Lyric Capital raises over $800 million to buy music rights

New York-based private equity firm Lyric Capital Group, parent company of Spirit Music Group, has successfully closed its second fund with total commitments of approximately $410 million.

In addition, the Company raised senior debt financing to raise Lyric’s new available capital 800 million dollars.

Lyric says it exceeded its funding target, with “support from a diverse group of new and existing institutional investors.”

Commenting on the news, Jon Singer, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Lyric Capital and Chairman of Spirit Music Group, said: “Our relationships and proven reputation for stewarding legendary song catalogs and recordings give us a robust pipeline of proprietary capabilities and capital to track them.”

Lyric Capital Group was founded in 2019 by Jon Singer and Ross Cameron.

Lyric’s latest fundraiser follows news in October 2021 that the company formed a $500 million strategic alliance with Northleaf Capital.

Since that deal, Toronto-based Northleaf has used Spirit Music Group’s music assets to help raise a $303.8 million bond issue.

Spirit Music Group’s portfolio consists largely of mature music royalties managed by Lyric Capital Group and represents combined catalogs totaling over 100,000 songs.

The company’s repertoire includes hits written by artists such as The Who, Ed Sheeran, John Legend, Chicago, The Go-Go’s, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Camilla Cabello, Jay-Z, Ricky Martin, Brad Paisley, Toto, Madonna and Jason Aldean, Graham Nash, T.Rex, Charles Mingus, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Billy Squier, Chaka Khan, Whitney Houston, Eminem, Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Eminem, Salt-N-Pepa, Electric Light Orchestra, Tom Petty, The Travels of Wilburys and more.

In February of last year, Spirit Music Group acquired multi-platinum country superstar Jason Aldean’s music catalog for over $100 million.

Lyric’s new $800 million raise is the latest proof that the music rights acquisition space is heating up again, and follows a string of recent big deals and investments.

Earlier this month, Los Angeles-based investment firm Shamrock Capital, best known for buying the master rights to Taylor Swift’s first six studio albums from Big Machine, raised more than $600 million in commitments for its third equity fund.

Meanwhile, Primary Wave announced a new one in October 2 billion dollars deal with Brookfield Capital.

Also in January, Korea-based K-pop and media giant Kakao Entertainment secured an investment worth Rs 1 billion dollars from sovereign wealth funds, part of which intends to grow its music business through acquisitions. (Kakao, like HYBE, announced this month that it has acquired a minority stake in SM Entertainment.)

“I couldn’t be more excited to complete our recent fundraiser involving existing and new investors, which validates our unique and collaborative approach to acquiring high quality assets from recording artists and songwriters.”

Jon Singer, Lyric Capital and Spirit Music Group

Jon Singer, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Lyric Capital and Chairman of Spirit Music Group, said: “I couldn’t be more excited to complete our recent fundraiser involving existing and new investors, which validates our unique and collaborative approach to raising quality assets from recording artists and songwriters.”

“We are very pleased to close our second fund and thank our investors for their continued support of our unique platform.”

Ross Cameron, Lyric Capital

Ross Cameron, Partner and Co-Founder of Lyric Capital, added: “Since inception, Lyric Capital has raised over $800 million to partner with artists and songwriters to develop outstanding music catalogs.

“Our disciplined investment approach is based on our ownership of Spirit Music Group and is supported by 25 years of proprietary music royalty data, giving us unmatched insight into copyright acquisition and management.

“We are very pleased to close our second fund and thank our investors for their continued support of our unique platform.”

Eaton Partners acted as exclusive agent and Ropes & Gray LLP acted as legal counsel. Truist (formerly SunTrust) and Pinnacle were co-leads on the debt syndication for Lyric Capital Group.music business worldwide