HarbourView Equity Partners has secured $500 million in additional debt financing from investment giant KKR, secured via a private securitization backed by its music portfolio.
This latest transaction follows a previous $500 million in debt financing secured by HarbourView in March 2024, through a private securitization backed by its catalog of music royalties, and led by KKR.
Citing an interview with HarbourView Founder and CEO Sherrese Clarke on Monday (June 9), Bloomberg reported that the company plans to use the new financing “to scale up, to add to its portfolio of music content and to push deeper into film and TV-rights management”.
KKR is providing the additional financing to HarbourView as part of its Asset-Based Finance (ABF) strategy.
According to KKR, its ABF strategy “focuses on privately originated and negotiated credit investments that are backed by large and diversified pools of financial and hard assets, offering diversification to traditional corporate credit and attractive risk-adjusted returns”.
KKR’s ABF platform began investing in 2016 and now has approximately $74 billion in ABF assets under management globally.
Established in 2021 by former Tempo Music CEO Sherrese Clarke with backing from Apollo Global Management, HarbourView Equity Partners has acquired over 70 music catalogs encompassing over 35,000 songs across both master recordings and publishing income streams.
The company’s portfolio includes music from T-Pain, James Fauntleroy, George Benson, Noel Zancanella, Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie, Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo, Nelly, Jeremih, Wiz Khalifa, Kane Brown, Full Force and more.
The company reports to have amassed roughly $2.67 billion in regulatory assets under management.
HarbourView most recently made a deal to finance a slate of Hip-Hop biopics in partnership with Will Smith’s Westbrook Studios, Flavor Unit and Jesse Collins Entertainment, starting with a Queen Latifah biopic.
This followed an investment in Usher’s 2024 concert film Rendezvous in Paris.
The latest financing also follows HarbourView’s $300 million credit facility expansion announced in December 2023.
“We see a tremendous opportunity to continue investing in evergreen intellectual property, which we believe is historically uncorrelated to broader market volatility and forms a powerful diversification tool.”
Sherrese Clarke, HarbourView
“We are thrilled to have KKR’s continued support as we further scale the firm,” said HarbourView Founder and CEO Sherrese Clarke.
“This additional capital from KKR will help us accelerate our strategy to align with where the media, sports and entertainment markets are headed.
“We see a tremendous opportunity to continue investing in evergreen intellectual property, which we believe is historically uncorrelated to broader market volatility and forms a powerful diversification tool.”
“Music IP is one of many areas of opportunity that we see for this strategy and an example of its breadth.”
Avi Korn and Chris Mellia, KKR
Avi Korn and Chris Mellia, Global Co-Heads of Asset-Based Finance at KKR, said: “We are pleased to further support HarbourView and to invest in this well-diversified, scaled and high-quality portfolio through our High-Grade Asset-Based Finance strategy.
“Music IP is one of many areas of opportunity that we see for this strategy and an example of its breadth.”
Barclays served as sole structuring advisor in this transaction.
Barclays and KKR Capital Markets acted as placement agents, and Fifth Third Bank, National Association as passive placement agent.
“We are grateful to play a small role in HarbourView’s continued growth”.
Salina Sabri, Barclays
“Barclays is proud to once again support HarbourView. This deal underscores the strong demand from investors for uncorrelated assets and highlights our track record of supporting music and media companies in accessing efficient, scalable capital,” said Salina Sabri, Managing Director, Securitized Products Origination at Barclays.
“We are grateful to play a small role in HarbourView’s continued growth”.
The transaction marks one of the latest rights-backed securitization deals in music, an area of the industry that has seen significant activity in recent years.
In January, Influence Media Partners confirmed that it had secured approximately $360 million in debt financing through an inaugural private securitization, collateralized by music royalties from its portfolio of music rights.
In November, Blackstone’s then-Hipgnosis (now Recognition) successfully completed a $1.47 billion music rights asset-backed securities transaction (i.e. bond offering).
In October 2024, Concord closed an $850 million Asset-Backed Securities transaction to “fuel strategic growth and acquisitions”.
Concord’s $850 million ABS transaction marked the third series of Notes issued as part of a broader $2.6 billion bond offering backed by music rights from Concord’s catalog.
Also in October, Duetti, a music investment company focused on indie music rights, announced it had secured $114 million in new funding for the further acquisition of music catalogs. That includes $34 million in new equity financing, led by PE firm Flexpoint Ford, with participation from existing investors Nyca Partners and Viola Ventures. It also included an $80 million raised through the company’s first asset-backed securitization (ABS) transaction, which Duetti says was “backed by a highly diversified music rights catalog.”
Elsewhere in the music industry, in March 2024, Kobalt confirmed the raise of $266.5 million via its first-ever Asset-Backed Securitization (ABS) transaction, backed by music royalties from a catalog of more than 5,000 works from 66 writers.
KKR’s involvement in HarbourView’s initial $500 million debt financing deal arrived just a few weeks after KKR sold its majority stake in Chord Music Partners, the platform it established with Dundee Partners.
KKR has also been active elsewhere in the music industry over the past year.
In June 2024, KKR acquired European festival operator Superstruct Entertainment from private equity firm Providence Equity Partners for a reported EUR €1.3 billion (USD $1.4).
KKR made the investment in Superstruct through its European Fund VI, an $8 billion fund that invests in the growth of “leading businesses”.Music Business Worldwide
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