It was another tough year for the live-music business, of course, as the pandemic persisted and threw wrench after wrench in plans to restart it at full throttle. KKR closed a deal to buy Kobalt Music Royalty Fund II Blackstone bought a stake in Merck Mercuriadis’ Hipgnosis Song Management, while earmarking an additional $1 billion to buy music for a separate, private fund and Apollo committed $1 billion to help Sherrese Clarke Soares’ new HarbourView Equity Partners buy assets like recording and publishing rights. Meanwhile, three of the world’s biggest private equity firms - KKR, Blackstone and Apollo Global Management - placed billion-dollar bets on music in the fall. Music’s new investors became power players in their own right, too, such as billionaire Bill Ackman, whose investment entities had purchased 10% of Universal by September.

They also bought back rights to many of their catalogs, both recordings and publishing, in some cases paying a premium for rights they had previously given back to creators in exchange for extending their contracts so they can control more of the music that will drive returns for decades to come. Universal Music Group's Sir Lucian Grainge Tops Billboard's 2022 Power ListĪll three major music groups soared as they raked in record-breaking revenue of their own and snapped up some of the indie world’s strongest labels.

Where Tomorrow Leads by DiAnn Mills