Buoyant publishing sector offering indies 12 times what they’re worth, total exceeds $1 billion

This year will go down as one where a top tier of independent music publishers quietly put themselves up for sale,for a current total of over US$1 billion – reflecting the buoyancy and growing sync potential of the publishing sector.

More importantly, rival larger publishers and other brands are willing to pay more – sometimes by 12 times more – than they are worth as a result.

Earlier this year, Carlin Music was supposed to be attracting $250 million for its 100,000 titles.

These included the overseas representation of AC/DC as well as songs as Louis Armstrong’s’What A Wonderful World’, Buggles’’Video Killed The Radio Star’ (co-written by Bruce Woodley of The Seekers), Elvis Presley’s’That’s Alright Mama’, Yes’ ’Owner Of A Lonely Heart’, Peggy Lee’s’Fever’ and Hank Ballard’s ’The Twist’.

The catalogue also includes the musical scores of Cabaret, Fiddler On The Roof, Company and Follies. Reported suitors include Sony /ATV and Concord.

Canada’s Ole is going through a recapitalisation process after hiring RBC Capital Markets, following its main investor, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund’s decision to cash out.

Ole, which set up in 2004, therefore has the choice of finding another main investor or selling out.

It is speculatively asking for at least $650 million and is looking for a valuation of $800 million.

Its catalogue includes 50,000 titles (including Timbaland, Steve Tyler, Rush, Dubmatix and Billy Falcon) and 60,000 hours of TV/film music of all genres.

Billboard this week reported that a third independent publisher, SONGS Music, is also quietly eyeing suitors who are willing to pay at least $160 million.

Last year, the company turned over a profit of $8 million, and expected to hit $12 million in 2017.

SONGS’s star signings (globally or for some territories only) include Lorde, The Weeknd, Diplo, Major Lazer, MØ, Nelly, St Paul & The Broken Bones, DJ Mustard, RL Grime and Q-Tip.

Sources told Billboard that SONGS has hired LionTree Advisors to help shop it around, and probably because it’s already had offers, and wants to see who else is offering anything more.

The magazine says that if there are any offers, it would have come “from either Sony Music Entertainment CEO Rob Stringer or Warner Music CEO Steven Cooper because both covet SONGS A&R guru (Ron) Perry, (one of the three co-founders of SONGS and who serves as its President) to head up, respectively, Columbia Records and Warner Bros. Records.”

As to be expected, none of the publishers or their suitors have cared to comment on speculation.

But an indication of money being offered took place two months ago when US company Concord, fast becoming one of the big players alongside BMG and Kobalt, bought out Imagem.

The amount paid was between $500 million and $600 million. The acquisition of Imagem’s 250,000 titles (including Phil Collins, Daft Punk and Mark Ronson) gave Concord a total catalogue of 380,000

It was acclaimed as one of the biggest acquisitions ever in music business history, and close to the $750 million paid by Sony Corp in August 2016 for the 50% of Sony/ATV it didn’t own.

Let’s see if the independent publishers who are on the market, match such figures.