Over the past few years, a whole new class of power players has emerged in the music business: the investors and fund managers who have been buying up catalogs as financial assets. And since most of this activity took place since the pandemic started, these past few days in New York — publishing week or indie week, depending on which sector of the business you’re in — served as a kind of coming out party. The industry’s definitions of power, not to mention money, will never be the same again.
To mark the occasion, on Monday (June 12) Billboard organized its second Music & Money dinner this year — this one sponsored by the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) — to honor the power players in music investing. Held at Milo’s in New York and hosted by Billboard editorial director Hannah Karp and Billboard deputy editorial director Robert Levine alongside NMPA president and CEO David Israelite, the event — which was held the night prior to the first annual Music Investors Conference hosted by Israelite — brought together some of the biggest names in the booming music investment market.
Below is a rundown of the attendees and, if available, which assets each of their companies own. Scroll down to see photos from the event.
Pam Chan, chief investment officer/global head of the alternative solutions group at Blackrock, which has invested in Primary Wave and Influence Media Partners.
Josh Empson, CEO and chair of the board of directors at Tempo, which owns stakes in songs and albums by Wiz Khalifa and Korn as well as songwriters Jeff Bhasker, Ben Rector and Shane McAnally.
Ben Fischberg, portfolio manager at PIMCO.
Sam Hendel, co-founder of Dataminr, whose investments with father Stephen Hendel include stakes in JKBX, Kobalt, Boomy and others.
Robert Horowitz, chief investment officer at Iconic Artists Group, which owns stakes in songs and albums by Nat King Cole, Beach Boys, Linda Ronstadt and David Crosby.
David Kestnbaum, senior managing director at Blackstone, which has invested in SESAC, Hipgnosis Songs Capital and MNRK (formerly eOne Music).
Golnar Khosrowshahi, founder/CEO of Reservoir Media Management, which has stakes in copyrights by Louis Prima, Dion, Sonny Rollins, De La Soul and 100COPIES.
Larry Mestel, founder/CEO of Primary Wave Music, which owns stakes in the estates of Prince, James Brown, Whitney Houston.
Patrick Russo, partner of the executive committee at Shamrock Capital, which owns stakes in rights held by Big Machine Label Group, Metro Boomin and Dr. Dre, as well as the Stargate music publishing catalog.
Matt Settle, managing director of Carlyle, which has invested in Litmus Music.
Paul Sipio, principal at Apollo Global Management, which has invested in HarbourView Equity Partners.
Matthew Sparks, managing director at Northleaf, which has invested in Lyric Capital Group.
Ari Untracht, senior director at Eldrige, which owns stakes in Bruce Springsteen and The Killers’ catalogs, gamma, Chelsea F.C. and PME (a PMC subsidiary that owns Billboard).
Bob Valentine, president at Concord Music Publishing, which owns stakes in Downtown Music’s publishing copyrights and HitCo as well as rights held by Genesis, Phil Collins and songwriter Corey Crowder.
Billboard Pro members interested in attending future Music & Money events can email money@billboard.com.
