In a New Year letter to staff in January, Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl said the company needed to offer better services to the “middle class of artists,” an area being feverishly pursued by his major-label competitors, as well as a handful of independent distribution companies.
This week, WMG revealed it is interested in acquiring French company Believe, which owns a large label services business, digital distributor TuneCore, publishing administration service Sentric and a stable of record labels including Naïve, Nuclear Blast and Groove Attack. WMG said it is willing to pay “at least” 17 euros ($18.60) per share, a premium to the 15 euros ($16.41) per share offered by a consortium led by Believe CEO Denis Ladegaillerie and investment funds EQT and TCV. WMG’s bid values Believe at roughly 1.65 billion euros ($1.8 billion).
WMG’s interest in Believe doesn’t come as a surprise. The middle class of artists Kyncl referenced wants alternatives to traditional recording and publishing deals — and WMG needs the tools to give those artists what they want.
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While WMG can likely bring greater value to Believe’s assets as well, a Believe deal “solves a real stack problem for [WMG],” says Matt Pincus, founder and CEO of MUSIC, a venture with investment bank Liontree. A full “stack” — a tech term that refers to all the technologies and skills required for a project — would allow WMG to serve a more complete range of artists. Presently, WMG’s product offering is missing a distributor for self-published artists, says Pincus, that provides a level of artist services between a do-it-yourself distribution deal and a record label contract. That would augment WMG’s ADA, which distributes indie labels, and create a funnel to bring rising artists into WMG’s system.
Kyncl need only look at how his competitors are serving middle-class artists. Following the rise of iTunes, some independent distributors were eventually acquired by other major labels that wanted to distribute music on a greater scale. Sony Music has The Orchard, a digital distributor acquired in 2015, and AWAL, an artist-development company acquired from Kobalt in 2022. Universal Music Group acquired digital distributor Ingrooves in 2019 and folded it into its artist- and label-services division, Virgin Music Group in 2022. TuneCore, founded in 2006 to allow artists to access a new era of digital stores and services, was acquired by Believe in 2015.
The majors’ emphasis on label services is an acknowledgement that today’s marketplace is a mix of traditional artist deals, do-it-yourself independent artists and everything in-between — distribution deals, joint ventures, licensing deals, profit-sharing arrangements and releases from independent artists backed by a major’s label services provider. Budding superstars often want independence but need the majors’ global infrastructure and expertise. “What really makes a difference in this world is to do what [CEO] Brad [Navin] and the Orchard did with the Bad Bunny record [Un Verano Sin Ti],” says Pincus. “They really helped break that record worldwide.”
Believe would also provide WMG a publishing solution for those same independent artists. “When you consider that Believe also acquired Sentric publishing, this brings together master and publishing for many of these indie artists,” says Vickie Nauman of advisory firm CrossBorderWorks. “That also opens up opportunities for new synch licensing models that otherwise fragmented rights do not allow.”
Geography is another aspect of Believe’s business that could be attractive to WMG. Although the majority of Believe’s revenue comes from Europe, it has employees in more than 50 countries and has a presence in fast-growing markets such as Indian — where it invested in two record labels, Venus and Think Music — and Indonesia. Approximately 27% of Believe’s total revenue in the first nine months of 2023 came from Asia-Pacific and Africa, a 17.4% increase from the prior-year period.
Developing markets have great potential for a couple reasons, Kyncl explained Wednesday at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom 2024 conference. In the Middle East, for example, markets that have young populations, an underdeveloped subscription market and lack collection societies “will see quite a lot of value appreciation.” Developing markets are increasingly becoming music exporters, and Kyncl believes that provides WMG with an arbitrage opportunity. “Let’s say if you have Indonesian content that’s traveling to America,” he said. “It’s a smart place to put money because it’s [going] from a low ARPU country to high ARPU streams [in a developed market].”
An acquisition is hardly a done deal, though. To date, WMG has only expressed an interest in Believe. WMG is playing catch-up, too: The consortium attempting to take Believe private has lined up blocks representing nearly 72% of share capital — enough to “prevent a competing bidder from acquiring control,” according to Believe’s ad-hoc committee — although WMG’s higher bid could change that. An acquisition would require regulatory approval, too, and there is likely to be pushback from music companies and trade associations such as the UK-based Association of Independent Music against further industry consolidation.
But, setting aside the potential roadblocks, WMG would be a good fit for Believe. Sony Music and UMG are both larger than WMG, already have Believe-like companies and would thus face more regulatory scrutiny. The 1.65 billion-euros ($1.8 billion) price tag is in what astronomers call the “Goldilocks zone” for habitable planets’ distance to their suns: It’s too expensive for many independent companies but affordable enough for WMG.