The New York-based investment company teamed up with Dundee, the family office of former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Partner Stephen Handel, to acquire the KMR Music Royalties II portfolio, featuring more than 62,000 music copyrights in a variety of genres, for approximately $1.1 billion.
Per the terms of the deal, West Hollywood-based Kobalt Music Publishing, a subsidiary of New York-based Kobalt Music Group, will continue to manage the works listed in the portfolio under a multiyear agreement.
The transaction was completed by Chord Music Partners, a platform established by KKR and Dundee Partners that will also contain other music assets the company purchased in the last year, such as the reported $200 million acquisition of a majority stake in OneRepublic songwriter Ryan Tedder’s 500-song catalog in March 2021.
“We are thrilled to purchase this diverse collection of iconic songs,” Jenny Box, partner at KKR, said in a statement. “We look forward to investing in the success of this music and working collaboratively with Kobalt and the artists and songwriters who created it.”
In March 2021, KKR announced a partnership with Berlin-based music company BMG to acquire and manage music rights. KKR currently manages $429 billion in assets, per second-quarter earnings released in August 2021. The company has previously invested in music-centric companies, such as Nashville, Tenn.-based musical instrument manufacturer Gibson Brands Inc. and DJ equipment company Alpha Theta Corp., formerly known as Pioneer DJ.
Kobalt Music Publishing represents over 600 publishers, more than 25,000 songwriters and over 700,000 songs.
The deal follows another by Kobalt Capital Limited in November 2020 in which the company sold a separate catalog of 33,000 copyrights to London-based Hipgnosis Songs Fund for $323 million.
Despite these divestitures, Kobalt Capital Limited founder Willard Ahdritz told Variety Oct. 19 that these deals are a prelude to expand its publishing division as well as the American Music Rights Association, a “global digital collection society” it owns that licenses music to more than 200 territories outside the United States.
