A few weeks agowe told you about the 21 biggest deals of 2024. Now, we will i have to do it 22.
On Monday (December 16), Universal Music’s Virgin Music Group revealed it had agreed to buy Downtown Music Holdings LLC (Center) in a worthwhile deal 775 million dollars.
The acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the second half of 2025.
Downtown, founded by Justin Kalifovichstarted life as a music publisher in 2007 but today operates as a “cleaner” services company active in recorded music, publishing and other fields.
As part of a plan to go all-in on global services (by partnering with copyright holders rather than owning the copyright itself), Downtown sold its proprietary catalog of 145,000 copyrights to Concord in 2021 for approx. 400 million dollars. Several M&A deals over the past five years have been at the heart of Downtown’s service-focused strategy.
Today, Downtown collaborates with over 5,000 business customers and more from 4 million creators in 145 countries in its various activities.
Below, you’ll find key facts and statistics about the businesses and platforms owned by Downtown today that show the mammoth scope of Universal Music/Virgin Music 775 million dollars agreement…
FUGA
FUGA is an Amsterdam-born B2B technology and services company acquired by Downtown in January 2020.
FUGA claims to be “the world’s largest full-service B2B music distributor” and states on its website that it works with “more than 1,000 music rights holders”.
As a B2B service provider, the company offers custom white label distribution dashboards and company-branded analytics, as well as global physical distribution.
FUGA’s B2B clients also have access to marketing services, royalty accounting, UGC and rights management and more.
Downtown Artist & Label Services
Downtown’s Artist & Label Services division was established in April 2023 and driven by Ben Patterson (pictured), who serves as President.
The Artist & Label Services unit was born out of Downtown’s distribution division DashGoand the company has previously said it is “integral” to its “core mission to empower artists and build a fair music ecosystem.”
DashGo was acquired by Downtown in 2019 when it acquired AVL Digital Group for an estimated 200 million dollars. Patterson founded DashGo in 2004.
Downtown says its Artist & Label Services clients include “career artists and independents at the forefront of popular culture.”
The Artist & Label Services division was launched six months later The city center formed a section called ‘Downtown Music’, bringing together all of its global business and professional services.
Rights Curve
Curve Royalty Systems is a royalty processing platform acquired by Downtown in January 2023.
In May this year, the founder of Curve Tom Allen was appointed President of a new department called Downtown Royalties & Financial Services (DR&FS).
The department focuses on three main activities, among which rights processing (powered by the Curve platform), reign accounting servicesand payments.
Through Curve, DR&FS already works with more than 1,000 Labels and publishers worldwide including Domino, Defected, Epitaph, Mad Decent, Armada, Cloud9, Demon Music and Big Machine among many others.
Downtown said at the time of its release that the goal of the Royalties & Financial Services Division is “to make royalties services, accounting and payments faster and simpler for our more than 5,000 business clients and 4 million artist relationships.”
CD Baby
CD Baby is Downtown’s Direct-to-Creator division, headed by the President Molly Neumann.
CD Baby became part of Downtown in 2019 when it acquired AVL Digital Group and its portfolio of services for independent artists – USD 200 million dollars agreement.
Downtown then transitioned from being a major music rights holder in early 2021 to focusing solely on global services when it sold its own catalog of 145,000 copyrights to Concord for approx. 400 million dollars.
Its functions CD Baby recently merged into DMH’s Downtown Music division. The move came as part of DMH’s long-term plan to focus exclusively on the services sector.
Downtown announced in April that it had completed its integration strategy between businesses and creator-focused businesses into a single operating company. As part of the integration, Pieter van Rijn was appointed CEO of Downtown Music, referring to Andrew BergmanCEO of Downtown Music Holdings.
Downtown Music Publishing
Downtown notes that its Music Publishing division, led by President Emily Stephenson (pictured), represents “nearly 100 years of popular music.”
Clients of the department include John Lennon & Yoko Ono, George Gershwin, Miles Davis, Wu-Tang Clan, John Prine and many others.
On Monday, citing an interview with Stephenson, Bulletin board reported that Downtown Music Publishing is set to re-establish 200 million dollars in gross revenue in 2024, upward 40% annually.
THE Bulletin board The article noted that Downtown’s Music Publishing division manages 1.5 million copyright and has been distributed 100 million dollars to rights through Songtrust.
In August, Downtown Music Publishing inked a worldwide deal with Double P Records, the label and publishing arm founded by Música Mexicana superstar George Prajin Pluma peso.
In September, DMP inked a global music publishing deal with PDU, the iconic Italian singer’s record and publishing company Mina.
Neighborhood rights in the city center
Downtown Neighboring Rights is described as “a personalized, client-side neighborhood rights collection service for artists and rights holders.”
The department was launched in 2020 under the leadership of General Manager Dean Francis. His superstar clients include Lindsay Buckingham (pictured), which he signed among others in 2021.
The division offers adjacent rights collection and analysis services with direct relationships with more than 50 collection companies and performance rights organizations worldwide.
Downtown Neighboring Rights has made a number of global signings since the beginning of the year. The label announced international neighboring rights deals with singer-songwriter ANOHNI – representing the Oscar-nominated songwriter’s song, Manda Ray and the award-winning album Mercury, I’m a bird now – as well as global publisher and label deals, Position music and THIRD BRAIN Registrations; home of Brazilian producer, Zerb whose single Mwaki It reached No. 1 on Spotify’s Viral 50 Global and No. 2 on the Global Shazam charts.
Sheer Publishing Africa
Johannesburg-based Sheer Publishing is said to be the largest independent music publisher on the African continent.
Downtown’s acquisition of the company in 2020 marked Downtown’s official expansion into Africa.
Following the acquisition, Sheer continued to operate the Downtown portfolio as a standalone business with music publishing, distribution, monetization, artist and label services.
Founded in 1996, Sheer has established relationships with collecting societies around the world and is a direct member of Africa-based rights collecting entities including South African Music Rights (SAMRO), MCSK (Kenya) and COSON (Nigeria).
Songtrust
Songtrust is claimed to be the world’s largest copyright collection platform for songwriters and music publishers.
According to the company’s website, it is managed by 4 million songs for more than 445,000 songwriters, businesses and rights holders all over the world.
Songtrust says it monitors, registers and collects publishing royalties from 65 global sources of remuneration“providing access to the majority of the global music market in more than 240 countries and territories on behalf of our customers”.
Found.ee
Found.ee (pronounced FOUND-dee) is an advertising and digital marketing platform that provides artists, managers and labels with a range of tools to create, target and optimize advertising campaigns.
Downtown Music Holdings acquired the intellectual property and technology behind the Found.ee platform in 2021.
City-owned CD Baby was a minority investor in Found.ee prior to the acquisition and was already using the platform to enhance the promotion and marketing capabilities available to CD Baby artists.
Found.ee says it is used by more than 25,000 creators around the world.
Sounddrop
Soundrop is a DIY music distribution service.
The platform was previously a division of AVL Digital, which was acquired by Downtown Music Holdings in 2019 in a $200 million deal.Music Business Worldwide
