Sell on you crazy diamond: Bidders flock for Pink Floyd’s music catalogue
Yet another suitor has joined the race to snap up Pink Floyd’s music rights catalogue in an estimated £400m bid.
As reported by Music Business Worldwide (MBW), US music publishing firm Concord is the latest to join the battle for the famous rock band’s tunes.Concord notably snapped up indie band Imagine Dragons’ back catalogue in 2020 for an estimated $100m.
The noise around Pink Floyd started last week after the Financial Times reported that US private equity group Blackstone, via Hipgnosis Song Management, was eyeing up the catalogue of hits, including hit songs like “Money” and “Another Brick in the Wall”.
Hipgnosis was founded by Elton John’s former manager Merck Mercuriadi and currently holds the catalogues of Leonard Cohen and Justin Timberlake to name but a few. Hipgnosis declined to comment on these reports.
Sources told the FT that KKR-backed BMG, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group and Primary Wave were also in the running to nab the rights.
MBW revealed this week that the rights under negotiation are focused on the band’s entire master rights collection, as well as neighbouring and ‘name and likeness’ rights. It is understood the deal does not include the music publishing rights at this stage.
In practice, this means bidders are fighting over the rights to the original sound recording as opposed to the rights in a musical composition, words, and music.
Music expert from Enders Analysis Alice Enders said that while master recordings are still valuable, US non-digital radio play does not pay royalties for masters: thereby undermining the full financial gains on the deal.
Music icons Lionel Richie, Bob Dylan and Sting have all recently sold their top hits for millions of dollars.
While this Pink Floyd deal could break records, Executive Director at Coutts Matthew Lazenby told City PM that funds now regularly offer to acquire music rights from artists for 15 to 16 times the annual revenue they receive from the assets