Avex Music Unveils $100 Million Catalog Acquisition Expansion

(l to r) Avex Music Group CFO Ryan Kamada, CEO Brandon Silverstein, and SVP Spencer LeBoff. Photo Credit: Jeremy Jackson.

A year and change after purchasing S10 Music Publishing, Avex Music Group has unveiled plans to scoop up $100 million worth of catalogs and companies during the next 12 months.

LA-based Avex Music formally disclosed those plans today, pointing specifically to “a $100 million initial commitment” to kick off “phase one” of an overhauled publishing IP acquisition strategy.

As for the capital behind said strategy, the financing is “supported through” City National Bank. Although Avex Music’s release is light on other details in this department, a separate announcement from its namesake entertainment-conglomerate parent provides a bit more information.

According to Avex (TYO: 7860), “the project will be funded by $50 million in equity alongside up to $50 million in non-recourse debt financing.” Plus, Avex Music is gearing up to “further scale its music catalog business” beyond publishing, “enabling a fully integrated model spanning content creation through rights ownership.”

The tone of the comments doesn’t quite come as a surprise; it was only in 2024 that Tokyo-headquartered Avex took a stake in S10 Entertainment via its stateside division, before buying its aforementioned publishing unit last year and tapping Brandon Silverstein to lead Avex Music.

Besides emphasizing the above-noted 12-month deployment cutoff, Avex Music indicated that the tranche will bankroll plays for “premier music publishing catalogs, music publishing companies, and culturally significant copyrights.”

As many know, the song-rights sub-sector certainly isn’t without major funding commitments and a massive pile of existing deals. At the intersection of both points, time (meaning the next year) will reveal the acquisitions that materialize for Avex Music; Avex proper didn’t hesitate to acknowledge the growing prevalence of buyer-to-buyer “secondary market transactions.”

Out of the gate, however, the IP investor has closed an agreement for the publishing catalog of Infamous (real name Marco Rodriguez-Diaz Jr.).

Though perhaps best known for his extensive production collaborations with Lil Wayne, Rodriguez-Diaz also penned several works (“Mr. Carter,” “Mona Lisa,” and “Prom Queen” among them) popularized by the rap legend. Additionally, Rodriguez-Diaz co-wrote (and -produced) Teddy Swims’ much-streamed “Lose Control.”

While Avex Music didn’t identify the hard numbers behind its inaugural rights deal, CEO Brandon Silverstein, whose company last month scored a global admin pact with Bruno Mars, described the $100 million fund as the first component of a long-term strategic framework.

“At Avex Music Group, we are focused on investing in culturally defining music at every stage, from creation through long-term ownership,” stated Silverstein. “Our success in frontline publishing has created strong global momentum, and expanding into catalog is a natural evolution of that strategy.

“This initial $100 million represents the first phase of a broader, long-term commitment to building a scaled global catalog business,” he concluded.