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Old 11-07-2017, 06:45 AM
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Kobalt Capital raises $600m to buy new music copyrights

Kobalt Capital, the UK fund run by music-publishing company Kobalt, has raised $600m to acquire new copyrights.
The funding round has been led by Railpen, the railways pension fund. It is the second time that the Kobalt Fund has tapped investors after it raised $350m in 2011 and acquired a series of rights including those owned by The B52s, Fleetwood Mac songwriter Lindsey Buckingham, and 18,000 songs owned by Nettwerk including hits by Sinead O’Connor and 10,000 Maniacs.

The fund, which is run by former hedge fund manager Johan Ahlstroem, is separate to the main Kobalt business, which prides itself on allowing its artists to keep their own copyrights.

Financial investors have clamoured for valuable music copyrights in recent years as the price of catalogues rose sharply.

Willard Ahdritz, founder of Kobalt, said: “The music industry has a strong growth story. Recorded music will grow three times in size and that will flow down to 5 per cent growth in publishing.”

He said that Kobalt’s database means it can put a value on publishing assets for the Kobalt Fund and that it turned down 75 per cent of the acquisitions it considered in the first round. “It’s like real estate. Are you going to buy south of the river or not,” he said.

Kobalt’s main business has raised money twice this year, valuing the Waterloo, London-based company at almost $1bn.


https://www.ft.com/content/77616aaf-...4-657b8377fb98
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