HarbourView Equity Partners Scores ‘Close to $500 Million’ Royalties-Backed Debt Financing from KKR

Newark, New Jersey, where HarbourView Equity Partners is based. Photo Credit: Jimmy Woo

Weeks after finalizing a deal for a stake in Full Force’s catalog, HarbourView Equity Partners has secured “close to $500 million” worth of debt financing to fuel additional investments. HarbourView, which bills itself specifically as an “alternative asset management company focused on investment opportunities in the sports, media and entertainment space,” emailed DMN today about the debt financing. For reference, it was only in December that the Newark-based entity upped its existing credit facility to $300 million.

Now, the three-year-old operation has another $500 million to deploy thanks to “a private securitization backed by” song-rights royalties. KKR (which recently cashed out of Chord Music Partners) led the financing, which likewise drew participation from Kuvare Asset Management (formerly Kuvare Insurance Services), per HarbourView.

“We are grateful to KKR for working with us to deliver a flexible and innovative financing structure that will support HarbourView in expanding its reach,” HarbourView founder and head Sherrese Clarke Soares relayed. “This capital will allow us to further our mission of investing in assets and companies driven by premier intellectual property while striving to ensure that creators are appropriately valued for their contributions to the world.”

Building on the latter point, HarbourView has since its 2021 inception invested in the work of Christine McVie, Blackbear, Wiz Khalifa, Nelly, Luis Fonsi, and Florida Georgia Line, to name some. All told, the business says it’s scooped up north of 50 catalogs encompassing a cumulative 28,100 or so songs across both the recorded and compositional sides.Bigger picture, this latest capital tranche underscores the continued institutional interest in song rights as well as the ample funding that’s floating around the space.

As we previously covered in detail, catalog spending topped $2 billion during 2024’s initial two months, which delivered, among other things, a $1 billion commitment for Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group (IAG) and, in Sony Music Entertainment’s Michael Jackson IP play, what appears the largest single-catalog valuation to date.

Of course, it’ll be worth following the sector’s potential record-setting year – a possibility despite Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s operational woes – throughout the remainder of 2024. Following a reportedly $100 million deal with Rod Stewart in January, IAG inked an agreement with Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry earlier in March.

Meanwhile, Pophouse Entertainment closed out February by purchasing a majority interest in Cyndi Lauper’s body of work; the play marked Björn Ulvaeus-founded Pophouse’s first with an American musician.