Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s weekly round-up – where we make sure you caught the five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their income and reduce their touring costs.
Music rights acquisitions were big news this past week, as they often have been in recent years. If reports are to be believed, Primary Wave is on the verge of striking a music rights deal with the Notorious B.I.G. estate.
In other rights acquisitions news, we learned this week that Raven Capital Management and Aquarian Holdings have joined forces to launch Raven Music Partners, a new music investment fund with an initial $250 million in capital to acquire catalogs.
Elsewhere, Universal Music Group reported its full-year 2024 earnings, showing recorded music subscription revenues up 9.1% YoY, to USD $5 billion for the year.
While UMG celebrates its revenue haul, YouTube is celebrating a big subscriber milestone: The platform added 25 million YouTube Music and Premium subscribers over the past 12 months, bringing the total to 125 million.
Finally, we got word this week that Rimas Entertainment, the home of Bad Bunny, has acquired a “significant” stake in Dale Play Records, the label behind superstar producer and DJ Bizarrap.
Here’s what happened this week…
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1) NOTORIOUS B.I.G. ESTATE NEARS $100M+ MUSIC RIGHTS DEAL WITH PRIMARY WAVE (REPORT)
Primary Wave is reportedly close to acquiring a significant stake in Notorious B.I.G.’s music catalog plus name and likeness rights in a deal that could be valued between $100 million and $150 million.
That’s according to The Hollywood Reporter, which reported on February 28, citing sources, that the deal is expected to close within weeks.
Publishing rights to the rapper’s catalog are reportedly on the table for $100 million, as are master rights for a slightly higher price of an additional $30 million to $50 million.
However, s source told the news outlet that the final price may be in the eight figures, not nine…
2) UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP’S RECORDED MUSIC SUBSCRIPTION STREAMING REVENUES TOPPED $5BN IN 2024, UP 9.1% YOY
Universal Music Group‘s latest FY results were released on Thursday (March 6).
Within UMG’s financial figures for the 2024 fiscal/calendar year lies this pearl: the company’s recorded music subscription revenues hit EUR €4.624 billion annually, up 9.1% YoY.
That represented the equivalent of USD $5.00 billion, according to average exchange rates for the year as per IRS data.
Meanwhile, Q4 2024 (the three months to end of December), UMG’s subscription streaming revenues from recorded music were up 9.0% YoY, to EUR €1.227 billion (USD $1.33bn)…
3) EX-GUGGENHEIM EXEC’S AQUARIAN HOLDINGS BACKS NEW $250M MUSIC RIGHTS JV WITH RAVEN CAPITAL
A new music investment fund with deep-pocketed backers has made itself known.
Raven Music Partners has launched with what MBW understands to be an initial investment of USD $250 million to acquire music rights. The fund’s longer-term goal is to own $1 billion worth of music-related copyrights.
The fund is a joint venture between Raven Capital Management and Aquarian Holdings. The latter firm is an investment company founded by ex-Guggenheim Partners executive Rudy Sahay with $22 billion in assets under management.
Commenting on Aquarian’s expansion in the music M&A space, Sahay explained in a statement on March 5 that his company “recognized a compelling opportunity in a crowded music royalties sector, attracted by the predictable cash flow and the uncorrelated nature of music rights to broader macroeconomic trends”…
Photo: Eric Rojas
4) BAD BUNNY LABEL RIMAS ENTERTAINMENT ACQUIRES ‘SIGNIFICANT’ STAKE IN DALE PLAY RECORDS
Rimas Entertainment, best known as the home of Latin music superstar Bad Bunny, has acquired a ‘significant’ stake in Dale Play Records.
Formed in 2018 by Federico Lauría, Argentina-based Dale Play releases music by superstar producer and DJ Bizarrap, whose Bzrp Music Sessions with various Latin Music artists are streaming megahits.
According to the official announcement on March 6, the deal was “made possible thanks to the support of Rob Stringer (Chairman, Sony Music Group), Afo Verde, and the entire Sony Music family, as well as Brad Navin, Jason Pascal, and the team at The Orchard“.
The press release added: “Their collaboration has been instrumental in bringing this partnership to fruition, and their trust underscores the significance of this new chapter in the industry…”
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5) YOUTUBE MUSIC AND PREMIUM HITS 125 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS, ADDING 2M SUBS PER MONTH ON AVERAGE OVER THE PAST YEAR
Universal Music Group‘s Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge confirmed on UMG’s Q3 earnings call at the end of October that YouTube Music “has become one of the fastest-growing players in subscription”.
Now we know exactly how fast.
The platform, which also operates the TikTok rival Shorts, has surpassed the significant milestone of 125 million paid YouTube Music and Premium subscribers worldwide, including trials.
The milestone means that YouTube added 25 million subscribers over the past 12 months – which works out to slightly over 2 million subs per month on average – since its last subscriber announcement of 100 million in February 2024…
MBW’s Weekly Round-Up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their income and reduce their touring costs.Music Business Worldwide
