Queen sell catalogue to Sony Music for £1 billion in biggest acquisition of its kindQueen have reportedly agreed to sell their back catalogue to Sony Music for a record-breaking $1.27million, making it the biggest acquisition of its kind.

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Sources told Variety that Sony is now in the process of acquiring the band’s back catalogue, alongside merchandising and other business opportunities, but not revenue from live performances.
Sony has acquired several other artists’ back catalogues in recent years, including Bruce Springsteen’s (which went for $500million) and Bob Dylan’s. The label also has a 50 per cent stake in Michael Jackson‘s music catalogue, valued at roughly $600 million (£471 million).
Variety also reports that another bidder, whose identity remains unknown, almost secured Queen’s catalogue, but had not offered more than $900million.
The situation is made somewhat more complicated by the fact that Disney has owned the band’s recording rights in the US and Canada since sometime in the ’90s. Universal Music Group are currently their worldwide distributor and will remain so for the next few years until that deal expires.
According to company filings, Queen’s surviving members – Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon – and the estate of late frontman Freddie Mercury are all equal shareholders in Queen Productions Ltd and reported revenues of $52 million (£40.8 million) in 2022.
Big-name artists selling their back catalogues has become an increasingly common occurrence in recent years and a variety of firms have been involved, from traditional major music publishers and recording entities like Sony and private equity investors to hybrid rights management or asset management companies, such as Hipgnosis. Various factors have been pointed to in order to explain this trend, from the expectation that the value of owning catalogues will soon fall in the face of streaming services to recouping losses in touring revenue from the Covid-19 pandemic.
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