Less than a month after a $54 billion stock spinoff by Universal Music, three of the world's biggest private equity players are making billion-dollar bets on the business.
Downtown pivots to label services, sells music catalog to Concord
In seeking to re-orient its focus, Downtown Holding Corp revealed that it has sold it’s music publishing catalog to Concord, and will shifting it’s business to put greater focus on the music services sector.
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Downtown Holding Corp announced it has sold its music publishing stake to Concord and plans to re-orient its business to focus on the music services sector.
The deal with Concord included Downtown Music Publishing’s complete catalog of music publishing rights, including 145,000 owned and co-published music copyrights from artists such as Aretha Franklin, Beyoncé, Blake Shelton, Bruno Mars, Carrie Underwood, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, the Grateful Dead, Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Maroon 5, Marvin Gaye, Mary J. Blige, Mos Def, Mötley Crüe, New Order, Rage Against the Machine, Ray Charles, Santigold, Sam Smith, Stevie Wonder, and The 1975 among many others.
Courtesy of Concord
The deal is estimated at $350 million for rights including shares in Dancing in the Streets, Moves Like Jagger and more.
Concord has acquired Downtown Music s 145,000-song publishing copyrights, the companies announced Monday (April 26), including shares in Dancing in the Streets, Moves Like Jagger, Green Onions, Halo, Stay With Me and Shallow. Concord also gets the contracts of Downtown Music s existing songwriter roster.
Terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed, but
Billboard estimates the assets being sold carry a $350 million valuation based on an 18–20 times multiple.
Downtown is only selling the portion of its publishing catalog that it has an ownership stake in and not the songs and catalogs where it serves as administrator.
Downtown will leave the ownership business and focus on music services exclusively
Brian Welk | April 26, 2021 @ 10:12 AM
Warner Bros.
Downtown Music Holdings has sold its publishing library of 145,000 songs, including tracks by Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Jay-Z and more, to Concord Music Group.
It’s the latest example of the sale of a large music catalog as the industry has seen a flurry of sales for record multiples. But instead of an artist directly selling their own music library to a private group, another company is now getting out of the music ownership business entirely at a point when the market could be nearing its peak. After the sale, Downtown will now focus exclusively on music services, including publishing administration and its label services division, DashGo.