Kobalt Capital gets new $600m fund to buy music copyrights

Kobalt Capital gets new $600m fund to buy music copyrights

Kobalt Capital Ltd. (KCL) just raised a new fund with a capacity of $600m and it will be used to buy copyrights. This is the second fund in KCL’s history, since the company raised over $350m for the same purpose in 2011.

The new $600m capacity is made up of $345m in equity commitments plus debt and is being led by UK pension scheme, RPMI Railpen (Railpen), along with other institutional investors.

Kobalt Music Group is still the core business of KCL, and it's a no-ownership administration and technology partner for thousands of songwriters, publishers and self-releasing artists: badically an independent rights management and publishing company with a dedicated online platform. But the company also manages a completely separate fund amassed and owned by confidential private and institutional investors and with it, it hunts for acquisitions that offer a good return. Most of these acquisitions remain secret but a few of them have been unveiled: in late December last year, for example, Kobalt Capital’s fund acquired the songwriting catalogue of multi-platinum country act Dierks Bentley. So far, KCL also owns the publishing catalogue of Nettwerk Music Group, while artists who have sold assets to KCL’s fund include The B-52’s, Steve Winwood and Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham.