Music rights and media investment company HarbourView Equity Partners raised $500 million through the sale of a private asset-backed securitization (ABS), backed by royalties generated from its music catalog, to insurance vehicles managed by global investment firm KKR, HarbourView announced on Monday (June 9).
The news comes a little more than a year after HarbourView last raised $500 million through an ABS led by KKR in March 2024.
Best known for owning rights to music by artists like Wiz Khalifa and Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie, HarbourView also owns stakes in the production companies MACRO and Mucho Mas Media and is financing a slate of hip-hop biopics — including one about Queen Latifah — for Will Smith’s Westbrook Studios, Flavor Unit and Jesse Collins Entertainment.
“This additional capital will help us accelerate our strategy to align with where the media, sports and entertainment markets are headed,” HarbourView founder/CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares said in a statement. “We see a tremendous opportunity to continue investing in evergreen intellectual property, which we believe is historically uncorrelated to broader market volatility and forms a powerful diversification tool.”
In a statement, Avi Korn and Chris Mellia, KKR’s global co-heads of asset-backed finance, described HarbourView as a “well-diversified, scaled and high-quality portfolio,” adding that music rights are “one of many areas of opportunity” for the investment giant’s high-grade asset-based finance strategy.
Founded by Clarke Soares in 2021, HarbourView says it has acquired more than 70 music catalogs comprising some 35,000 songs and has approximately $2.67 billion in regulatory assets under management.
Barclays structured the transaction and, along with KKR Capital Markets, acted as the placement agent. Fifth Third Bank and National Association served as passive placement agents.
