Biggest Music Business Deals of 2025: Taylor Swift’s Masters, More

The asset-backed security (ABS) has become old hat for Concord, which raised $1.8 billion in 2022 and $500 million in 2023 through ABS deals. In its latest ABS, a series of five-year, seven-year and 10-year senior notes are backed by a catalog of more than 1.3 million music copyrights, including songs by The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, Pink Floyd and Rihanna. The proceeds were used to repay $1.65 billion owed from the 2022 ABS and refinance a separate note. CEO Bob Valentine called ABS deals “a vital part of our growth strategy” by lowering the company’s cost of capital while allowing it to expand its global capabilities. The Nashville-based company has been on an acquisition streak in recent years, having purchased Round Hill Music Royalty Fund, digital distributor Stem and the music catalogs of Daddy Yankee, Mojo Music & Media and Ed Sheeran collaborator Johnny McDaid, among others. 

Pophouse Entertainment, the Swedish investment firm behind the London-based virtual show ABBA Voyage, is No. 2 on the list after raising 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to invest in music rights that can be the foundation for entertainment experiences. The fundraise consisted of 1 billion euros ($1.08 billion) through a private equity fund and 200 million euros ($216 million) through co-investment vehicles in which investors put money into specific Pophouse projects. By the time the announcement was made, Pophouse had already deployed 30% of the fund in partnerships related to the acquisition of rights to KISS, Cyndi Lauper, Avicii and Swedish House Mafia.  

Warner Music’s July announcement of a $1.2 billion joint venture with private equity firm Bain Capital wasn’t a surprise. A year earlier, the company had hired a Goldman Sachs investment banker, Michael Ryan Southern, to help boost its catalog acquisitions. The partnership with Bain gives Warner Music financial help to buy high-profile music rights while keeping the assets and liabilities off its balance sheet. While each party holds a 50% stake in the Delaware-based LLC, Bain is guaranteed a preferred return on invested equity before Warner Music earns a return on its investments, according to Warner Music’s Nov. 20 10-K filing. Warner Music will handle marketing, distribution and rights administration, while both companies will jointly identify and purchase catalogs. Following the transaction, the joint venture secured a $500 million credit facility to help fund catalog acquisitions.  

Concert promotion giant Live Nation announced in July that it would acquire an additional 24% stake in Mexican promoter OCESA from its minority owner, Grupo CIE, for $646 million, bringing its ownership stake to 75%. The transaction was completed on Aug. 19 and cost $651.5 million, according to the company’s SEC filing. Alejandro Soberón, founder and CEO of both CIE and OCESA, is set to remain OCESA’s CEO through 2032. At the same time, an agreement that gives Live Nation the ability to acquire the remaining 25% in OCESA was shifted to 2032. OCESA has been an integral part of Live Nation’s expansion in Latin America, tripling the number of fans attending their shows in Mexico since 2019, CEO Michael Rapino said in a statement in July. OCESA was ranked No. 3 on the Billboard Boxscore 2025 midyear report behind Live Nation and AEG.  

HarbourView Equity Partners’ second ABS raised $500 million — the same as its first ABS a year earlier — through an issuance managed by KKR. The money will be used to invest in “evergreen intellectual property” in media, sports and entertainment, CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares said in a statement. Since the deal was announced, HarbourView acquired a majority stake in the catalog of metal band Slipknot and a stake in singer Kelly Clarkson’s catalog. The company also partnered with Hit-Boy for the artist/producer’s future titles. HarbourView’s vast catalog also includes Wiz Khalifa, Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie and more. 

Less than a year after hiring a top music investor from Goldman Sachs, Warner Music bolstered its publishing catalog by acquiring a majority stake in Tempo Music. Warner Music launched Tempo Music in 2019, with most of the money coming from Providence Equity Partners, which retained a minority stake. Tempo Music’s catalog includes many Warner Chappell Music songwriters, such as Twenty One Pilots’ Tyler Joseph, Wiz Khalifa, Florida Georgia Line and country songwriter Shane McAnally. The deal included a stable of artists and songwriters such as the Jonas Brothers, Korn, Philip Lawrence (Bruno Mars’ “24k Magic” and “Uptown Funk”) and Frank Ocean collaborator Malay. Following the transaction, Warner Music holds approximately $311 million of asset-backed securities issued by Tempo Music and backed by certain of its music rights.

Taylor Swift’s masters from her six-album tenure at Big Machine Label Group have formed one of the music industry’s most high-profile soap operas of the last decade. Rights to the albums first switched hands in 2019 when Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings purchased Big Machine Label Group for $300 million. Braun’s ownership of the masters raised the ire of Swift and her legion of fans. But Braun flipped Swift’s recordings in 2020, offloading them to Shamrock Capital for an estimated $300 million. Swift immediately voiced her displeasure, writing in an open letter that she refused to work with Shamrock because of the firm’s connection with Braun. 

The singer got the last laugh, though, famously re-recording four of the six Big Machine albums as Taylor’s Version releases, selling millions of copies and amassing billions of streams, encouraging radio not to play the originals and licensing her versions — not the originals — for advertisements, trailers, TV shows and movies. When Swift purchased the Big Machine masters in May for an estimated $360 million, she was exuberant, writing, “All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs to me.”

Recognition Group, the company formerly known as Hipgnosis Songs Management, took the ABS route for the fourth time — the first under the Recognition banner — when it raised $327 million through Lyra 2025-1. That ABS was the follow-up to Lyra 2024-1 and Lyra 2024-2, which raised $1.47 billion. Lyra 2025-1 added assets worth $341 million to the Lyra catalog.  

The leading music AI platform Suno raised $250 million from a group of investors led by Menlo Ventures, to give the two-year-old company a $2.45 billion valuation. The series C fundraise, which included NVIDIA’s venture capital arm NVentures, as well as Suno’s existing investors Lightspeed and Matrix, will be used to add offerings so users can create, stream and share AI music without ever leaving Suno’s platform. Mostly male users aged 25-34 are already contributing to the creation of a Spotify’s worth of songs every two weeks on Suno, according to its investor pitch deck obtained by Billboard, driving annual recurring revenue of $140 million, as of Sept. 30. Suno struggles to retain users, with a majority leaving the platform after 30 days.  

Cinq Music parent company GoDigital said it secured $230 million in financing in November from Bank of America, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, East West Bank, First Horizon, Fifth Third and Flag Star. The GoDigital Music division, where Cinq sits, owns certain master recording and publishing rights to songs by Jason Derulo, T.I. and Daddy Yankee through its acquisition of the Beluga Heights record label. GoDigital plans to use the money to buy more catalogs in the reggaetón, Música Mexicana, Afrobeats, K-pop and country genres.