Pink Floyd Sells Recorded Music Assets to Sony. Could Publishing Be Up for Grabs Next?

Now that Pink Floyd has finally managed to sell its recorded music assets, merchandising and name, image and likeness, the songwriting members of the group have another big payday still outstanding — its music publishing assets.

Sony has bought some of Pink Floyd’s music assets for about $400 million, sources confirm of the news that first appeared in the Financial Times. But sources also confirm that the band’s music publishing assets were not a part of the deal.

Nevertheless, the Pink Floyd sale was a long time coming, as the group started shopping its recorded music assets about two years ago. For a while, the assets were pulled off the block due to some infighting between group members, according to published reports.

As sources said at the time, the assets were shopped to all the big players — the other majors, BMG, Concord, Primary Wave and other private equity-backed music buyers — but Sony always had the inside hand on the deal given that it serves as the group’s distributor. This deal marks the third big music asset deal Sony has made in the last 12 months, having previously bought 50% of Michael Jackson’s music assets in a deal that valued them at $1.205 million; and Queen’s music assets for about $1.2 billion.

Combined, that means Sony — and any financial partners that were, or may have been, involved in the deals — has spent about $2.2 billion buying music assets in the last 12 months. In July, Apollo Global Management announced that it was the lead in pulling together $700 million in commitments to provide a “capital solution” to Sony Music Group. Back in 2021, Sony partnered with another financial partner, Eldridge Industries, when buying Bruce Springsteen’s master recordings.

Sony declined to comment. Apollo and Eldridge didn’t respond to e-mails seeking comment.

Pink Floyd’s filings in Companies House — the U.K. equivalent of the SEC database — show that for the year ended June 30, 2023, the band’s revenue totaled, as first reported by Music Business Worldwide, 40.4 million pounds (which at the 2023 average of 1.244 per pound totals $50.3 million, according to exchange-rates.org). This total combines revenue from master recording, merchandising and possibly other licensing opportunities; and also combines the two Pink Floyd corporations that appear to have been set up to oversee those assets: the original band after Syd Barrett’s departure and the group that carried on after Roger Waters’ departure.

Just looking at Pink Floyd’s recorded masters catalog over the last three years in the U.S., the band has generated an annual average of 1.135 million album consumption units from the sale of 497,000 LP, CD and digital download albums and 160,000 track downloads and almost 675 million on-demand streams. While Luminate doesn’t track global album sales, Pink Floyd’s on-demand global streams averaged 2.37 billion over the last three years. Consequently, if the group owns all of its publishing, Billboard estimates that the band’s recorded masters bring in about $11 million in publishing royalties annually. If the band sells and can achieve a 20-times multiple — the going rate for superstar songwriters — it could bring in another $200 million-plus for the band’s songwriters. In general, music publishing asset trade at a higher multiple than recorded music assets, although the latter is catching up on that front.

An e-mail to the manager of one of the band members didn’t receive a reply by press time.

Sony’s acquisition of Pink Floyd’s name, image and likeness is good for merchandising. But if any opportunities arise for film, TV or a theatrical production — and there likely will be considering that since 1991 the band’s fanbase has consumed nearly 51 million album consumption units in the U.S. alone — Sony would need, as its executives well know, licenses for the band’s music from the Pink Floyd publishers and/or administrators, which in the U.S., according to SongView and depending on the song, consist of TRO Essex Music Group, BMG and Concord.