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Queen music catalog could be sold this year for over $1 billion

Two years ago, MBW ran a popular story with an attention-grabbing headline: “Queen’s music is making crazy money. Could it be worth over a billion dollars?”

The answer to the question, we now hear from multiple high-level music industry sources, is a resounding yes.

We’re told that the initial stages of a sale process for the band’s catalog – combining both music publishing and recorded music rights – is underway, and that a full acquisition could be completed by the end of this summer.

Major music companies including Universal Music Group have been in discussions regarding a potential acquisition, we’re told, in addition to players from the world of private equity.

If the combined Queen rights sell, say MBW’s sources, a price-tag in excess of USD $1 billion seems guaranteed.

Some have told us they expect the Queen catalog to sell for around USD $1.1 billion; others say the eventual figure will be even higher than that.

Either way, should a sale get completed, this would become the biggest single-artist music catalog sale in history, easily surpassing the $500 million-plus paid by Sony Music Group to acquire Bruce Springsteen’s recorded music and music publishing catalogs in late 2021.

(For the Springsteen publishing catalog part of that deal, Sony‘s offer was partly backed by capital from Eldridge Industries.)

The Queen catalog sale is complicated by the fact that Disney Music Group (DMG) owns the band’s recorded music catalog in North America. (DMG has a global distribution agreement with Universal Music Group.)

Queen band members Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon – plus the Freddie Mercury estate – each own equal shares in the company Queen Productions Ltd, which owns the group’s recording catalog outside the US and Canada.

Queen’s members (plus Mercury’s estate) also own the global rights to Queen’s music publishing catalog via their company Queen Music Ltd, which is administered by Sony Music Publishing.


A financial filing from Queen Productions Ltd shows the firm’s ownership is equally divided between John Deacon, the estate of Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor, and Brian May

Queen Productions Ltd posts its annual financials on UK Companies House, the latest of which shows the company’s fiscal performance in FY 2021 (to the end of September that year).

Queen Productions Ltd reported GBP £39.19 million in annual revenues in FY 2021, with £38.92 million of this number coming via royalties.

Queen Productions Ltd….

Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Music Business Worldwide…