Reports: music catalogue

A variety of economic factors and stock market volatility during the coronavirus pandemic helped establish music as an attractive asset class for institutional investors. With labels, publishers, institutional investors, and newly launched funds now competing for the same diminishing pool of evergreen catalogue, competition and prices are high.

Catalogue was a real money spinner for the music industry throughout the sales era. First it underpinned the CD boom (convincing music fans to re-purchase old albums they already owned on prior formats). Then, through the emergence of the digital economy, it provided a stable respite from the volatility of declining overall revenues in the wake of P2P file sharing.