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Jason Ellis joined independent dance music label Armada Music as global senior A&R director. Ellis will also serve as an acquisition consultant for BEAT Music Fund, the company’s recently launched dance music investment arm. Based in London, Ellis will be responsible for sourcing and developing up-and-coming talent while consulting on future BEAT acquisitions. He joins […]
Would you rather own the rights to Bruce Springsteen’s song catalog or the musical scores to hit Nickelodeon TV shows such as iCarly, Victorious and Henry Danger?
While those tween comedies may not be household names, fans stream them worldwide, and unlike Springsteen’s masters and publishing rights — which Sony bought for $500 million in 2021 — the rights to their scores sold for tens of millions, presenting, for some, an appealing and approachable investment.The Nickelodeon shows’ music is an example of the kinds of deals being done by a new crop of music investment funds that are focused on acquiring the one type of music they know best, often for a much lower price than the deals making headlines.
Funds like Armada Music’s BEAT (focused on dance), Jamar Chess’ Wahoo Music Fund One (Latin), Singapore’s blackx (the Asian music market) and Multimedia Music (film and TV music) have all launched in roughly the last 18 months with similar aims: to exploit their specialized genre knowledge and industry connections to buy rights to songs in one category and earn a return.
The principals of these funds, which have raised between $100 million (BEAT, blackx) and $200 million (Multimedia) from banks and investment firms, say the primary difference between them and funds like Primary Wave and Hipgnosis, which have institutional and private equity backing, is that their success hinges on a lower cost of entry and therefore present less risk.
“It’s a niche within a niche,” says Phil Hope, founder/CEO of Multimedia Music, which recently bought the music income and copyrights to scores from the Nickelodeon shows. “People see that there’s a well-priced opportunity in what we’re doing. Is it as obvious or as sexy as buying a big artist’s catalog? It needs a bit of explaining.”
Each fund faces its own challenges, but in an investment class, where the slowing of streaming growth and high interest rates are prompting greater investor scrutiny, these funds present the next natural step, says Bob Valentine, president of Concord. “We are now at the evolution stage of the investment thesis,” says Valentine, who will become Concord’s CEO in July. “There is still supersize growth in some of these genres — like Latin, dance, EDM. Investment managers are thinking, ‘The cost of capital is going up. Let’s find the genres that are going to outpace that index trend. Then, if the cost of capital goes up, we still outpace it.’ ”
Founded in late 2021 by Hope and James Gibb, Multimedia Music has acquired the rights to dozens of film and TV scores, including James Newton Howard’s catalog (Pretty Woman, Fantastic Beasts and the Hunger Games films), the STX music library catalog (Bad Moms, The Foreigner) and in-demand composers like Tyler Bates (the Guardians of the Galaxy and John Wick franchises, Deadpool 2).Multimedia has raised $200 million in debt and investment from Metropolitan Partners, Pinnacle Financial Partners and others to buy the rights to film and TV music that is reliably played — whether streamed, broadcast or licensed by filmmakers.
“Initially, investors were excited but didn’t understand it. They kept saying, ‘I don’t know who’s going to be streaming film and TV music on Spotify,’ ” Gibb says. “What we’re looking at are the TV shows and films that have longevity so that every time they get played anywhere in the world, we get streaming royalties paid back to us.”
Chess, whose Latin music-focused Wahoo Music Fund One launched in 2022, says he also spends time educating prospective investors. “You’re buying into cultural artifacts and less into a net publisher’s share of now. That’s why it’s a good deal,” says Chess, whose grandfather, Leonard Chess, co-founded Chicago’s legendary Chess Records.
Last year, Wahoo acquired a 50% stake in the publishing and recording catalog of Oro Solido, a classic merengue group, for an undisclosed amount. Chess says he is in talks to acquire two more catalogs that are also considered classics in the Latin genre — a status that makes them marketable for new recordings and sampling by current Latin artists.
But despite the surging popularity of Latin American music — recorded-music revenue grew by nearly 26% in Latin America last year, according to IFPI — Chess says investor interest is still lagging.“We are not competing against a Sony buying [Bad Bunny’s label] Rimas,” says Chess, who is also president of Spirit Music Latino. “There is a wealth of opportunity across the [Latin American] territories, and sometimes lining up investors can be a challenge.”
BEAT Music Fund was launched in April by independent dance music label Armada Music. Its first acquisitions were rights belonging to artists it has ties to, like Detroit techno forefather Kevin Saunderson’s KMS Records and Russian DJ ARTY. BEAT enters the investment space at a time when the global dance music industry grew by 34% to $11.3 billion in revenue in 2022. Its fan base is also growing 10 times faster than hip-hop on TikTok, according to a new report from MIDiA Research.
“Our plan is to invest $100 million in its first two years and increase the investment to at least $500 million in coming years,” says Nadine van Bodegraven, COO for the fund. “Our goal is to announce at least one new deal every month this year.”
Steve Butler was named head of legal & business affairs, North America at Warner Chappell Music. Butler will support the publisher’s U.S. (including Nashville and U.S. Latin) and Canadian markets while working closely with various departments to ensure cohesion across its North American operations. He will continue reporting to Warner Chappell executive vp/global head of legal & business affairs Peter Rosenthal. Butler was previously senior vp of legal & business affairs; among other deals, he oversaw the company’s purchase of David Bowie‘s catalog.
Warner Music Group’s WMX announced several new hires: Karl Walsh as executive vp/head of global commerce; Brian Furano as global head of A&R; and Robbie Owens-Russo as senior vp of creative services. Additionally, the company announced the following promotions: Tracy Stone to head of artist and fan experiences, North America; Bob Workman to head of WMX artist & fan experience, UK & rest of the world/senior vp of international artist & brand partners; and Angela Nguyen to head of global commercial operations. The new appointments mark a major overhaul of WMX’s merchandise, commerce, partnerships and ops teams. Walsh can be reached at Karl.Walsh@wmg.com, Furano can be reached at Brian.Furano@wmg.com, Owens-Russo can be reached at robbie.owens-russo@wmg.com, Stone can be reached at Tracy.Stone@wmg.com and Workman can be reached at Bob.Workman@warnermusic.com.
David Loiterton was hired as president, Indo-Pacific at Primary Wave Music. Based in Hong Kong, Loiterton will be tasked with managing the company’s catalog while driving investment in music IP across the region, particularly in India, Japan, Korea, China and Australia as well as emerging Southeast Asian markets. He can be reached at dloiterton@primarywave.com.
SESAC Performing Rights promoted Erin Collins to senior vp of film/TV creative services. The Billboard 2022 Women in Music honoree will continue overseeing SESAC’s network of composers and publishers.
Independent dance label Armada Music announced several new hires and promotions: Madeleine van Schendel was named chief growth officer; Jop Bonnike was promoted to COO; and Michel Peek was promoted to GM of publishing. Additionally, Nadine van Bodegraven moved from Armada’s executive team to join its investment company BEAT as COO.
Attorney Kenneth T. Deutsch joined law firm Paul Hastings as a partner and global co-chair of its entertainment and media practice. He joins from Latham & Watkins, where he served as global co-chair of the firm’s entertainment, sports and media group.
Island Records announced the promotions of Hannah Colson to director of artist development and Sam Lunn to director of strategic marketing.
MNRK Music Group promoted Brandon Squar to GM and Ebrahim “Abe” Rasheed to senior vp of urban. Squar will oversee commerce, marketing, project management and publicity for the company’s artists while Rasheed will spearhead all efforts in A&R and artist development for MNRK’s urban roster.
Tamaya Petteway was named senior vp of partnerships at Dick Clark Productions, where she will be tasked with securing brand partnerships across the company’s live event programming, including the American Music Awards, the Country Music Awards, the Billboard Music Awards, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, the Streamy Awards, So You Think You Can Dance and The Golden Globes. Petteway joins the company from Endemol Shine North America, where she most recently served as senior vp of brand partnerships, licensing and digital.
Ariana White was promoted to vp of publicity at Atlantic Records. She currently handles publicity for Atlantic signees Kali, Mahalia, Rico Nasty, Ckay, No Cap and Quando Rondo, among others.
The Black Music Action Coalition and Audiomack announced a paid internship and mentorship program designed to discover the next generation of Black executives in the music industry and named several executives as mentors. They are: Artistry Group CEO Max Gousee, The Blueprint Group CMO/partner Al Branch, Biz 3 Publicity CEO Kathryn Frazier, CAA agent Yves Pierre, 10Q Management CEO Lydia Asrat and AEG talent buyer Marcus “Don Dada” Johnson. Prospective candidates to the program can apply here.
Troy Skabelund joined artist financing company beatBread as CFO. Skabelund is also founder/CEO of the small business consulting network Advisory Zone.
Boutique entertainment law firm Ritholz Levy Fields promoted three attorneys to partner: Cody Brown (New York), Jenna Harris (Nashville) and Dan Zupnick (New York). Brown can be reached at cbrown@rlfllp.com, Harris can be reached at jharris@rlfllp.com and Zupnick can be reached at dzupnick@rlfllp.com.
Lauren Kreisler was promoted to director of brand & digital for the Official Charts Company in the UK, a newly created role. Her expanded role comes ahead of the company’s refreshed brand identity and consumer-facing digital platform in the coming weeks. Kreisler can be reached at lauren@officialcharts.com.
Anna Desalu was named vp of commerce and sales at record label Blac Noize! (Big Machine/SB Projects), where she will lead streaming initiatives for the company’s roster, including by cultivating digital partnerships and editorial placement. She joins the company from Warner Music Group/Atlantic Records’ Asylum Records, where she was director of sales and commerce.
Audioshake co-founder/CEO Jessica Powell has joined the advisory board of digital music distribution platform Octiive, joining SoundCloud chief product officer Rohit Agarwal and Meta head of UK and Ireland venture capital & partnerships Rowly Bourne.
Independent dance music label Armada Music said on Thursday it acquired the master recording rights of Detroit techno forefather Kevin Saunderson‘s KMS Records and Russian DJ ARTY to launch its new music investment fund focused on dance music.
The fund named BEAT–which stands for Best Ever Acquired Tracks–launches with $100 million in debt and financing from Pinnacle Financial Partners, which Armada says will be deployed over the next two years.
Launching into the redhot music IP investment market, Armada’s BEAT aims to capitalize on investments in a genre that has so far gotten less attention than others, like pop and classic rock.
A growing number of funds have launched in the past 18-months focused on genres like indie, Latin music and production music, aiming to use in-house expertise on a specific genre to find ways to make catalogs generate greater returns for the artists and rights holders.
“BEAT is in a unique position to add relevance to those tracks through creative additions, best practices in exploitation setup, and marketing methods and communication channels within the bigger (Armada) organization,” says Armada Music chief executive Maykel Piron.
BEAT says it is focused on acquiring catalogs that fall under the category of dance, including subgenres like techno, house, electronic dance music (EDM) and others. EDM alone is estimated to present a $9.5 billion market opportunity, growing to more than $20 billion in the next decade, according to a report by research firm Future Market Insights.
“We are seeing folks who are trying to be smarter, and one way to do that is to arbitrage certain genres,” says Matt Rosenberg, head of media finance at Monroe Capital. “It unlocks the investment ecosystem for more artists.”
Attached to Armada, BEAT will tap into the genre’s leading record label for “data on trends, creative resources, exploitation models (and) new artists,” Piron says.
“We are in a unique position in that we know everything on older catalogs since we have built one over the last 20 years through Armada,” Piron says. Armada has acquired catalogs from artists and dance labels, including Midtown Records, United Recordings and Combined Forces. “BEAT has 100% control over the exploitation and re-exploitation of the acquired catalogs.”
Saunderson made his name with a string of eight Top 10s between 1988-94, including “Good Life,” “Big Fun,” “Ain’t Nobody Better” and “Do You Love What You Feel” and others. The catalog of KMS, which Saunderson helped found over 30 years ago, includes Saunderson’s “Good Life” and “Big Fun,” recorded with Inner City.
“In the post-COVID period, we are seeing a huge revival of 90’s dance. Sometimes younger audiences don’t even realize they are dancing to 30-year-old tracks,” Piron says.
With a catalog of newer hits, ARTY is known for dance tracks “Sunrise,” “Save Me Tonight,” “Craving” and “Take Your Time” from between 2018 and 2021. Based in Los Angeles, ARTY has also produced and remixed songs for Skrillex, Armin van Buuren, Halsey and others.
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