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METALLICA Joins Acquisition Venture Buying Song Catalogs, Other Intellectual Property

July 8, 2020

According to Variety, METALLICA and longtime co-manager Cliff Burnstein are among the parties involved in a new intellectual-property acquisition venture Worldwired Music IP Fund. The venture, which also includes former Fender president/COO Matt Janopaul and former Sony/ATV co-president Rick Krim, will be looking to snap up a series of song catalogs as part of its portfolio.

Worldwired Music IP Fund is being headed up by former longtime Morgan Stanley investment banker Paul Donahue, and will have resources in the $300-$500 million range. Donahue also serves on the advisory board of METALLICA's All Within My Hands foundation.

METALLICA is not spearheading the fund, though the fund's name is an apparent nod to the band's "WorldWired" tour

A source stressed to Variety that the venture was not directly inspired by the start-up Hipgnosis Songs, which has spent over $1 billion buying up hit songwriter and producer catalogs in just two years.

Since 2012, METALLICA has had complete control over the master tapes of all its audio and video recordings. The band also launched its own label, Blackened Recordings.

Last December, Forbes magazine revealed that METALLICA was among the world's top-earning musicians of 2019. The outlet published a report that showed METALLICA earned $68.5 million last year, landing the the No. 10 spot on the Forbes list of Highest-Earning Musicians. The same month, Billboard reported that METALLICA was the highest-ranked hard rock act on the magazine's year-end Boxscore chart, with a combined gross of $177 million from 46 reported concerts during the band's "WorldWired" tour. The band sold 1.7 million tickets around the world during the 12-month time frame that determined the chart's rankings.

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