Concord
Page: 2
Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s board of directors said on Monday that it would support a takeover bid from Blackstone if the private equity giant officially files its $1.5 billion offer for the music royalty fund. Blackstone said on Saturday (April 20) in what it called a “possible offer” that it was prepared to bid $1.24 per […]
Private equity giant Blackstone bid $1.5 billion to buy Hipgnosis Songs Fund on Saturday (April 20), marking a significant escalation in the fight for control of the troubled music royalty fund and its collection of rights to songs by Neil Young, Journey, Lindsey Buckingham, Blondie and others.
Blackstone is offering $1.24 per share in an all-cash offer that represents an 8.7% premium over the previous day’s closing share price, and is significantly higher than the $1.4 billion takeover bid that Nashville-based Concord Chorus made for the fund earlier this week.
Blackstone already owns two other entities under the Hipgnosis name — the private music assets investment fund Hipgnosis Songs Capital and the investment advisor Hipgnosis Song Management — and its bid on Saturday showed the private equity behemoth is willing to flex its muscle to maintain assets under the Hipgnosis umbrella.
Trending on Billboard
The five-year-old, London-listed Hipgnosis Songs Fund has cut its net asset value and shareholder dividends in recent months, as it struggled to address accounting errors and infighting between its board and investment manager that have angered investors already frustrated by an underwhelming stock price.
On Thursday (April 18), the board of directors announced in a filing with the London Stock Exchange that it had agreed to recomment a $1.402 billion proposed takeover bid from Concord to shareholders, which values each Hipgnosis share at £0.93 ($1.14). While the board said that institutional investors representing 30% of the fund’s outstanding shares were on board to vote in favor of the deal with Concord, it still needs shareholder approval from investors holding a total of 75% of shares.
Blackstone’s Hipgnosis Song Management, the investment adviser to the public fund and the private fund (Hipgnosis Songs Capital), has the right to outbid Concord and any other rival bidders to take the fund’s assets private, according to an option in its contract laid out when the fund went public in 2018.
The option was created with the sensitivities unique to music rights in mind. Hipgnosis Songs Fund was founded and built by Merck Mercuriadis, a longtime music executive and manager for artists like Elton John, Beyoncé and Guns N’ Roses. Mercuriadis used his relationships in the music industry to build the fund’s portfolio of rights to hit songs, and this option in the investment advisory contract was designed to give artists confidence that their catalogs would never trade hands — something that famously angered Taylor Swift.
However, since Hipgnosis Songs Fund investors served the board of directors the equivalent of a no-confidence vote last fall, this option has presented hurdles for the board in its effort to secure outside bids for the portfolio.
In its offer, which references Concord’s bid as $1.16 per share due to fluctuations in exchange rates, Blackstone said it “strongly encourages the board of Hipgnosis to recognise the significant increase in value available to all shareholders under the terms of its Fourth Proposal, over the $1.16 as set out in the Concord Offer, and to work with Blackstone to reach agreement on a unanimously recommended Firm Offer in an expeditious manner.”
Concord has named veteran label executive Stephanie Hudacek president of its Rounder Records, the company announced Thursday (March 28). Hudacek, who founded and has served as president of distributor and label Soundly Music since 2017, takes over the label that is home to the likes of Billy Strings, Ruston Kelly, Sierra Farrell and Katie Pruittand has recently released posthumous albums from Gregg Allman and Dr. John.
Established in 1970 in Nashville, Rounder has been the home of artists like George Thorogood, Alison Krauss and Béla Fleck through the years, racking up 54 Grammy Awards along the way. Acquired by Concord in 2010, it’s one of eight standalone labels under the Concord Label Group umbrella, alongside Fantasy, Fearless, Loma Vista, PULSE, Easy Eye Sound, Concord Records and Concord Jazz.
Trending on Billboard
Stephanie Hudacek
“Throughout her career, Stephanie has shown a deep commitment to artists and songwriters as well as an incredible intuition for what it takes to bring their music to the world,” said Concord Label Group CEO Tom Becci, who took over the top job last August, in a statement. “She has the requisite skills to preserve the label’s distinct history while ensuring her artists and team have the resources necessary for continued success in an evolving environment.”
Prior to launching Soundly Music, where she worked with artists such as Maggie Rose and Pony Bradshaw, Hudacek was GM of Riser House Records in Nashville, working in the country and Americana realms. Before that, she was an artist and tour manager, working with the likes of Joan Baez and Darrell Scott. For the past two years, Hudacek also doubled as president of Late August Records.
“It is an unbelievable honor to be able to lead Rounder Records,” Hudacek said in a statement. “Throughout its history, Rounder has shown an uncompromising devotion to great, authentic artistry, which has made it a natural home for artists seeking the same. That is a tradition I am thrilled to carry on.”
12/29/2023
The year saw K-pop companies making mega moves on a global scale, while the catalog market remained hot.
12/29/2023
Sony Music Publishing ruled the Top Radio Airplay, Hot 100 Songs and Country Airplay publisher rankings for its third consecutive quarter of 2023, and Warner Chappell Music surged to No. 2 on the Hot 100 Songs chart — the first time it has held the position since the Hot 100 ranking began in 2019.
For the period spanning July through September, all of the big three publishers benefited from shares in the Afrobeats radio hit “Calm Down” by Rema and Selena Gomez. Sony also benefited from stakes in “Last Night” by Morgan Wallen, which hit No. 5 on the Top Radio Airplay chart, and Taylor Swift’s surprise hit “Cruel Summer,” which reached No. 3 on the quarter’s Hot 100 Songs ranking, four years after its initial release due to its placement as the opening song of Swift’s The Eras Tour.
Last quarter, Tracy Chapman’s Purple Rabbit Music publishing company broke into the Hot 100 and Top Radio Airplay charts (ranking No. 7 and No. 10, respectively) for the first time, thanks to Luke Combs’ cover of her 1988 song “Fast Car.” This quarter, her market share as a publisher/songwriter grew even higher. Chapman finished the quarter as the top songwriter on all three charts, propelling Purple Rabbit Music to No. 5 on Top Radio Airplay and No. 6 on both Hot 100 Songs and Country Airplay.
But she wasn’t the only self-published songwriter to make the charts this quarter. As the sole writer of “Rich Men North of Richmond,” Oliver Anthony Music’s publishing company, Christopher Anthony Lunsford Pub Designee, placed at No. 8 on Hot 100 Songs with a 1.49% market share, surpassing such top 10 perennials as Downtown and Reservoir. Like Chapman, Anthony is the sole songwriter of his breakthrough song.
This is the first time that two independent songwriters have broken into the Hot 100 Songs chart at the same time.
Warner Chappell rose to No. 2 on the Hot 100 ranking for the first time in 19 quarters. Previously, it often ranked third or fourth. “Last Night” by Morgan Wallen, “Calm Down” by Rema and Selena Gomez, and 49 other Hot 100 Songs hits accounted for its strong showing of 18.18% of the market share. The publisher held steady in third place on the Top Radio Airplay chart with 15.87% of the market share, and ranked second on the Country Airplay chart with a 26.2% share.
Universal Music Publishing Group took second place on Top Radio Airplay — where its song placements increased to 52 from 49 in the second quarter — and third on Hot 100 Songs. Combs’ “Love You Anyway,” No. 3 on Country Airplay; “Cruel Summer”; and “Calm Down” were UMPG’s highest-ranked songs.
Kobalt held fast to No. 4 on both Top Radio Airplay and Hot 100 Songs but slid to No. 5 on Country Airplay behind BMG. The latter publisher’s share in Jelly Roll’s “Need a Favor” helped it edge past Kobalt’s 4.59% market share with 4.93%.
BMG and Big Machine Music both climbed in the ranks on the Country Airplay charts this quarter. BMG rose from fifth to fourth ranking, thanks to its share of 12 songs on the chart this quarter, including Jelly Roll’s “Need a Favor.” BMM climbed from eighth last quarter (2.57%) to seventh this quarter (2.97%), thanks in part to Luke Bryan’s “But I Got a Beer In My Hand.”
Concord finished 10th on Top Radio Airplay with 1.37%. That percentage might rise in the fourth quarter due to its acquisitions of Round Hill Music and Mojo Music & Media in September. If Concord’s third-quarter market share was combined with those of Round Hill and Pulse, which Concord also owns but lists separately, it would have finished at No. 5 on Top Radio Airplay with 4.96% and at No. 7 on Hot 100 Songs with 3.1%.
Rounding out the top 10, Reservoir fell to No. 8 on Top Radio Airplay with 1.82%, though it improved on its No. 7-ranked second-quarter share of 1.62%. It rounded out the Hot 100 Songs top 10 with 1.17%. Hipgnosis (1.76%) and Downtown (1.44%) finished at No. 9 on Top Radio Airplay and Hot 100 Songs, respectively.
Additional reporting by Ed Christman.
Concord announced the completion of its $468 million acquisition of the Round Hill Music Royalty Fund on Thursday (Nov. 2), officially completing the year’s biggest catalog deal. The deal includes over 150,000 songs, among them works by The Beatles and tunes recorded by Elvis Presley, Meatloaf, James Brown and Billie Holiday, but also marked a pivotal moment for publicly traded royalty funds and Concord’s scale of business.
Concord CEO Scott Valentine, who succeeded Scott Pascucci in February, spoke to Billboard about the deal, what it says about the state of the music royalties market and how Concord plans to deal with the headwinds that currently face the music industry.
On Oct. 31, you closed the acquisition of Round Hill Music Royalty Fund. Why was it attractive to Concord and what does it say about the state of the song catalog market?
When you look at the landscape of acquisitions of scale and quality, [Round Hill’s] assets had been on our radar for a while. Our view was that the stock price of the company wasn’t giving the appropriate fair value to what the assets were worth. Josh was one of the early proponents of the notion of music assets as financial assets. We have similar backgrounds, having started in investment banking. The quality of assets that Round Hill had accumulated was remarkable, in terms of the breadth, the genres and the ability for these assets to be used in film and television. There are Beatles songs in here for God’s sake. I’m referring to these things as assets. They’re works of art, really, that have stood the test of time from a revenue perspective.
You’ve indicated that this deal counters the broader narrative that the music royalty market has deflated over the last year or so. Why?
Our deal proves that from an institutional perspective the underlying value of copyrights is still there. We’ve just gone through the first-ever cycle of price increases at the DSPs. It seems, knock on wood, that the impact on churn has been within the tolerance levels [of customers]. You have continued growth in countries around the world that have never in the history of the music business been significant sources of legitimate revenue. We are now expecting fairly regular price increases [by the DSPs] in mature markets. So, if you believe in the long-term trends that suggest the value of music should increase over the mid-term. Then, as institutional investors, it comes down to what is your time horizon?
But with Concord acquiring one publicly listed music royalty fund, and Hipgnosis investors voting to possibly wind up the Hipgnosis Songs Fund, doesn’t this spell the end of the publicly traded music royalty fund experiment?
The story isn’t written yet on Hipgnosis. Their shareholders and board still have time to [explore options]. The thing that strikes me about the commentary around Hipgnosis has been the fundamental belief by shareholders in the underlying value of the assets it owns. Shareholders rejected the sale of those assets because they seemed to fundamentally believe the value of those assets was greater than [what they could get in that) proposed in the sale.
The question is whether a publicly traded fund is or isn’t the right vehicle to access returns. We’ve tapped the asset-backed securities space and have done very well. There is certainly private investment happening and it continues to happen. I still see significant institutional interest in this space. We are still getting inbound requests from artists, managers, etcetera, asking us to look at assets for sale. The underlying market for assets is robust. Because interest rates have gone up, the high end of the price scale has come down. But there is still plenty of activity where the prices make sense.
How do you view Concord’s creative mission and direction?
We built the company over time around our catalog. We have an extraordinary catalog of works that span over a century. Because we’ve been financed by pension funds and institutional investors, the cash flow of the catalog and investing in catalogs has been part of how we grow the company. But I’m keenly focused on the notion that we are not a fund. We are a fully functional organic music company. You can’t be a music company without creating new art and discovering new artists and exposing those new artists to the world. They will create the next remarkable piece of art that 50 years from now people talk about buying. Concord has the scale now and the relationships to be a leader in catalog acquisition and exploitation but also front-line investment. And on the music publishing side, we have really grown that business over the last three to four years. We have the writers of some of the largest songs in the world. One of ours co-wrote most of the last two Harry Styles records. On the recorded side, we’ve always been in more niche genres — jazz, bluegrass, adult contemporary. We have not been in the front-line pop business or R&B or hip-hop. Those genres have always been the domain of the majors. It’s because it takes a significant amount of marketing expenditure and recording…. That said, we’re now the size that we can compete occasionally to get a few artists in those genres. I think it’s important to grow that business.
We have seen layoffs hit different music companies over the last 18 months. Do you feel your team is in good shape? Are you looking to make any pivots in strategy or structure?
From a senior exec position, [former chief label officer] Tom Whalley stepped back, so we had to find a replacement. That’s why we got Tom Becci. Because he is taking on this new role, there is a little bit of tweaking that will go on — the integration of frontline and catalog. How people report up through the recorded music division and how people spend their time may take some tweaking. But it’s a structural shift —reporting changes. I feel like we’ve always thought about the business and growth in a careful way so that we hopefully did not over hire or put people in situations where, if there was a retrenchment in the business, we had challenges. I don’t see the need for wholesale changes or layoffs in the near term.
What is the thinking behind putting frontline and catalog under the same roof?
From our perspective, the issue with catalog versus frontline is you’re really talking about a relationship with an artist. If we have an artist on one of our frontline labels who also has catalog, having two different divisions working that artists’ life work creates some weird, unintended division when the artist is hoping to have one team of people. So, it’s an alignment to get into the way the artist is thinking about their own work. There is an industry tendency to spend a lot of work on an artist’s latest album for good reason. But in the world we live in today, an artist’s older works can be reactivated very quickly in tandem with the release of a new album. We hired Tom largely because he’s had a little bit of everything. He has worked in catalog, frontline at Universal, in management. He’s got perspective from all these different angles.
What is happening with Concord’s theatrical division?
We own Rodgers and Hammerstein. We rep 30,000 theatrical rights. It’s a sneaky, large part of our business. It’s a very interesting corner of our business that we’ve built through acquisitions in the last five years. We did those acquisitions [starting in] 2018, and the challenge has been that a lot of our business is licensing to schools and universities that were impacted during Covid. We were also a producer in Hadestown, and an investor in Some Like It Hot. We are continuing to invest in new shows on Broadway and repping works that are going out on tour. There is a fair amount of investment going on there.
What are revenues going to come in at this year?
I think we’re going to come in around the mid-$600 million range. We’ve been growing pretty consistently.
How much debt does the company carry?
The ABS was $1.8 billion and then we just did the separate tranche with Apollo for $500 million. We have a revolver as well with a consortium of banks. I don’t remember that balance, but we did not use up all of our dry powder [on the Round Hill deal]. One of the reasons we wanted to do the initial bond offering with Apollo was that we thought there was an opportunity to go back to the market when we wanted to finance acquisitions. We think there is going to be a rinse and repeat component to our access to that market.
Round Hill Music Royalty Fund’s shareholders voted on Wednesday to sell the fund’s assets to U.S.-based music company Concord in a deal that values the company at $469 million. Of the 69% of Round Hill Music shareholders who were eligible to vote, 99% voted to approve the sale, which fund chairman Robert Naylor called a […]
Concord has acquired the publishing catalog of Mojo Music & Media, a catalog that includes over 30,000 works. Founded in 2018 by Mark Fried, Peter Shane and Alan Wallis, Mojo Music & Media’s holdings include portions of songs recorded by REO Speedwagon, KISS, Cheap Trick, Duran Duran, Earth Wind & Fire and more.
The acquisition comes just after Concord announced that it made a recommended bid to buy Round Hill Music Royalty Fund Limited.
Since its founding, Mojo Music & Media has grown quickly, competing with more established competitors for evergreen catalogs. In 2019, the company partnered with Crestline Investors, Inc. to fund further acquisitions. Soon, it had bought more than 40 catalogs.
Catalogs in the Mojo Music & Media portfolio include: HoriPro Entertainment (REO Speedwagon, Kiss, Jerry Reed), Emerald Forest (Sophie B. Hawkins, Brownstone, Lita Ford), Rick Nielson (Cheap Trick), Warren Cuccurullo (Missing Persons, Duran Duran), Bob Morrison (“Lookin’ For Love”), Sharon Vaughn (“My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys”), Larry Gatlin (“All The Gold In California”), D.L. Byron (“Shadows Of The Night”), Jeffrey Cohen (“Freeway Of Love”), Earth Wind & Fire’s Al McKay (“September,” “Best Of My Love”), English Beat and General Public’s Dave Wakeling (“Save It For Later,” “Tenderness”), Jordan Reynolds (writer of Dan + Shay hits “Tequila,” “Speechless,” and “10,000 Hours”), Jacknife Lee (Taylor Swift, Snow Patrol, and Kodaline) and the estates of Johnny Burke (“Misty”), Bernie Wayne (“Blue Velvet”) and Johnny Russell (“Act Naturally”).
My nearly 30-year adventure in music publishing has always been about surrounding myself with the greatest songwriters, getting them paid, keeping them inspired, and elevating the power of their songs in pop culture so they vibrate forever,” says Mark Fried, Mojo’s Co-Founder and CEO. “Concord has been on the same mission since its founding, and my partners and I feel like we’ve come full circle working with [Concord’s Chief Business Development Officer] Steve Salm, whom I’ve known and respected since his first days in the business, and other old friends at Concord to bring our catalogs together. I feel a deep responsibility to the artists, songs, and legacies we represent and I’m excited to see them continue to prosper in the hands of such capable and passionate caretakers.”
“We are delighted to have supported Mojo through their successful ramp up and aggregation of their catalogue. All aspects of our involvement with Mark and team have been outstanding. It is a great example of our desire to use our capital to build valuable asset platforms,” said Michael Guy, chief investment iofficer of Crestline Europe.
Steve Salm, Concord’s chief business development officer, remarked, “Mark Fried is a true original who’s repeatedly seen the value in songs and catalogs well before market trends, always putting songwriters first. Over the last several decades, he’s built two premier independent catalogs with Mojo here and Spirit Music prior, winning the trust of some of the most legendary songwriters and artists. With Mojo, Mark, Pete, and Alan have assembled a stellar collection of incredible hits spanning genres, eras, and territories. The Mojo catalog is a perfect fit with Concord’s catalogs, and we’re honored by the trust they’ve now put in us.”
Concord was represented by Ritholz Levy Fields LLP (Adam Ritholz, Cody Brown, John Brill, Gillian Sloane, Amanda Inglesh, and Jason Barth), and by DLA Piper, Rob Sherman. Shot Tower Capital acted as exclusive financial advisor to Mojo. Mojo was represented by Reed Smith LLP as legal counsel.
Concord, under the name Alchemy Copyrights, has agreed to acquire the share capital of Round Hill Music Royalty Fund Ltd in a proposed deal jointly announced on Friday that values the rights in the fund at worth nearly $469 million.
If approved, Concord would acquire the music rights that sit in the publicly-listed Round Hill Music Royalty Fund, which includes 51 catalogs and roughly 150,000 songs by artists like Alice In Chains, Bonnie Tyler, Bush, Bruno Mars, Céline Dion, Lady A, Louis Armstrong, The Offspring, Carrie Underwood, The Supremes, Wilson Pickett and Whitesnake.
Launched in 2010, Round Hill Music was among the first catalog funds to raise money from instititutional investors to acquire and administer song catalogs. But since its November 2022 listing on the London Stock Exchange in November 2020, Round Hill Music Royalty Fund Ltd. has, like its peers Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd., struggled with a declining stock price this year as high inflation and interest rates have pressured alternative investments.
News of the Round Hill-Concord deal,reported earlier by Reuters, sent the fund’s stock up nearly 65% on Friday to $1.13 a share from its previous close of $0.69.
Under the proposed deal terms, Round Hill shareholders would receive $1.15 in cash per share, which values the ordinary share capital of the company at roughly $468.8 million.
While Concord’s proposed cash offer represents a premium price, it still represents a discount of approximately 11.5% to Round Hill Music Fund’s economic net asset value per share of $1.30.
In 2022, Round Hill reported its overall group revenues rose 32% year over year to $32.4 million and its portfolio’s fair value rose 13% $602.6 million.
The deal will be put to a shareholder vote at Round HIll’s nex general meeting on Oct. 18 and needs 75% of votes to pass. A group of shareholders led by Josh Gruss, Round Hill Music co-founder and CEO, who own roughly 33% of the fund’s shares have already signaled they will vote in favor of the deal.
“The Board is pleased to present this opportunity for liquidity at a premium to both the share price and the IPO price, as well as at a narrow discount to economic net asset value per share,” commented Robert Naylor, chairman of RHM. “The recommended offer represents excellent value for shareholders.”
Concord CEO Bob Valentine said that since its 2020 IPO, RHM has built an “impressive portfolio” of songs that “stand the test of time” and asserted that his company is “well positioned to maximise the value of this portfolio for all of the songwriters and artists within it.”
He added, “This offer enables RHM shareholders to realise their investment in the business at an attractive premium to the undisturbed share price, while the transaction provides an opportunity to create value for all stakeholders.”
Pulse Music Group, which already houses music publishing and artist management arms, has started Pulse Records with Concord. Pulse Music Group co-CEOs Scott Cutler and Josh Abraham, along with Ashley Calhoun, president and head of creative, will lead the label, which will be part of Universal Music Group-distributed Concord Label Group.
The deal builds on a partnership between Pulse and Concord started in 2020 when Concord’s music publishing division acquired a stake in Pulse Music Group to form a joint venture that included Concord administering Pulse’s catalog and future signings.
Pulse is in talks with a number of acts to join its label roster. “We have been looking to grow our Pulse Music Group brand into the records space for a while now. Given our background as producers and songwriters in our own right, we bring a unique perspective to working in the label space—but we knew we had to get our footing right,” said Abraham and Cutler in a joint statement. “Now with the 15-year success of our publishing division, a company we have built from scratch, we are surrounded by the very best in emerging talent and a highly curated roster.”
The pair added, “With Pulse Records we will continue to set a very high artistic bar. In addition to launching emerging talent, we have plans to work with artists that helped to redefine genres with whom we have created very strong relationships over the years that will soon be coming out of their existing deals… It takes the right business partners to build a business like this, and we couldn’t be happier to have the backing of Concord and the support and business acumen of its senior leadership team as we continue to grow Pulse Music Group and launch Pulse Records.”
Bob Valentine, Concord’s incoming CEO (he replaces outgoing CEO Scott Pascucci, effective July 1), added, “Scott, Josh, Ashley, and the team at Pulse have been a great collaborator with Concord in publishing some of the highest charting songs in the world. Globally recognized as one of the leading frontline creative teams and first-class incubators for culturally relevant music, Pulse Music Group is a company that Concord continues to greatly admire, and we couldn’t ask for more exceptional business partners as we work to launch Pulse Records.”
Pulse Records’ growing staff also includes senior vp/head of marketing Lauryn Caldwell, who joins from mtheory, where she was vp of marketing and artist partnerships. Sarah Ahmed, who was previously senior director of marketing at Atlantic Records, comes aboard as vp of marketing. Tazita Makuria, who joined Pulse in 2022, has been named vp of creative for both the publishing and label divisions, while former Almo Records exec Bel Masbahi will serve as creative director of A&R for both divisions.
Pulse Music Group, which Cutler, Abraham and songwriter Anne Preven started in 2007, has been on a hot streak lately. Isaac “Zac” De Boni & Michael “Finatik” Mulé (who goes by FNZ) took home song of the year honors at BMI Pop Awards for The Kid LAROI & Justin Bieber’s “Stay,” while Tyler Johnson won the Ivor Novello Award for co-writing for Harry Styles’ “Stay.” Angel Lopez co-wrote “First Class” by Jack Harlow, while Gregory “Aldae” Hein co-wrote Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers.”