The great works of acquisition of musical catalogs by American investment funds continue. If in recent months it has been the turn of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Britney Spears, Slipknot, this time it is that of one of the most famous producers and authors in the world, Max Martin.
However, it is not about Max Martin's entire catalog (which ranges from Taylor Swift to the first Britney, from Katy Perry to the Backstreet Boys and which boasts 30 songs that have reached first place in the American charts), but only about what concerns Wolf Cousins, the production team founded by the Swedish artist with Shellback. The names produced by the collective are no exception, however, given that we are talking about artists of the caliber of Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Imagine Dragons, just to name a few.
The catalog was purchased by HarbourView Equity Partners which since 2021 has made the works of Quincy Jones, Chaka Khan, T-Pain, Kelly Clarkson, George Benson, Wiz Khalifa and many others its own, investing almost 4 billion dollars for these acquisitions. The exact figure for this operation was not revealed, but Variety claims it closed around a nine-digit number (i.e. hundreds of millions of dollars).
“At HarbourView, we invest in culturally relevant intellectual property and the visionary creators behind it,” said Sherrese Clarke, founder and CEO of HarbourView Equity Partners. «Max Martin and Shellback continue to maintain their place as hitmakers in contemporary music and, through Wolf Cousins, have built an extraordinary creative ecosystem that spans generations and genres. We are proud to collaborate with them and help preserve the legacy of this extraordinary catalogue.”
“Wolf Cousins was founded to bring together songwriters and producers in an environment based on collaboration, mentorship and creative development,” Shellback and Martin say in a statement. “HarbourView’s long-term vision and respect for creators make it a natural partner for this body of work.”
Among the members of the Wolf Cousins collective, in addition to Martin and Shellback, there are Tove Lo, Oscar Holter, A Strut, Mattias Larsson, Robin Fredriksson, Ilya, OzGo and Fat Max Gsus. Dr. Luke was also part of it in the past.
From Rolling Stone US.
