How to Read These Numbers
There are two entirely different transactions in this article and they are constantly confused. Borrowing against future royalties leaves you owning the asset. Selling the catalogue means you do not own it any more. The headline figures look similar; what the artist ends up holding does not.
1. David Bowie, 1997 – $55 Million, and a New Kind of Security
Bowie was the first. Working with the banker David Pullman, he securitised future royalties on the 25 albums recorded between 1969 and 1990 – 287 songs – and sold the notes to Prudential Insurance for 55 million dollars at a 7.9 per cent coupon over ten years (Billboard).
This was borrowing, not selling. The royalties serviced the debt and the catalogue returned to him when the notes matured.
Moody’s issued its first ever music-royalty securitisation rating, grading the notes A3. In March 2004, seven years in, it cut them to Baa3 as recorded-music revenue fell (Billboard). But the bonds did not fail, and this is the part usually got wrong: every payment was made early or on time, and the holders were repaid in full with interest when the notes matured in 2007 (Billboard). Bowie sold ten years of income at 1997 prices, immediately before the internet reduced what that income was worth – good timing on his side of the trade, and no loss on the other. See our profile of David Bowie.
2. The Imitators – James Brown, Rod Stewart, the Isley Brothers
The structure was copied quickly. James Brown, Rod Stewart and the Isley Brothers all completed comparable royalty-backed deals in the years that followed (NPR). None matched the original for novelty, and the asset class did not become the mainstream instrument its promoters expected – but the principle survived.
3. Bruce Springsteen, 2021 – $500 Million, and an Outright Sale
Springsteen sold rather than borrowed. In December 2021 Sony Music acquired both his recorded catalogue and his publishing in a deal reported at at least 500 million dollars – the largest single-artist catalogue acquisition on record at the time (Billboard, Music Business Worldwide).
The distinction from Bowie is total. Springsteen does not get the catalogue back.
4. Bob Dylan, 2020 and 2022 – Two Sales, Two Buyers
Dylan split the asset. His songwriting catalogue went to Universal Music Publishing in December 2020 (Billboard); his recorded catalogue – 39 studio albums and 16 bootleg releases – went to Sony in a deal finalised in July 2021 and announced the following January (Variety).
A song and a recording of it are separate property. Selling one does not sell the other, which is why the totals quoted for Dylan vary so much depending on which deal is being described. See our profile of Bob Dylan.
5. Justin Bieber, 2022 – $200 Million at Twenty-Eight
The most striking recent deal is notable for the seller’s age. Bieber sold publishing and recorded rights to all 290 titles released before the end of 2021 to the Hipgnosis fund backed by Blackstone, in a transaction reported at around 200 million dollars (Billboard, Music Business Worldwide).
Selling a catalogue in your twenties is a different proposition from selling one in your seventies. The buyer is pricing decades of future income; the seller is exchanging it for certainty now.
What You Are Actually Selling
The reason these deals became common is unglamorous: catalogue income is predictable, interest rates were low, and buyers wanted assets that pay regardless of what markets do. For the artist the calculation is the mirror image – a large certain sum now against an uncertain stream later.
Two things follow for anyone reading a net-worth figure. A catalogue sale is a one-off receipt, heavily taxed, and not an annual income. And after it completes, the artist no longer owns the thing that generated the headline – so counting both the sale proceeds and the catalogue’s value is double-counting. Bowie’s deal is the exception that proves the rule: he borrowed, and he kept it.