Is Pink Floyd About to Sell Its Catalog to Sony Music for Half a Billion Dollars?
variety.comJem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Of all the remaining multimillion-dollar music-catalog deals on the table, the rights to Pink Floyd’s recordings and name/likeness has been the most contentious.
The catalog has been in play for several years with a reported asking price of $500 million, and the group was close to a deal in 2022, but the bitter infighting between the band’s members — primarily over main songwriter Roger Waters’ controversial political statements against Israel and Ukraine, and in favor of Russia — have complicated the deal enormously and scared off a number of suitors.
However, reports and Variety sources say that Sony Music, which has spent more than a billion dollars on catalogs from Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Queen’s non-North American rights in the past few years (with backing from investment firms like Eldridge Industries), is in “advanced” talks to acquire the group’s recorded-music rights for a price between $400 million and $500 million.
While specifics on the deal are unclear — and reps for the group and Sony declined or did not respond to Variety’s requests for comment — if the price is on the high end, as reported by Financial Times, that means Waters’ comments have had little impact on the price tag; if the low end, as reported by Music Business Worldwide, it means he has devalued the catalog by as much as 20%.
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