Larry Mestel, founder and co-CEO of Primary Wave, discusses portfolio construction and genre diversification with Ted Seides.
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“We don't look at it and say, oh, we're light in country music or light in hip hop or light in R&B. We want to be diverse in terms of artists. And when I say genre diverse, I'm talking about we don't only want to have rock and roll music. We don't only want to have R&B music. We don't only want to have dance music. We don't want to be genre specific, but when we look at a deal, we don't necessarily look at the genre. We look at how iconic the artist is and how iconic the songs are.”
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More from Larry Mestel
Opinion
Mestel: Music royalty collection and administration is a commodity
“We want to be a company that delivers opportunity for artists, not focus on what we think is a commodity, Which anybody can do well, and which a lot of companies do do very well, which is collecting and administering. We want to focus on marketing and promotio…”
Larry MestelOct 30, 2017▶ 10:31Larry Mestel – Making Music Royalties Sing (Capital Allocators, EP.30)
AssertionSupported
Mestel: Recorded music revenue has bottomed out and started growing again
“Wasn't until relatively recently that mechanical revenue, which is physical sales of physical CDs, downloads, coupling with digital streaming now really started to level off and now is starting to ascend again.”
Larry MestelOct 30, 2017▶ 8:25Larry Mestel – Making Music Royalties Sing (Capital Allocators, EP.30)
Insight
Mestel: Major labels neglect legacy artists to chase high-margin new acts
“Major labels tend to be much more interested in frontline product and in new music and young artists that they can develop and break and the margin is, and the upside is enormous if you break a new act and major labels typically don't spend a lot of time or al…”
Larry MestelOct 30, 2017▶ 8:54Larry Mestel – Making Music Royalties Sing (Capital Allocators, EP.30)
Disclosure
Primary Wave's first major deal was 50% of Kurt Cobain's catalog
“Well, the first really big deal that we did was for the Kurt Cobain Music Publishing Catalog. We partnered with Courtney Love on that. We bought a 50% interest in the music publishing assets.”
Larry MestelOct 30, 2017▶ 15:02Larry Mestel – Making Music Royalties Sing (Capital Allocators, EP.30)
Disclosure
Mestel: Primary Wave holds thousands of copyrights, not millions like majors
“Unlike the Warner chapels of the world or the universals of the world, the Sony's of the world, the BMG's of the world that have millions and millions of copyrights. We only have thousands of copyrights, but all of our copyrights are exceptional.”
Larry MestelOct 30, 2017▶ 16:23Larry Mestel – Making Music Royalties Sing (Capital Allocators, EP.30)
Disclosure
Mestel: Primary Wave avoids auctions to focus on artist partnerships
“Frankly, we do not like to buy at auction. We almost never Participated in auction every once in a while. If the assets unique, we will, but we are really focused on artists that want the service that we have because we like to partner with the artist.”
Larry MestelOct 30, 2017▶ 23:08Larry Mestel – Making Music Royalties Sing (Capital Allocators, EP.30)
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