Megan Thee Stallion, Young Thug or Mary J. Blige

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prominent hip-hop artist 300 entertainment has some to offer.

From now on the label belongs to the portfolio of the Warner Music Group.

As both parties announced on Thursday evening German time, the third-largest music company in the world behind Universal and Sony Music is taking over the label founded in 2012 by, among others, Kevin Liles and Lyor Cohen, today's head of music at Google.

Benjamin Fischer

Editor in business.

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Liles should continue to lead 300 Entertainment.

He will also head Warner's Elektra Music group in the future.

Labels such as Fueled By Ramen or Roadrunner Records operate under this.

Financial details were not disclosed.

However, the Bloomberg news agency reported in October that the label executives are looking for a buyer and are targeting a price of around $ 400 million.

According to industry media, it ultimately came down to a sum of this magnitude.

Warner looked at Bowie's writing rights

Warner's flagship label, Atlantic Records, had been responsible for distributing the indie label since 300 Entertainment was founded. In this respect, the bid for the company that returned to the stock exchange in June 2020 seems logical. Especially since Warner Music recently raised $ 535 million for acquisitions through new debt. Part of it should be planned for the acquisition of the rights to David Bowie's texts and compositions. In the space here is a price of around $ 200 million. An agreement with the heirs of the artist, who died in 2016, is still pending.

In the course of the upswing in the music industry, which has been fueled primarily by streaming and has continued for years, not only industry giants but also financial investors are increasingly interested in lucrative music catalogs.

Against the background of the current low interest rates, they promise stable long-term income, which should be increased through further growth in streaming and the marketing of music in other, primarily digital channels such as Facebook, TikTok and Peloton.

Warner in particular has been active in gaming for a long time and even holds a minority stake in the popular Roblox video game platform.

Springsteen surpasses Dylan

The rush of financial investors such as KKR, Blackstone or Apollo Global Management in addition to buyers who have been active for a long time, such as the Hipgnosis fund or smaller publishers such as Primary Wave and Round Hill Music, are driving up prices. In addition to catalogs of individual artists, larger packages are only too happy to be bought. In mid-October, for example, KKR took over a catalog with around 62,000 rights to works from Kobalt Capital, the investment arm of the British music company Kobalt Music, for around $ 1.1 billion. With the acquisition of Entertainment One Music in April, Blackstone also received the catalog of the notorious rap label Death Row Records, as well as the folk label Dualtone, a management and publishing department.

With a view to sales of individual artists, the biggest deal so far has just been made by Sony Music. Bruce Springsteen has sold the rights to his collected recordings as well as his authoring rights, i.e. those to the underlying texts and compositions, to the number two in the music industry. Sony confirmed the deal on Thursday evening after the industry magazine “Billboard” and the “New York Times” reported on the agreement. However, one interesting detail was missing from the reports - namely, Sony's publishing division has teamed up with the US holding Eldridge Industries to buy the author's rights. Details were not given on this (as well as on the purchase price). Elridge had already bought part of the catalog of authors of the US band The Killers in November 2020.

In the case of Sony and Springsteen, too, both sides knew each other well: Springsteen has been working with the Sony label Columbia Records since 1972.

The price is said to be around $ 500 million, well above what Universal Music's publishing division paid in December 2020 for the rights to texts and compositions by Bob Dylan.

Up to $ 400 million had been mentioned here.