Sony Music is in talks with Queen band members and the estate of Freddie Mercury to buy Queen's music catalogue for $1 billion USD.
👉 Background: Sony Music is the second largest of the big three record companies, behind Universal Music Group. It is the record label behind mega artists like Celine Dion, ACDC, Doja Cat, Lil Nas X and many many more.
👉 What happened: Earlier this year, Sony acquired a 50% interest in Michael Jackson’s music catalogue for $600m USD. But now, Sony Music is in talks with Queen band members and the estate of Freddie Mercury to buy Queen's music catalogue for $1 billion USD.
👉 What else: In recent years there has been a frenzy to acquire music catalogues. In fact, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Justin Timberlake and Beyonce have all generated hundreds of millions over the past few years by selling all or a portion of their music.
💡 Move over shares, bonds and property - there’s a new asset class in town - the music catalogue.
💡 Back in the day, songwriting catalogues generally sold for about 8-12 times the revenue generated from songs. But now, we’re talking 15 to 25 times because of the growth of streaming platforms like Spotify.
💡 In fact, Queen Productions reported revenues of $52m USD in the year ended September 2022 - so $1 billion USD is about 19 times their revenue. And with the growth of music royalties in TV shows, films and video games, this has the chance to grow even further.
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