A brand new issuing car linked to Common Music Group-backed funding platform Chord Music Companions is about to boost $500 million in debt by an Asset-Backed Securitization (ABS) transaction.
That’s in keeping with a pre-sale report printed by Kroll Bond Score Company (KBRA) on April 16, which assigns a preliminary A (sf) ranking to the $500 million Sequence 2026-1 Notes to be issued by Canon Music Issuer Belief.
Canon is a newly established car that sits beneath the broader Chord platform, with its collateral pool representing a particular portion of Chord’s property.
The notes are collateralized by royalties from a catalog of greater than 3,750 works from artists and songwriters, together with Suicideboys, Morgan Wallen, Ryan Tedder, Diplo, and Twenty One Pilots.
As of February 2024, Chord’s total portfolio spanned greater than 60,000 copyrights. That determine may have grown since, with MBW revealing in August 2025 that Chord was elevating greater than $2 billion in extra capital for additional catalog acquisitions.
Chord is managed by Dundee Companions, the funding workplace of the Hendel household, with UMG holding a minority stake.
An unbiased valuation ready by Virtu World Advisors has valued the Canon Music collateral pool at $830 million as of September 30, 2025, utilizing a reduced money circulate technique with an 8.00% low cost fee. KBRA notes that the valuation “developed long-term projections for the Catalog over a projection interval of roughly 40 years.”
In accordance with KBRA’s report, the one largest sub-catalog throughout the Canon Music Issuer Belief collateral pool is G59 Information – the unbiased label co-founded by the New Orleans rap duo Suicideboys – which contributed 23.3% of the catalog’s web royalty earnings within the twelve months to June 2025.
The KBRA report doesn’t specify when or how Chord acquired an curiosity within the G59 catalog, nor the scope of that curiosity – whether or not it covers grasp recordings, publishing rights, or each; whether or not the curiosity is a full acquisition or a stake; or whether or not the association is structured as a direct buyout or a three way partnership.
In March 2025, Billboard first reported that Suicideboys (aka cousins Scrim and Ruby da Cherry) have been purchasing each their grasp recordings and publishing rights by way of Tim Mandelbaum of regulation agency Fox Rothschild, with the masters alone touted at over USD $300 million.
On the time, MBW reported that Sherrese Clarke Soares’s HarbourView was the rumored frontrunner for the publishing rights. No purchaser has been publicly introduced since.
Chord Music Companions declined to remark.
Publishing rights account for roughly 34% of the Canon Music catalog’s web royalty earnings within the twelve months to June 2025, with sound recording rights making up the remaining 66%.
After G59, Morgan Wallen follows at 15.8% of Canon catalog’s trailing-twelve-month web royalties, with Ryan Tedder at 15.3%, Diplo at 9.6%, and Twenty One Pilots at 3.8%.
Taken collectively, G59 Information, Morgan Wallen and Ryan Tedder account for 54.4% of the catalog’s web royalty earnings over that interval. Primarily based on the Valuation Agent’s sub-catalog valuations, the highest three sub-catalogs (Ryan Tedder, G59 and Morgan Wallen) account for 51.7% of the general catalog worth earlier than uplifts, recaptures and third-party royalty reductions.
The weighted common age of the Canon catalog is roughly 10 years, with 46% of content material launched greater than 10 years in the past and 74% launched greater than 5 years in the past.
The Sequence 2026-1 Notes signify the primary issuance from Canon Music Issuer Belief, and the second ABS deal linked to Chord’s broader catalog.
Chord’s first securitization was issued in February 2022 by a separate car, Hello-Fi Music IP Issuer, whereas Chord was majority-owned by KKR.
The brand new issuance comes two years after UMG’s $240 million acquisition of a 25.8% stake within the platform from KKR, which valued Chord at $1.85 billion.
Chord was initially established in 2021 by KKR and Dundee Companions to amass a $1.1 billion portfolio of copyrights from a Kobalt fund. KKR exited the enterprise in March 2024 by way of the UMG/Dundee buyout.
In August 2025, MBW solely reported that Chord was elevating greater than $2 billion in investable capital, with one other $1 billion-plus on the best way. New buyers confirmed on the time included Searchlight Capital Companions, which contributed $400 million in fairness.
As reported by MBW on the time, Chord had been ‘intentionally quiet’ by way of saying offers over the previous yr, sources advised MBW, however some nine-figure agreements leaked within the meantime, together with a Morgan Wallen acquisition reported in Might 2025.
That deal noticed Massive Loud, the Nashville-based report label dwelling to the nation famous person, promote a minority stake in Wallen’s grasp recording catalog to Chord for north of USD $200 million, in keeping with MBW’s sources, though monetary particulars weren’t formally disclosed.
In accordance with the pre-sale report, the Morgan Wallen sub-catalog – the second-largest within the Canon Music Issuer Belief collateral pool at 15.8% of the catalog’s trailing-twelve-month web royalties – sits inside a notable structural carve-out.
Somewhat than proudly owning the Wallen rights straight, the Issuer will maintain a 24.5% restricted accomplice curiosity in a partnership that owns the Wallen sub-catalog by a subsidiary. That partnership is a three way partnership between Chord and Wallen’s report label, Massive Loud – a construction that displays Chord’s acquisition of a minority stake in Wallen’s masters from Massive Loud in Might 2025.
The Canon Music deal arrives in the midst of a busy cycle for music-rights ABS.
In July 2025, Harmony closed a $1.765 billion ABS that it billed as “the most important and longest tenured asset-backed time period securitization of music rights thus far.”
Different current issuers embrace Blackstone-owned Recognition Music Group (previously Hipgnosis), Kobalt, HarbourView, Affect Media Companions, and Seeker Music Group.
The supervisor of the Canon Music transaction will likely be Common Music Investments Inc., a completely owned subsidiary of UMG. Redding Ridge Asset Administration LLC – an Apollo affiliate that has structured a number of music ABS offers, together with Harmony’s – will function backup supervisor, with The Financial institution of New York Mellon performing as trustee and calculation agent.
The notes carry an advance fee of 60.2% towards the catalog worth, offering 39.8% overcollateralization, with an Anticipated Compensation Date of Might 2031 and a last maturity date of Might 2076.
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