Primary Wave has added a substantial stake in the Prince estate to its list of recent acquisitions, which include an $80m majority stake in the publishing catalog of Fleetwood Mac member Stevie Nicks.
Last week, Minnesota’s Star Tribune first reported that Primary Wave had bought out three of Prince’s siblings.
According to the article, Primary Wave acquired “100% of the inheritance” of Prince’s youngest of six siblings, Omarr Baker, as well as 90% of sister Tyka Nelson’s stake and 100% of the stake held by Alfred Jackson.
An article from the Wall Street Journal followed, stating that through these deals, “Primary Wave is lined up to own about 42%” of the legendary singer’s estate, which the WSJ added is “valued somewhere between $100 million and $300 million”.
Primary Wave has now confirmed in an official media release that it has acquired expectancy interests in the estate of Prince from the late singer’s siblings. The exact percentages of those interests haven’t been disclosed, however.
According to the media statement, as part of new deals to purchase Omarr Baker And Alfred Jackson’s stakes In The Prince Estate, Primary Wave Music has acquired an expectancy interest which encompasses assets including the singer’s publishing, master recording income stream, name, likeness, and brand.
As a result of these acquisitions, Primary Wave Music says in the official release that it now holds “the largest percentage interest in the estate”.
Primary Wave Music also says that its executive team will work closely together with the remaining heirs, including their partnership with Prince’s sister, Tyka Nelson.
The company has acquired a stake in the legendary singer’s music assets which include royalty streams from his hit songs When You Were Mine, I Wanna Be Your Lover, 1999, Little Red Corvette, When Doves Cry, and more, as well as all unreleased music currently located in the Prince vault “with the potential of development in the future”.
Assets of the estate include a stake in Prince’s master recording royalty income stream and writer’s share, as well as Prince’s name and likeness and his iconic private estate and production complex, Paisley Park.
Now an active museum, recording studio and concert venue, Paisley Park served as Prince’s home, creative space, and studio for nearly 30 years.
Born and raised in Minneapolis, Prince signed his first recording contract at the age of 19 and eventually released 39 studio albums, five soundtracks, four live albums, five compilation albums, and 17 video albums during his illustrious career.
He has sold over 150 million records worldwide, including 36.5m certified units in the United States and over 10m records in the United Kingdom, ranking him among the best-selling music artists of all time.
Over the course of his career, Prince racked up five No.1 singles which include When Doves Cry – a song that occupied the top spot on the chart for five weeks.
Additional songs that soared to No.1 include Kiss, Let’s Go Crazy, and Cream which all spent two weeks at the top spot, as well as 1989’s Batdance.
Prince had a total of 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart throughout this career.
The musician also accumulated 15 worldwide No.1 hits, as well as eight worldwide No.1 albums.
Purple Rain was his biggest selling album, which has since been certified 13x platinum. Released in 1984, Purple Rain is considered to be one of the defining albums of the ‘80s.
Prince’s 1982 album, 1999, was frequently referred to as his breakthrough album and gave him his first Top 10 hit with the single Little Red Corvette.
In 2016, Prince became the first act to concurrently chart five albums in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200.
Prince’s list of awards includes the Grammy President’s Merit Award, as well as seven Grammy wins and an 38 nominations, the Billboard Icon Award, a Golden Globe, five American Music Awards, and seven Brit Awards, among many others.
He won an Academy Award for Purple Rain, a film and soundtrack that became a worldwide phenomenon.
The album sold over 22 million copies around the world and at one point during its release, Prince had the number one song, album and film in the United States, a feat only matched by one other band – The Beatles.
Prince was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, and two years later was inducted to the UK Music Hall of Fame, followed by the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2016.
In 2007, Prince played the Super Bowl XLI halftime show in Miami and years later Billboard would rank the twelve-minute performance as the greatest Super Bowl performance ever. Rolling Stone has also ranked him at No.27 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.Music Business Worldwide
