Inside Concord’s $217 Million Daddy Yankee Catalog Acquisition

Indie music giant Concord said on Friday it has acquired parts of the music publishing and recorded music catalog of reggaetón superstar Daddy Yankee.

The deal encompasses certain rights to Daddy Yankee songs including “Con Calma,” his rights as a featured artist on “Despacito” and “Gasolina,” whose “unforgettable hook” and “revolutionary” beat landed it in Billboard’s Top 50 Latin songs of all time. The deal also includes certain name, image and likeness rights, according to a press release from Concord.

Concord declined to comment on price. However, earlier this month in a KBRA report about Concord’s asset backed security, the bond rating agency wrote that Concord acquired the catalog of “a highly successful Latin Music artist and songwriter” in 2024 and that those works were valued at $217.3 million.

How much does Daddy Yankee stand to benefit from the deal? The Latin hitmaker, whose Barrio Fino was the first reggaetón album to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart in 2004, sold this portion of his catalog several years ago to a fund that asked not to be named. That fund sold the assets to Concord, so the artist will not get a cut of this sale of his works.

But Billboard reported in July that Daddy Yankee still owns part of his publishing catalog, which is administered worldwide by Sony Music Publishing and partly by Spirit Music in the United States. From 2021 to 2023, Daddy Yankee’s works averaged 375,333 album consumption units, with 346,000 album consumption units so far this year, according to Luminate.

CRAZY FOR CATALOGS

Catalogs are an important revenue driver for Concord, and the company’s CEO Bob Valentine said this week that through various marketing, distribution, film and commercial licensing agreements, the company regularly generates 5-15% more revenue from the assets it acquires than the prior owner.

“We can then create value for the artist, for our shareholders, for our debt holders, for our pension holders—all the people who are somehow invested in that effort,” Valentine said, speaking at the Mondo.NYC conference in Brooklyn. “The two things we talk about [with artists] is how are we going to protect your legacy and how are we going to make it live.”

Concord’s ownership — the Michigan State Retirement Systems own 93% — and how it has recently financed acquisitions, through asset backed securities, make it a uniquely long-term focused catalog acquirer that aims to hold these assets for 30-40 years.

The company also employs around 750 people worldwide, and it operates a label, music publishing division and one of the most significant theatrical companies with the catalogs of Rodgers & Hammerstein Theatricals, The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection, and more.

However in some circles, Concord is better known for the 1.3 million songs it has acquired, including some of its biggest money-making assets like John Fogerty’s Credence Clearwater Revival publishing catalog and Phil Collins’ rights to Genesis songs.

Speaking at the Mondo.NYC conference, Concord described these works “as music and genres that fit so perfectly with an era that to own them … means you own that segment of someone’s nostalgia.” Anyone who ever makes a movie about the Vietnam War will likely call Concord to license CCR’s songs, Valentine says.

But Concord also owns the Latin label Fania Records and Mexican record label Musart Records, and several of the Latin artists it represents through its publishing division were nominated for Latin Grammy’s this year: Daymé Arocena’s nomination for Song of the Year for “A Fuego Lento,” writers Julian Bernal and Sammy Soso’s nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album for Orquídeas performed by Kali Uchis, and Camilo Lara’s nomination for Best Cumbia/Vallenato Album for Se Agradece performed by Los Ángeles Azules.

CALL HIM DADDY

Daddy Yankee’s catalog will be managed out of Concord’s recently expanded Miami office, the company said.

“Since he burst onto the scene, Daddy Yankee has been at the forefront of not only reggaeton, but pop music generally,” Valentine said in a statement. “We were incredibly excited by this opportunity to work alongside Daddy Yankee to continue building on his remarkable legacy and significance. His real and lasting cultural impact is clear, and Concord is thrilled to be a part of his story.”

Concord financed the acquisition of Daddy Yankee’s works by issuing a third round of asset backed security notes that were priced this week that bring its total ABS to $2.6 billion. Daddy Yankee’s catalog will be contributed to the ABS’s collateral pool, according to the KBRA report. Concord has used previous ABS notes to acquire Round Hill Music Royalty Fund in 2023 and Mojo Music and Media in 2022.

This type of financing makes sense for Concord because of its scale — which exceeds most banks’ normal financing abilities — and because it affords them a fixed, low interest rate.

“The benefit of an ABS market is we take out a loan and the interest rate is fixed for 5 years,” Valentine said. “It doesn’t change. Suddenly you’re financing with these fixed rates of return that are lower because of our scale and that changes the dynamic of the valuation pretty dramatically.”

This is part of a new column Billboard is launching in which we will unpack one financial issue a week for an artist in the news. Thanks for reading, and if you have suggestions or tips, email me at ediltsmarshall@billboard.com.