Music Mania: Why music catalogues are a booming asset class

The sudden uptick in private equity andspecialist investor interest in the music industry is nothing short of astonishing.

As recently as a few yearsago, the entire business world had written off the Music Industry as dead, with online piracy acting as the chief culprit. However, in the past several months,record amounts of money have poured into the purchasing of song catalogues,driving deal values to previously unheard-of levels.

In October 2021 alone, Blackstone, KKR and Apollo collectively poured over $3bn into buying song copyrights - either throughthe direct purchase of copyrights to song catalogues or via investment in new specialist funds who invest in music catalogues.  The world’s biggest rights-holder, UniversalMusic Group, was listed on the Euronext in Amsterdam in September 2021 at an astonishing $54.3 billion valuation, while the market value of rival Warner MusicGroup rose to a decade high $22.6 billion.

With valuations at all-time highs and heightened fears the market is overheated and due a correction, let us examine what is behind the  current boom in the music catalogue industry.

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What we dive into in the full report:

1. Why music catalogues are booming
2. What a music catalogue is
3. How it generates revenue
4. How investors should value catalogues
5. Why now is the right time to invest
6. How investors can gain exposure to music catalogues