Credit: Christian Bertrand/Shutterstock
The high-stakes world of music catalog investment is currently shifting toward complex debt financing as Chord Music Partners moves to raise $500 million. Through a newly established vehicle called the Canon Music Issuer Trust, the platform is launching an Asset-Backed Securitization (ABS) deal supported by a catalog recently valued at $830 million. This move allows the Universal Music Group-backed platform to leverage the steady royalties of modern superstars and independent icons to fuel further acquisitions.
The collateral pool for this transaction includes more than 3,750 works, but the financial weight is concentrated in a few massive names. According to a pre-sale report from Kroll Bond Rating Agency, the independent label G59 Records is currently the largest contributor to the pool. Co-founded by the New Orleans rap duo Suicideboys, the G59 sub-catalog generated 23.3 percent of the total net royalty income in the twelve months leading up to June 2025. This highlights a significant trend where independent hip-hop assets are achieving the same institutional valuation as traditional mainstream pop.
Following G59, country star Morgan Wallen accounts for 15.8 percent of the trailing royalties, while songwriter Ryan Tedder contributes 15.3 percent. Together with Suicideboys, these three entities represent over 54 percent of the catalog’s total income. The Morgan Wallen portion of the deal is structured through a specific joint venture between Chord and his label, Big Loud, reflecting a minority stake acquisition in his master recordings that reportedly cost north of $200 million in 2025.
The structural management of this deal signals a deepening relationship between investment capital and major label infrastructure. Universal Music Investments Inc., a subsidiary of UMG, will act as the manager for the transaction. This arrangement follows UMG’s $240 million acquisition of a minority stake in Chord back in 2024. By using UMG’s operational expertise to manage the 60,000 copyrights within the broader Chord portfolio, the platform is currently positioning itself as a dominant force in the $2 billion-plus race for music rights.
The Canon Music transaction arrives during a busy year for music-linked debt, following a massive $1.765 billion deal from Concord in late 2025. With a weighted average age of 10 years for the tracks in this pool, the deal relies on the “proven” nature of these assets to provide long-term stability for investors. As more firms like Blackstone and Kobalt turn to the ABS market, the industry is currently seeing a standardization of music as a reliable financial asset class capable of supporting half-billion-dollar debt offerings.
About the Author
