Jamen Capital and Merlin have accomplished their acquisition of Curve Royalty Methods from Virgin Music Group.
The deal closed following remaining approval of the transaction by the European Fee, the businesses stated on Tuesday (August 18).
The completion establishes Curve as a standalone enterprise beneath new possession, separate from Common Music Group.
The sale resolves a situation imposed by the European Fee, which cleared UMG‘s $775 million acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings solely on the idea that Curve be divested to an unbiased purchaser.
Curve‘s management, workforce, model, merchandise and shopper relationships stay unchanged, in accordance with the announcement, and the corporate stated its new house owners are dedicated to preserving its neutrality.
Richard Leach will proceed to guide the enterprise as CEO, with purchasers retaining their present contacts.
“Finishing this transaction provides Curve the independence, stability and backing we’d like for the following stage of our growth,” stated Richard Leach, CEO of Curve Royalty Methods.
“For our purchasers, it is extremely a lot enterprise as traditional: the identical workforce, merchandise, service and dedication to defending their information and pursuits. What adjustments is our skill to speculate extra ambitiously sooner or later.
“With the help of Jamen and Merlin, we will speed up innovation, develop new merchandise and proceed constructing the elite-level infrastructure that music companies must handle more and more complicated royalty flows.”
“Finishing this transaction provides Curve the independence, stability and backing we’d like for the following stage of our growth.”
RICHARD Leach, Curve Royalty Methods
Leach added: “Downtown believed in Curve, invested in our workforce and supported our development from the second it acquired the enterprise in 2022.
“Pieter, Justin, Andrew and the broader Downtown workforce have labored extremely laborious on our behalf all through this course of, and we thank them for all the pieces they’ve carried out. Whereas our possession is altering, the friendship and mutual respect between our groups stay robust.”
“Curve has earned the belief of music companies by combining refined expertise with real sector experience and excellent service,” stated Matt Spetzler, Founding Accomplice of Jamen Capital.
“Our precedence is to guard all the pieces that has made the corporate profitable whereas giving Richard and his workforce the sources to maneuver sooner, innovate and create even better worth for purchasers.”
“Our precedence is to guard all the pieces that has made the corporate profitable whereas giving Richard and his workforce the sources to maneuver sooner, innovate and create.”
Matt Spetzler, Jamen Capital
Charlie Lexton, CEO of Merlin, added: “Curve is significant infrastructure for unbiased music companies world wide.
“Finishing this acquisition secures its independence and ensures it stays impartial, trusted and carefully related to the group it serves. We’re proud to again the workforce because it expands the platform and develops the following era of services and products for the sector.”
“Our precedence is to guard all the pieces that has made the corporate profitable whereas giving Richard and his workforce the sources to maneuver sooner, innovate and create even better worth for purchasers.”
CHARLIE LEXTON, MERLIN
Curve was beforehand a part of Downtown Music Holdings, which Common Music Group agreed to purchase from its shareholders for $775 million in December 2024.
UMG accomplished the acquisition in February 2026 via its Virgin Music Group enterprise.
The European Fee cleared the acquisition after UMG dedicated to divest Curve to an unbiased purchaser permitted by the regulator. The dedication was meant to deal with considerations that UMG might acquire entry to commercially delicate data held by Curve in the middle of offering royalty-processing providers to music corporations that compete with UMG.
The divestment coated the Curve enterprise and its employees, with UMG finally promoting the corporate to Jamen Capital and Merlin.
Curve supplies royalty processing throughout recorded music and publishing, and says its purchasers embrace Armada, Defected, Epitaph, Exceleration, Reservoir, Sony Footage Leisure, Virgin Music Group, Netflix and BBC/Demon.
Jamen Capital, the funding agency based by Matt Spetzler, launched unbiased financing platform Pipeline in January 2026.
Backed by Spetzler’s funding agency, Pipeline has raised greater than $200 million in capital and goals to assist unbiased music corporations “unlock the worth of their mental property, to be able to drive development and scale.”
Days after the platform was introduced, Spetzler’s Pipeline struck a partnership with unbiased licensing firm Merlin to provide Merlin members entry to advances in opposition to their digital royalties.
Earlier than launching Jamen Capital, Spetzler was a Accomplice and Co-Head of Europe at non-public fairness agency Francisco Companions, the place he performed a key position within the agency’s roughly $750 million majority acquisition of Kobalt Music Group in 2022.Music Enterprise Worldwide
