Three years ago, MBW told you that Tempo Music, the music rights fund launched by private equity giant Providence, was looking to sell its catalog at a valuation of around $500 million.
The sale didn’t happen. As interest rates began to rise steeply in markets including the UK and US, blockbuster acquisitive activity in music famously cooled.
Last year, though, with interest rates declining and/or looking more stable in leading territories, chatter began to pick back up about Tempo.
In October, MBW predicted that music’s M&A market would soon see a trend of PE-backed companies previously known as music rights buyers becoming sellers — with an acquisition of Tempo potentially once again on the cards.
Now we’re hearing increasingly loud whispers that we’re weeks away from the conclusion to this story: a sale of Tempo’s portfolio at a valuation of around half a billion dollars.
Those involved in active talks to close an acquisition, we’re told, include at least one major music company, plus independent and finance-backed players.
Since it launched in 2019, Tempo Music has acquired a catalog of rights/income streams from stars including Wiz Khalifa, Twenty One Pilots (via Tyler Joseph), Korn, Florida Georgia Line, and hit songwriter/producer Philip Lawrence.
Providence originally launched Tempo Music in 2019 in partnership with Warner Music Group.
Since 2021, Tempo has been run by CEO, Josh Empson, following the exit of previous CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares (who now runs HarbourView).
However, Tempo hasn’t been visibly active in music’s M&A market for some time.
Providence’s website suggests that the last press announcements about Tempo conducting catalog acquisitions – including a deal with Tyler Joseph of Twenty One Pilots – date back to 2021.
Tempo’s own official website no longer appears to be live online.
Last year, Tempo Music sued Miley Cyrus and several music industry companies, including Sony Music, Live Nation, Warner Chappell, and Concord Music Publishing, alleging copyright infringement.
Tempo’s lawsuit argued that Cyrus’ megahit Flowers illegally cribbed from Bruno Mars smash When I Was Your Man.
Tempo acquired a percentage of the copyright in When I Was Your Man from Philip Lawrence, one of the song’s co-writers, in 2020.
The lawsuit read: “Any fan of Bruno Mars’ When I Was Your Man knows that Miley Cyrus’ Flowers did not achieve all of that success on its own.”
Flowers allegedly “duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements of When I Was Your Man, including the melodic pitch design and sequence of the verse, the connecting bass-line, certain bars of the chorus, certain theatrical music elements, lyric elements, and specific chord progressions,” added the complaint.Music Business Worldwide