Catalog Gold Rush: 5 Things We Learned From Citrin Cooperman’s Valuation Experts

Citrin Cooperman estimates a record-setting number of music catalogs with a combined value of around $20 billion were floated to investors last year. While economic and political uncertainty so far in 2025 has sent stocks and global trade on a roller coaster, the head of Citrin Cooperman’s music and entertainment valuation practice Barry Massarsky says his team has never been busier.

Massarsky and partner Jake DeVries reviewed over 550 music catalogs with a combined asset value of $10.7 billion last year, a figure that Massarsky says “demonstrates very loudly how much volume is in the marketplace.”

“Yesterday, I was dealing with a seminal holiday music catalog, a well-known classical music artist, this group from Nigeria, and film and television,” Massarsky told Billboard during a conversation in mid-April at Citrin Cooperman’s offices in Rockefeller Center.

Over his two-plus decades in practice, Massarsky’s best known clients have been Primary Wave, Round Hill Music, Hipgnosis, Reservoir and nearly every major music company. Since joining Citrin in 2021, their business expanded to offer entertainment tax advice, audit inspection, transaction strategy, and recently, to include a valuation team focused Hollywood actors’ and directors’ participation rights.

Massarsky and DeVries shared their observations about the current market value being placed on pop and hip-hop music, the average size of a catalog they valued in 2024—it’s smaller than you might think—and the ongoing popularity of music from the 1980s.

Here are some highlights from our conversation:

Hip-hop and pop music catalogs 10 years old and older fetch the highest valuation multiples, a trend that’s held steady since 2022.

Pop music and hip-hop catalogs of songs released more than a decade ago received valuation multiples—a measure of future growth—of 17.6 and 17.4 respectively on average from 2022-2024. Latin catalogs had an average multiple of 17.1, country catalogs had 16.8 average multiple and rock music averaged a 16.7 multiple.  

Some of the biggest hip-hop catalog deals of recent years include Primary Wave’s $200 million acquisition of Notorious B.I.G.’s works, Shamrock Holdings’ purchase of Dr. Dre’s catalog along with other rights for around $200 million and Opus Music Group’s acquisition of Juice WRLD’s catalog for $115 million, according to Billboard estimates.

Those deals aside, the priciest catalogs have been mostly older vintage pop and rock music from artists like Queen, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan.

Massarsky says hip-hop catalogs are now in-demand because “it is one of the most favored formats for continued streaming activity” and the revenue it generates from publishing royalties has risen significantly due to higher payout rates coming from streaming platforms in recent years.

DeVries says hip-hop music is also over-indexed, or consumed at a proportionately higher rate, on Apple Music, which adds to its value because Apple Music’s payout rates are high among streaming platforms since it does not offer any free plans.

“If there previously was a concern about whether Hip-hop had legs to grow and whether the music would have certain constancy of staying power,” Massarsky says, “the data suggests the answer is yes.”

While deals like Sony Music’s $1.27 billion acquisition of Queen’s catalog and naming rights get the most attention, Massarsky and DeVries say the average valuation for a catalog they worked on in 2024 was $19 million.

 “[That] illustrates how much volume there is outside of what garners the most attention,” DeVries says.  

Catalogs that included master recording and publishing rights received the highest multiples because often those catalogs are also near the end of certain contracts, and a new buyer could have the opportunity to assume administration or ownership of certain other rights.

Music from the 1980s performs better on streaming platforms than music from the 1970s, 1990s or 2000s.

Music released in the 1980s saw a nearly 20% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in cash flows from U.S. streams for the years 2022 to 2024, compared to a 17.9% rate for the 1970s, 14.9% for the 1990s and 14% for music of the 2000s.

Massarsky thinks the strength of older music comes, in part, from adult listeners who started Spotify subscriptions during the pandemic.

“An older generation turned to streaming services during that period, and I think they stayed,” Massarsky says, adding the popularity of 1980s music has not resulted in lower streaming revenue for music from other decades.

“It has not crowded out newer music. It’s just added more value to the supply of music on streaming.”

Although Citrin’s team is not involved in catalog sales directly, the value they give a catalogs is usually close to the price an asset sells for. In other words, despite occasionally eye-popping sums, buyers rarely overpay.

Citrin’s valuations are often commissioned by rights holders for use by commercial banks to secure financing or other bank services. The banks test Citrin’s valuations to determine the difference between the revenue an asset actually generated and how much Citrin estimated it might generate. Massarsky says Citrin’s estimates always fall within the bank’s acceptable range of plus or minus 5%.

“For me, that implies that our forecasts are fairly accurate, and also implies, I think, that what these funds are transacting at is credible,” he says.

DeVries says that they might not know if there is a gulf between Citrin’s valuation and ultimately where the catalog transacts. But if a buyer overpays, it is likely because of “some qualitative, intangible” benefit, like making a splash for a newcomer to the market.

Buyers and sellers of catalogs are not showing signs of holding their breath.

If there hadn’t been catalogs that were re-sold in 2024—such as Blackstone buying out shareholders of Hipngosis Songs Fund Limited or Opus Group selling their catalog to Litmus—”it might be a different story this year,” DeVries says. But investor demand is robust, Citrin says.

“The resiliency of music as an asset class is why there haven’t been any significant disruptions,” DeVries says. “We had the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, and oddly enough music thrived. Now with questions around tariffs, music is a protected vehicle from tariffs. When these large hurdles are thrown at music, it has continued to prove itself as essentially unperturbed.”

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