Eamonn Forde Meets… – each month, the veteran music business journalist speaks to a senior industry figure about the topics that really matter – and gets the opinions of the people who make the decisions that count.
October 2025: Cynthia Katz, partner at Fox Rothschild. Acquisition position: Cynthia Katz is a partner at major US law firm Fox Rothschild where she specialises in mergers and acquisitions, as well as corporate and entertainment transactions, notably in music. She was previously in legal and business affairs at EMI Music. The size of catalogue acquisition deals she handles might be changing, but the velocity is not. What is changing, however, is the scope of rights being rolled into the deal, what countries the targeted music catalogues are originating from, and a broadening out of what now counts as an evergreen hit.
She explains why the acquisition market is still moving at breakneck speed, how the basket of rights is (by necessity) getting broader and deeper, where the niche is gaining ground on the blockbuster, why “new” is the “new old” in terms of the life of a song, where revenue leaks still exist, how deals are becoming more global and less Anglophonic (just as streaming itself is), and why Morrissey will likely be held up as the perfect example of how not to sell a catalogue.
It can sometimes feel like, at the blockbuster level, all the huge catalogues that could be sold have now been sold. Yet there is still enormous hunger in the investment community and the traditional music rights business to buy up catalogues. Arguably the Queen catalogue was the last (and biggest) mega-deal, but the market is still frenetic. Perhaps more sensible, and certainly much broader, deals are happening now, with new genres and new markets indicating where the next wave of growth will happen.
Cynthia Katz has seen many of these deals up close and is watching where the sector will twist and turn next. There has been, she says, a solid growth in deals over the past decade, suggesting the peak might have been around 2021-2022 “when the [interest] rates were low”, but that does not mean we are in a sharp decline.
“It’s still a very healthy and active market in terms of investment and diversification of financing opportunities,” she says. “The breadth of transactions has not slowed; if anything, it is increasing.”
What is fuelling this is that the basket of rights is, partly out of necessity, becoming larger. Initially it was publishing rights, then recording rights, but now this is broadening out to include artist royalties, producer royalties, PRO income, neighbouring rights, name, image and likeness rights, and even manager commissions.
“Any and all revenue streams related to music have turned into an asset class,” she says. This is also a byproduct of increased competition, meaning that there has been a noticeable move from evergreen and gold-plated generalist catalogues to more specialist areas or sub-sectors.
“Everyone’s looking to find a specialty,” she explains. “So we have some [buyers] who want composer rights for TV and film, or some that are only going to look at EDM producers, or specific territories.”
Historically, it was proven and enduring hits that buyers were after – music with a solid track record that lowered the investment risk. As such catalogues get bought up, buyers are having to redefine what they understand as bankable hits. Newer music is the new legacy music.
“It used to be that we were only looking at evergreen-type assets, assets that were older, that you could better forecast,” she says. “Now we are seeing catalogues that are much, much younger [selling]. I’ve seen people buying catalogues that are only five years old. The models have obviously evolved, where they understand the decay curve. Every different genre has a different kind of curve, and so the valuations are getting more sophisticated in their forecasting.”
More investment interest than ever
While previously the biggest deals were being done by existing rightsowners (i.e. the major labels/publishers and the largest independents) and the capital-heavy investment vehicles, the buyer pool is broadening out.
“Looking at the financing aspect of these deals, securitisation has, for the past two or three years, been skyrocketing,” Katz explains. “Vehicles for financing have put a lot more investment into the market. We’re also seeing crowdfunding [step forward] as well as other kinds of increased venture capital and private equity structures. We’re seeing a lot of secondary catalogue sales too where, as the financial players build up a collection of catalogues, they flip and sell it off to another fund; or they securitise it and get pension funds and other types of investors involved in the securities backed by these assets.”
One problem she highlights when catalogues are sold and re-sold with accelerating frequency is that the potential for revenue leakage grows exponentially. If a catalogue changes hands too often, money trickles through the fingers of those many hands.
“In general, when you move these assets around, [it’s like] they’re made of water, and it leaks,” she argues. “There’s so much leakage every time you move it [so] income disappears. I don’t know where it goes. The pipelines of royalties are messy. The music industry is messy. It’s complicated. You’ve got, worldwide, multiple revenue streams. So every time you move a catalogue from one PRO to another, or from one label to another, somehow income gets lost.”
“I’ve seen people buying catalogues that are only five years old … the valuations are getting more sophisticated in their forecasting.”
Cynthia Katz
We speak mere days after the RIAA issued its numbers for the US in the first half of 2025. Overall, the market only grew 0.9%, with streaming revenues specifically increasing by just 2.3%. As the world’s biggest recorded music market, there were concerns about streaming reaching saturation point. Will this have a negative effect on catalogue sales and valuations? Katz thinks not.
“While it is slowing a little bit, we are still in a healthy growth cycle,” she proposes. “Obviously, it’s very attractive when it’s growing, but it’s also attractive when it’s staying stable.”
She adds, “There is the US, but there is also the whole rest of the world. That is a huge focus. The rest of the world still has a lot of growth that is happening. There’s a lot of interest, whether that is in Western/English music, but being consumed abroad, and then also music not in English or non-Western music.” K-pop is the most obvious example here, but it will go wider.
Bigmouth strikes again – how not to sell a catalogue
While most catalogue sales go through a careful and structured sales process, occasionally there is a wildcard that seems to throw all the tried and tested methods out of the window. Enter Morrissey and his claim he was, via a sales notice on Morrissey Central, looking to offload his interest in The Smiths. Or not. It was never quite clear.
“It’s not a way to do it, because any serious financial buyer is not going to get involved,” sighs Katz. “They need a package to evaluate. And it takes work to bring a catalogue to market. For big catalogues, you might need business managers, some have investment bankers, lawyers. You can’t go to market without a team who can go to the buyer. You have to check your underlying agreements and make sure you have the right to sell.”
She layers on the complications. “Many recording and publishing agreements have matching rights and rights of first negotiation,” she says. “That means if you want to sell, in an old agreement you did with [an old label partner], you have to go to them first […] No buyers want to get into a bidding war with a hundred other buyers.
“I have a lot of buyers who say, ‘If more than two people have already looked at it, count me out, because it’s a bad place to be.’ That’s not how I would go to market. Aside from possibly looking desperate, you’ve also taken a lot of buyers, who are probably the best buyers, out because they don’t want to play that game.”
Morrissey is, as he is in so many ways in his life and career, a complete outlier and his more “cavalier” approach to catalogue sales does not represent the approach of others here. For Katz, the market has plenty of scope to expand, notably internationally. Blockbuster deals for megastars will likely characterise a very specific moment in the catalogue acquisition world, but things should move away from hysterical headlines to become calmer and more prudent.
