US-based investment firm Shamrock Capital is best known in music for buying blockbuster entertainment copyrights (including Taylor Swift’s first six albums, which it acquired for around $300 million in November).
Now, it’s offering music rights-owners an alternative to selling up.
Shamrock has today (July 7) confirmed that it’s raised a new $196 million fund with which it will offer loan structures to IP owners – i.e. advancing rights-holders sums that they then repay (with interest) via future royalties.
The Shamrock Capital Debt Opportunities Fund I (“SCDOF I”) will, says Shamrock, be used to target rights-holders “across film, television, music, games, sports [and] media” as well as “other content sectors”.
The move sees Shamrock take on existing players offering artists financial advances/loans against yet-to-be-generated royalties – including US-based Sound Royalties and the UK’s recently-launched Music Credit Fund.
As a result, Shamrock has gained the ability to offer music rights-holders two ways of cashing in on their rights: a sale / part-sale of their catalog, or a loan against future earnings.
Today’s news comes a month after Shamrock closed a separate $1 billion growth fund, Shamrock Capital Growth Fund V, which it’s using to buy entertainment IP rights and to make equity investments.
SCDOF I is managed by the partners of Shamrock plus other investment professionals in Los Angeles. Shamrock says it has been funded by a collection of “leading pension funds, foundations, and financial institutions”.
Patrick Russo, a Partner at Shamrock, said of the new $196 million fund: “We truly appreciate the strong support we received from both existing and new limited partners, particularly in light of the challenging fundraising environment over the course of the past year.
“We view this new fund as a natural extension of our content acquisition strategy which enables us to provide optionality and flexibility to content owners.”
Patrick Russo, Shamrock Capital
“We view this new fund as a natural extension of our content acquisition strategy which enables us to provide optionality and flexibility to content owners.
“As we continue to invest in premium content rights, we believe Shamrock is well-positioned to be a long-term partner to artists, content companies, and other owners of entertainment IP.”
In addition to the closing of the new fund, Shamrock also announced that Nick Khoury and Aaron Wizenfeld would both hold the title of Vice President as the firm continues to expand its content related investment strategies.
Khoury has been promoted within Shamrock Capital to Vice President from Senior Associate.
He has been with Shamrock since 2016 and focuses on the firm’s content-related investment strategies. Before joining Shamrock, Khoury was an investment banking Associate at Imperial Capital.
Wizenfeld joins the Content Team at Shamrock Capital with over 15 years of media, entertainment, and investment experience spanning investment banking and corporate development.
Before joining Shamrock, Wizenfeld was Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at United Talent Agency.
Prior to UTA, Wizenfeld was an investment banker for 10 years at Houlihan Lokey, Mesa Securities (acquired by Houlihan Lokey), and Deutsche Bank, primarily leading and executing media and entertainment transactions.
Said Shamrock’s Patrick Russo: “We are pleased to grow our team with Nick’s promotion and Aaron joining us as we continue to expand our content strategy.
“The depth of their media, entertainment and transactional experience within the content sectors are perfectly suited to help us address an increasing number of opportunities that we see across the global content landscape.”
Last summer, MBW reported that Shamrock Capital had raised $400m in a new fund – and that it intended to spend that money on entertainment IP, including music copyrights.
In November, Shamrock struck a ≈$300 million deal to buy the master rights to Taylor Swift’s first six albums.
Prior to its acquisition of Swift’s masters, one of the biggest music-related acquisitions for Shamrock came in 2018, when the company acquired a music publishing catalog owned by Stargate – the writers behind hits for Rihanna, Beyoncé, Katy Perry and more.Music Business Worldwide
