Phil Collins and his Genesis bandmates Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford have agreed to sell their publishing copyrights and “a mix of recorded music-income streams” to Concord Music Group, the company confirmed to the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Sources told the publication the deal was for upward of $300 million.
The deal includes the solo material of all three, most notably Collins’ multiplatinum solo albums and Rutherford’s band Mike & the Mechanics, which achieved chart success in the 1980s. The catalogs of Peter Gabriel and other former members of Genesis were not included in the deal.
A rep for Concord tells Variety an official announcement will be made Friday morning.
The transaction is one of the biggest in an era filled with them: Bob Dylan sold his song catalog to Universal Music for a figure sources say was nearly $400 million; Bruce Springsteen sold his publishing and recorded-music rights to Sony for a reported sum of around $600 million; and artists from Stevie Nicks to Neil Young have sold varieties of music assets for around $100 million. The members of Pink Floyd are said to be seeking $400 million for their recorded-music and other rights, excluding publishing.
The three members of Genesis, all in their early 70s, are in the same age group as those musicians, and are likely looking at the deal as a combination of estate planning and striking while the iron is hot, as the booming song-catalog market is beginning to cool off as higher interest rates and inflation concerns set in.
Those headwinds affected Concord’s recent attempts to place itself on the market, as the company’s top executives recently said they had turned down a $5 billion acquisition offer.
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