In December, Influence Media Partners, the music investing company backed by BlackRock and the Warner Music Group, joined the growing music industry trend of using asset-backed securitization to finance acquisitions and operations by raising about $360 million through a private placement in a deal lead by Goldman Sachs, sources say.
Besides the Influence Media deal, the waning months of 2024 also saw Concord raising $850 million through its third asset-backed bond offering run by Apollo Global Management in October; while Blackstone led a $1.47 billion securitization for its Hipgnosis Song Asset company. In each deal, the bonds and notes are collateralized by the music assets and income streams of the respective companies. The offerings from Concord and Hipgnosis have public filings with the appropriate regulatory agencies, but the Influence Media offering, as a private placement, does not have to file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
As interest rates rise, asset-backed securities (ABS) are expected to become increasingly popular funding vehicles for music companies because they have fixed, five-year interest rates. In the past, Concord CEO Bob Valentine has compared these securitizations to fixed, low-interest-rate loans.
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Influence Media co-managing partner Lynn Hazan, the former CFO for Epic Records, worked with BlackRock executives on the deal, according to sources.
Influence Media, which was founded in 2019, has since bought stakes in some 30 music catalogs, and in early 2022 received additional funding to the tune of $750 million provided by BlackRock and the Warner Music Group. The acquired catalogs include music by Enrique Iglesias, Future, Logic, Julia Michaels, Ali Tamposi, Tainy and Harry Styles collaborator Tyler Johnson. The new funding is expected to be deployed in buying more music catalog assets.
Initially, it looked like the Influence Media Partners asset-backed securities offering was slow in coming together as bond investors looked at the Concord and Hipgnosis offerings, but in the end, the Influence offering — which also had Truist as the co-structuring and co-placement agent — came together nicely for the New York-based music investment company, attracting funding from about a half-dozen investors, sources say.
