Earlier this month, MBW reported that senior music biz sources have been telling us that Apollo International Administration had part-financed Sony Music Group‘s $1 billion+ acquisition of Queen’s catalog.
At the moment (July 26), Apollo confirmed that it’s the lead investor in a USD $700 million “capital answer” for Sony Music Group.
This “capital answer”, says Apollo, is meant to fund “investments within the music trade”.
Apollo Associate Jamshid Ehsani stated: “We’re happy to offer a bespoke capital answer to an affiliate of one of many world’s main firms. This funding permits our purchasers to spend money on excessive grade securities whereas serving to Sony to execute its enterprise plans.”
As we reported July 4, Apollo – which has roughly $671 billion of belongings below administration – has already been lively elsewhere within the music rights market in recent times.
In 2022, Apollo led what it claimed to be the “largest-ever” ABS (asset-backed securities) transaction for Harmony, when the latter firm priced a $1.8 billion bond providing backed by over 1 million music copyrights.
In the meantime, in 2021, former Tempo Music CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares arrange HarbourView Fairness Companions with backing from Apollo. HarbourView has since amassed roughly $1.6 billion in “regulatory managed belongings”.
Apollo additionally lately backed Harmony within the latter firm’s bid to amass the belongings of Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF).
Harmony formally pulled out of the HSF bidding struggle in Could, leaving international funding big Blackstone because the frontrunner within the takeover battle for HSF.
Earlier than that final result, Apollo had dedicated each debt and minority fairness to a bidding entity (Harmony Refrain Ltd) that supplied $1.51 billion to amass HSF.
Earlier at this time, Hipgnosis Songs Fund confirmed that it could be delisting from the London Inventory Change subsequent week, successfully rubber-stamping Blackstone’s takeover of HSF.
Sony Music Group is known to be shopping for Queen’s international music publishing rights, their ‘title and likeness’ rights, plus their recorded music pursuits — together with their recording copyrights exterior of North America, the place their masters are owned by Disney Music Group.Music Enterprise Worldwide
