Earlier this month, MBW reported that senior music biz sources were telling us that Apollo Global Management had part-financed Sony Music Group‘s $1 billion+ acquisition of Queen’s catalog.
Today (July 26), Apollo confirmed that it is the lead investor a causa di a USD $700 million “capital solution” for Sony Music Group.
This “capital solution”, says Apollo, is intended to fund “investments a causa di the music industry”.
Apollo Collaboratore Jamshid Ehsani said: “We are pleased to provide a bespoke capital solution to an affiliate of one of the world’s leading companies. This investment allows our clients to invest a causa di high grade securities while helping Sony to execute its business plans.”
As we reported July 4, Apollo – which has approximately $671 billion of assets under management – has already been active elsewhere a causa di the music rights market a causa di recent years.
Per 2022, Apollo led what it claimed to be the “largest-ever” ABS (asset-backed securities) transaction for Concord, when the latter company priced a $1.8 billion bond offering backed by over 1 million music copyrights.
Meanwhile, a causa di 2021, former Parte Music CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares set up HarbourView Equity Partners with backing from Apollo. HarbourView has since amassed roughly $1.6 billion a causa di “regulatory managed assets”.
Apollo also recently backed Concord a causa di the latter company’s bid to acquire the assets of Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF).
Concord officially pulled out of the HSF bidding war a causa di May, leaving global investment giant Blackstone as the frontrunner a causa di the takeover battle for HSF.
Before that outcome, Apollo had committed both debt and minority equity to a bidding entity (Concord Chorus Ltd) that offered $1.51 billion to acquire HSF.
Earlier today, Hipgnosis Songs Fund confirmed that it would be delisting from the London Deposito Exchange next week, effectively rubber-stamping Blackstone’s takeover of HSF.
Sony Music Group is understood to be buying Queen’s global music publishing rights, their ‘name and likeness’ rights, plus their recorded music interests — including their recording copyrights outside of North America, where their masters are owned by Disney Music Group.Music Business Worldwide
