Bruce Springsteen Sells His Masters To Sony in $500M Deal

In what may be the biggest deal in music for an individual body of work, Bruce Springsteen has sold his masters to Sony Music and his music publishing to Sony Music Publishing in a combined deal that sources tell Billboard is in the area of $500 million.

As Billboard reported in November, Sony has been in negotiations to purchase Springsteen’s album catalog, while the superstar was also shopping his publishing catalog, which Universal Music Publishing Group has been administering, at the same time. Sources tell Billboard the floor to bid for the combined assets was $350 million, though that number was quickly surpassed.

Springsteen has recorded for Sony’s Columbia Records imprint for his entire 50-year career and, like other top-selling 1970s and ’80s stars, was granted ownership of his earlier albums as incentive to re-sign with the label in the late ’80s and ’90s as sales boomed during the CD explosion.

The Springsteen album catalog, which has racked up 65.5 million sales in the United States according to the RIAA website, and which includes the 15-times platinum Born In The U.S.A. and the five-times times platinum The River, still has plenty of firepower, as his music has generated 2.25 million album consumption units in the U.S. since the beginning of 2018, according to MRC Data.

Billboard estimates that the Springsteen catalog generated about $15 million in revenue in 2020 in a year that saw his catalog activity buoyed by a new release — last October’s Letter To You — and the carryover from 3 albums that were released in 2019: Western Stars, the Western Stars soundtrack and the Blinded By the Light soundtrack.

Billboard estimates that Springsteen’s publishing catalog brings in about $7.5 million a year. Consequently, the estimated value of the Springsteen publishing catalog is between $185 million (at a 25-times multiple) to $225 million (at a 30-times multiple).

The 30-time multiple of $225 million and 20-times multiple for the masters would bring the total to $415 million, but sources say the final price was considerably higher.

According to Reuters, it is the latest in a string of catalog deals over the past year or so that includes the music of David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Stevie Nicks, Neil Young and Carole Bayer Sager.

Warner Music bought worldwide rights to Bowie's catalog in September, and Dylan sold his back catalog of more than 600 songs in December last year to Universal Music Group (VIV.PA)at a purchase price widely reported as $300 million.