A package of Genesis, Phil Collins and some of the music assets of Mike + the Mechanics has been sold to Concord, the company told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Billboards It was initially reported on Wednesday that a deal was almost done, but the identity of the buyer is unknown. An official announcement is still being made.
In January, Billboards reported that a package of Collins rights was purchased for up to $200 million, according to sources. That package has since been turned into a larger deal that includes all publishing for Genesis and possibly even Mike + the Mechanics, as well as their key recording rights, sources say. Specifically, sources say the deal covers the artist’s sharing of key recordings and publishing. In the case of Collins, that means a combination of the artist royalties given to artists owned by Atlantic and his ownership stake in Collins’ other solo albums on the label. As for the Mike + the Mechanics deal, it’s not clear whether the band, launched by bassist and guitarist Mike Rutherford during the 1985 Genesis hiatus, owns its owners, or if the deal The deal purchased included only Rutherford’s share of the band’s royalties. And while sources say that Genesis owns a significant portion of its master records, and the deal covers all of the band’s recordings – even those made when Peter Gabriel was the singer. principal from 1968 to 1974 – Billboards could not determine whether he, or other former members of the band, had partial ownership, and if so, if their shares were part of the agreement; or if the package only offers ownership from members’ shares from a later iteration of Genesis with Collins, Rutherford, and Tony Banks.
Billboards estimates that the overall package, after deducting production and distribution costs, has averaged about $12.4 million per year over the past three years in prime recording revenue and about $5.5 million in sales. annual publication revenue. Billboards further estimates that the music copyright package, which sources say includes similar names and images, is worth at least $335 million and possibly as much as $375 million. (This estimate is based on the artist’s outright ownership of the recordings and may be less depending on how many categories are owned by the three recording operations and how much includes only income streams from royalties.) and that when the package was first purchased at the beginning of the year, they requested an opening bid of at least £250 million which, by 30 April 2022, would be approximately $315 million. At current exchange rates, that now equates to about $270 million.
The bundle is said to also include Collins solo hits like “In The Air Tonight”, which according to Luminate sold 7.26 million units of the song, along with “You’re Be In My Heart” (3, 03 million units) and “Against All Odds” (2.43 million units). It also includes key recordings of Collins’ covers of “A Groovy Kind Of Love” and “You Can’t Hurry Love”, all of which have sold over 1 million units of the song. Genesis hits in the pack may include “That’s All” (1.4 million copies), “Invisible Touch” (1.06 million copies) and “Land of Confusion,” “In too Deep.” and “Follow You, Follow Me” (all in the 650,000 to 750,000 range). It may also include songs by Mike + The Mechanics such as “The Living Years” (454,000 copies) and “All I Need Is A Miracle” (231,000 copies).
Breaking the record artist’s music copyright package, Collins’ music content generates more than twice as much activity as the Genesis catalog, with Billboards estimated its value at around $235 million, based on nearly $4 million in estimated publishing royalties and $8.5 million in primary audio sales from his personal portfolio. (This is a different number than the one used in the previous story because the amounts cited in that report also include estimates for some of his Genesis rights. This story also uses multiples. lower in valuation estimates than that story.) Furthermore, since the new package includes both Genesis and Mike + the Mechanics catalogs, the underlying value is significantly larger than the price quoted in previous story. In the US, the Collins catalog has averaged 340,000 album sales units annually over the past three years, according to Luminate.
For the Genesis catalog, Billboards estimated its phonogram and publishing value at about $85 million, while fixing a valuation of about $17 million on the Mike + the Mechanics portfolio. In the United States over the past three years, the Genesis catalog has averaged 162,000 album sales units annually, while the Mike + The Mechanics catalog has averaged around 18,000 album sales units annually. In the US to date, the Collins catalog has generated 15.2 million album sales, while the Genesis catalog totals 11.3 million and Mike + The Mechanics has about 755,000 album sales, according to Luminate.
Most publishing for all three recording operations appears to be managed by Concord. The main record catalog for Collins, Genesis, and most of Mike + the Mechanics is primarily under Warner Music Group, and previous sources have said those records are likely to stay there for the foreseeable future.
Tony Smith, who manages Collins ‘and Genesis’ and is known to have purchased the Genesis portion of the music rights package, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But for the previous story earlier this year, he emailed the following statement to Billboards: “Over the last three or four years, there have been some major deals, with quite a few bidders in the market wanting to purchase the publishing and recording rights, among many others to whom we have been approached several times. While we continue to oversee market operations as managers, this should not be described as procurement or sales. How people describe how we answer the phone is not within our control or concern.”
This story first appeared on Billboard.com.
