boom Took Off

However, the music rights’ sales boom took off in 2019, when Lyric Capital Group recapitalised Spirit Music Group with US$ 350 million and continue operating it as a portfolio company. Lyric Capital was founded by Jon Singer and Ross Cameron. Jon Singer had spent 15 years at Decca Label Group as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Universal Music, joined Spirit Music Group in September 2011. In 2016, he was appointed Chief Operating Officer (COO) and reorganised the music publishing company. Cameron joined Spirit Music Group in 2012 after leaving Pegasus Capital Advisors, where he was a financial analyst.

In April 2019, Michigan Retirement Systems acquired a 93 per cent stake in the Concord Bicycle Music for $1.1 billion. This is notable because institutional investors such as pension funds do not usually invest directly in individual companies, but rather in investment funds of large investment groups. However, the Michigan Retirement Systems had already dipped its toes in the music industry, contributing a smaller US $25 million stake to Wood Creek Capital Management’s investment consortium in 2010. With the backing of the Michigan pension fund, Concord was able to take part in the music rights buying boom. That same year, Concord bought Victory Records and its publishing catalogue as well as the German Sikorski Musikverlag, which has a large classical music catalogue with works by Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina and Giya Kancheli. In late 2019, Warner Music Group, together with private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, formed Tempo Music Investments, which was given US $650 million in equity and debt to buy up publishing and master catalogues.

2020 – Shamrock Buys Taylor Swift’s First Six Studio Albums

While US $2.2 billion was spent by large investment firms on buying music rights catalogues in 2019, the only relevant investment in 2020 was US $405 million by private equity firm Shamrock Capital Advisors to buy Taylor Swift’s first six studio albums. Shamrock bought the Taylor Swift masters from Scooter Braun’s Ithaka Holdings, which have acquired Swift’s initial record label Machine Records from its founder, Scott Borchetta, in June 2019 for US $300 million. The sale of the Big Machine Label Group was financed by the Carlyle Group. This is a US private equity firm that had already invested in Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in 2017 and that financially secured the transaction with its Carlyle Partners VI investment fund. The deal also included Scott Borchetta joining the board of directors of Ithaca Holdings, while continuing to manage the Big Machine Label Group.

Taylor Swift was very critical on the sale, not only because of a controversy with Scooter Braun, but also because she was upset that her artistic achievements were being sold like a commodity to the highest bidder. She provided the following criticism during her acceptance speech for the “Woman of the Decade Award” at Billboard’s “Women in Music Awards” in Hollywood on 12 December 2019: “Lately there’s been a new shift that has affected me personally and that I feel is a potentially harmful force in our industry, and as your resident loud person, I feel the need to bring it up. And that is the unregulated world of private equity coming in and buying up our music as if it is real estate. As if it’s an app or a shoe line. This just happened to me without my approval, consultation, or consent. After I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalogue was sold to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I’m told was funded by the Soros Family, 23 Capital, and the Carlyle Group. Yet to this day none of these investors have ever bothered to contact me or my team directly to perform their due diligence on their investment. On their investment in me. To ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art. The music I wrote. The videos I created. Photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs”.

Shamrock offered Taylor Swift a collaboration in monetizing her master recordings, but the superstar denied. Instead, she announced in an interview with Billboard Magazine in December 2019 the re-recording of all six studio albums in new versions to cannibalize the revenue streams form her initial recordings. It was Taylor Swift herself who brought the odyssey of her first six studio albums to an end. On 30 May 2025, she informed her fans in a handwritten letter that she had bought back all the master recordings from Shamrock Capital. She explained that her motives were more emotional than financial: “This was a business deal for them [Shamrock Capital], but I really felt like they saw it for what it was to me: My memories and my sweat and my handwriting and my decades of dreams. I am endlessly thankful.”

However, the artist has remained silent about the purchase price. The media is speculating that Taylor Swift had to spend a considerable amount of money to regain control of the master rights. According to estimates by the celebrity gossip magazine Page Six, she paid at least US $600 million. Despite this happy end, the sale of the Taylor Swift recordings also highlights the negative aspects of the music rights’ sales boom, especially if the music is sold without the consent of the creators.

2021 and 2022 – A New Record High of Music Rights Investments

Nevertheless, the sales boom reached a new high in 2021, when big investment companies provided US $3,6 billion to buy music catalogues. In January 2021, KKR bought the entire song catalogue of OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder for a reported US $200 million. In March 2021 KKR again partnered with BMG to jointly buy music rights. According to media reports, the agreement commits Bertelsmann AG and KKR to provide US $500 million for acquisitions each. In the future, both contracting parties will equally participate in half of the acquired rights.

In June 2021, Oaktree Capital Management provided US $375 million for Primary Wave’s IP Fund 3 and took a minority stake in Primary Wave in return. In October 2021 alone, US $2.5 billion were invested in the music rights management market. Apollo Global Management provided US $1 billion to HarbourView Equity Partners to acquire master and publishing rights.Private equity giant Blackstone invested US $1 billion in the afore already mentioned Hipgnosis Songs Capital fund and Canadian private equity giant Northleaf Capital Partners, along with the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), provided US $500 million for Spirit Music Group, owned by the Lyric Capital Group, to buy music rights.

In 2022, the financial conglomerates invested with US $3,8 billion even more money in the music rights market than in the year before. Blantyre Capital provided US $125 million for Cutting Edge, which have a focus in acquiring music publishing rights from composers working for film and TV productions. BlackRock’s music rights investment vehicle, Influence Media Partners, partnered with Warner Music Group in February 2022 to establish an investment fund in the amount of US $750 million. Private equity giant, Carlyle Group, which helped to finance the take-over of Big Machine Records by Scooter Braun’s Ithaka Holdings, contributed US $500 million through its subsidiary Carlyle Global Credit US to the creation of Litmus Music in August 2022. The funding includes both loans and equity, with the aim of Litmus acquiring both publishing and master rights. In September 2022, an investment consortium led by private equity firm Francisco Partners acquired a 90 per cent stake in Kobalt Music Group, which consisted of Kobalt Music Publishing and AMRA, for US $750 million. Kobalt, an alternative music publisher based in Sweden, had sold its label services division AWAL and Kobalt Neighbouring Rights to Sony Music for $430 million in the year before. The largest investment in 2022, however, made Brookfield Asset Management in October, when it provided US $1,7 billion to the Primary Wave IP 4 fund and acquired a minority share in the company.

2023 to 2025: Market Consolidation Ahead of the Investment Rush

In 2023, the music rights’ investment boom cooled down and only three significant investments were made public. In February 2023, Cutting Edge Media Music (CEMM) was formed with US $100 million from Nashville-based private equity firm Pinnacle Financial Partners US to acquire additional music rights, the Morgan Stanley Tactical Value PE fund invested US $700 million in the Kobalt Music Group for music copyright acquisitions in November 2023 and at the same time New Mountain Capital bought the US collecting society Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) for US $1,3 billion. For the first time in the history of the music industry, a not-for-profit organisation has been bought by a financial investor with US $100 million of the sale’s proceeds being turned over to the beneficiaries. Broadcasters, who founded BMI in 1935 to compete with ASCAP, will also receive generous payments. It is also worth noting that the independent growth fund CapitalG will acquire a minority stake in BMI. CapitalG is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, which also owns Google and YouTube. This means that two of the most important users of rights will have an indirect stake in a music exploitation company.

In 2024, the investment companies increased their financing activities in the music rights market again. Blackstone Group took the Hipgnosis Songs Fund private in May 2024 and paid US $1,57 billion to the shareholders. In February 2024, the Iconic Artists Group, which was founded by the music industry veteran, Irving Azoff, secured a US $1 billion investment from HPS Investment Partners to buy the music catalogue of Rod Stewart for US $100 million as well as other music rights assets. Later in the year, in September 2024, Irving Azoff could convince private equity firm Hellman & Friedman to acquire a substantial stake in his performing rights organization Global Music Right (GMR) for US $3.3 billion. In June 2024, Sony Music bought the catalogue of legendary rock band Queen in a landmark deal worth US $1.27 billion with Apollo Global Management as a co-investor, which contributed US $700 million to the deal. This adds up to a new record high of US $6.6 billion of music asset financing by the large investment corporations. The number is even higher if we consider the set-up of two investment funds – Growth IV and Clover I – in totalling US $1.6 billion in November 2024 by Shamrock Capital, which plans to invest in media, entertainment, content, communication, sports, marketing, education, and music.

The latest billion-dollar music IP rights acquisition followed in February 2025, when Cutting Edge Music entered a joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery with the financial support of the German PE company DWS Group, which was a former subsidiary of Deutsche Bank and is now a public company with almost US $1 trillion assets under management. Since its foundation in 2006, the UK-based Cutting Edge Music bought a large catalogue of film and TV music rights with financial support by London-based PE company Blantyre Capital, which provided US $125 million and Pinnacle Financial Partners from Nashville, which led a financing round with US $100 million. Warner Bros Discovery brings in its vast TV and film music library, which contains more than 400,000 copyrights, including the film music from “Harry Potter”, “Lord of the Rings”, “A Star is Born”, “Blade Runner” and “Rebel without a Cause”. Therefore, the new joint venture is one of the largest film and TV music library.

Also in February 2025, Warner Music Group announced to buy a majority stake in Tempo Music for rumoured US $450 million from Providence Equity Partners. Tempo Music was established by Providence and Warner in 2019 as a joint venture, in which the PE company invested US $650 million to acquire music publishing rights. Providence will still hold a minority stake in Tempo Music, which owns songs recorded by the likes of Wiz Khalifa, Jonas Brothers, Brett James and Shane McAnally.

Figure 1: Investments of Private Equity and Asset Management Companies

Figure 2: Investments (minimum values) in Music IPR Companies and Musical Assets, 2019-2024

Figures 1 and 2 reflect just those investments, which were communicated to the public and therefore represent a minimum level of direct investment in music assets (e.g. Taylor Swifts first six master records) and investments in music IPR companies by institutional investors such as Blackstone, Apollo and The Carlyle Group. The investment figures are probably higher. We can also see that the annual investments are driven by single spectacular deals such as the acquisition of a 93 per cent share in Concord Bicycle Group for US $1.1 billion by Michigan Retirement Systems in 2019, the 1.7 billion investments of Brookfield Asset Management in Primary Waves’ IP Fund 4 in 2022 and Hellman & Friedman’s acquisition of a majority share in Irving Azoff’s Global Rights Management. However, we can observe that over the years more and more institutional investors have entered the music rights market. The list of investors includes all the well-known private equity firms such as Blackstone, KKR, Apollo Global Management, The Carlyle Group, etc., as well as major asset management companies such as BlackRock and Brookfield Asset Management.

Figure 3: Private Equity and Asset Management Companies in the Music Rights Market

All parts of the series “Follow the Money! Big Capital in the Music Rights Market”

Part 1: A Short History

Part 2: The Investment Giants

Part 3: Shamrock Capital Advisors

Part 4: The Business Model of Private Equity Firms

Part 5: The Securization of Music Rights

Endnotes

Mergr, “Pegasus Capital Advisors Acquires Spirit Music Group”, April 8, 2009, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Everybodywiki, “Mark Fried (Music Publisher)”, n.d., accessed: 2024-12-11.

Variety, “Spirit acquires Pete Townshend catalog”, January 24, 2012, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Prnewswire, “Spirit Music Group Secures Significant Capital From Fortress Credit Corp. To Fund Major Expansion”, September 17, 2014, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Billboard, “EU clears Bertelsmann, KKR music rights JV“, September 9, 2009, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Billboard, “Primary Wave’s CEO Explains a New $300 Million BlackRock Partnership, Getting Smokey Robinson a Sneaker Deal“, September 28, 2016, accessed: 2025-01-07.

Music Business Worldwide, “Spirit has new owner, secures $350m recap, David Renzer exits”, January 25, 2019, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Spirit Music Group promotes Jon Singer to Worldwide COO/CFO”, June 22, 2016, accessed: 2024-12-11.

LinkedIn, “Russ Cameron”, n.d., accessed: 2024-12-11.

Pensions & Investments, “Michigan Retirement likes the sound of its Concord Music stake”, April 29, 2019, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Ibid.

Music Business Worldwide, “Concord buys rock label Victory Records and sister company Another Victory Publishing”, September 30, 2019, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Concord acquires historic classical music publisher Sikorski”, June 13, 2019, accessed: 2024-01-24.

Music Business Worldwide, “Warner launches $650m fund to do battle with music’s big spenders“, December 10, 2019, accessed: 2024-01-23.

Variety, “Scooter Braun Sells Taylor Swift’s Big Machine Masters for Big Payday”, November 16, 2020, accessed: 2024-12-11.

The Wall Street Journal, “Scooter Braun Makes $300 Million Deal for Big Machine Records”, June 30, 2019, accessed: 2024-12-11.

https://www.carlyle.com/ (accessed: 2024-12-11).

Music Business Worldwide, “Big Machine Label Group (and its Taylor Swift albums) acquired by Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings”, June 30, 2019, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Ibid.

You find to full speech here: Billboard, “Taylor Swift Accepts Woman of the Decade Award at Billboard’s Women In Music: Read Her Full Speech”, December 13, 2019, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Billboard, “Billboard Woman of the Decade Taylor Swift: ‘I Do Want My Music to Live On'”, December 11, 2019, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Cited in Music Business Worldwide, “Taylor Swift buys back master rights to first six albums from Shamrock Capital”, May 30, 2025, accessed: 2025-06-04.

Page Six, “Taylor Swift has chance to buy original recordings back — and one unlikely person is ‘encouraging’ the deal: sources”, May 21, 2025, accessed: 2025-06-04.

Music Business Worldwide, “KKR buys majority stake in Ryan Tedder catalog, marking investment giant’s return to music rights ownership“, January 11, 2021, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “A new catalog acquisition juggernaut is born, as BMG and KKR strike deal to jointly buy music copyrights“, March 24, 2021, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “BMG and KKR are ready to spend $1bn on music copyrights – and that’s just for starters …“, April 6, 2021, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Primary Wave raises $375m investment from Oaktree Capital, sells minority stake“, June 11, 2021, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Here. Come. The. Giants.”, October 7, 2021, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Blackstone press release, “Blackstone and Hipgnosis Song Management launch US $1 billion partnership to invest in songs, recorded music, music IP and royalties“, October 12, 2022, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Another massive music deal, as Spirit Music Group parent strikes $500m alliance with Northleaf Capital Partners”, October 14, 2021, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Cutting Edge and Blantyre Capital commit $125m to acquire film and TV music rights”, January 4, 2022, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “BlackRock teams with Warner to launch new $750m music-buying fund via Influence Media“, February 24, 2022, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “$500m-backed Litmus Music launches to buy publishing and recording rights”, August 4, 2022, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Francisco Partners was also behind the Muse Group’s acquisition of the venerable Hal Leonard music publisher in December 2023: Music Business Worldwide, “Music creation company Muse Group acquires sheet music publisher Hal Leonard… with backing from private equity firm Francisco Partners”, December 4, 2023, accessed: 2024-01-24.

Music Business Worldwide, “Kobalt Music Group sold to US-based private equity firm Francisco Partners”, September 7, 2022, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Sony Music completes $430m buyout of AWAL – but UK competition body is investigating deal”, May 19, 2021, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Primary Wave press release, “Just Announced: Strategic Partnerships with Brookfield Asset Management and CAA!“, October 6, 2022, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “After investing $125m over the past year, Cutting Edge secures another $100m to buy film and TV music rights”, February 14, 2023, accessed: 2024-01-24.

Music Business Worldwide, “Morgan Stanley is investing more than $700m to buy music copyrights in partnership with Kobalt”, November 1, 2023, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “New Mountain Capital-led group closes acquisition of BMI”, February 8, 2024, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “3 observations on … the sale of BMI (and Google’s entrance into music rights management)”, November 28, 2023, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Blackstone launches $1.57 billion bid for Hipgnosis Songs Fund; HSF board recommends offer to shareholders”, April 29, 2024, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Rod Stewart sells catalog to Iconic Artists Group for around $100m; company raises $1bn to buy more music rights”, February 15, 2024, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Irving Azoff’s GMR just struck a $3.3 billion private equity deal, say MBW sources”, September 19, 2024, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Apollo leads $700m investment into Sony Music Group partnership. (It’s a kind of magic!)”, July 26, 2024, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Shamrock Capital, the firm that bought Taylor Swift’s masters, raises $1.6bn for two new investment funds”, November 4, 2024, accessed: 2024-12-11.

Music Business Worldwide, “Warner Bros. Discovery strikes JV with Cutting Edge to co-own vast catalog of film and TV music, in deal worth $1bn+“, February 1, 2025, accessed: 2025-02-03.

Music Business Worldwide, “Confirmed: Warner buys majority stake in Tempo (just as MBW told you it would)”, February 6, 2025, accessed: 2025-02-07.

* This blog post is based on the report IP Finance in the Music Industry, which was commissioned by the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization (WIPO).