Credit | Case Study
Concord: Largest-Ever Music ABS Transaction
Building on a longstanding relationship, Apollo supported leading independent music company Concord in October 2024 with an $850 Million ABS issuance – the latest of three transactions led by Apollo, including the largest-ever and highest-rated music ABS in history* at $1.8 Billion.
In October 2024, Concord successfully closed a new series of $850 million in senior notes backed by a diverse catalog of music assets. The notes were secured by music royalties from a pool of catalogs containing over one million songs, including iconic works recorded by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Kiss, R.E.M., Genesis, Otis Redding, Carrie Underwood, Cheap Trick, Creed, Phil Collins and more, and the transaction was more than 3x oversubscribed, demonstrating robust investor demand.
As of January 2025, Concord’s catalog is valued at more than $5 billion, resulting in an approximate 52 percent loan-to-value ratio for the offering, and the notes are rated A+ by KBRA and A2 by Moody’s. Its differentiated assets span a wide range of musical genres, including over 300 GRAMMY Award winners and more than 400 recordings with Gold, Platinum, Multi-Platinum, and Diamond Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certifications.
“An asset-backed solution made all the sense in the world for Concord. We allowed them to access a very efficient market in a way that they had a scalable, flexible solution which gave them a distinct advantage.”
Bret Leas, Partner and Co-Head of Asset-Backed Finance
The latest issuance represents the third transaction between Concord and Apollo in less than two years, with Concord issuing more than $3 billion into the ABS market in total. As part of the transaction, the offering was cross-collateralized with notes offered in 2022, when Apollo structured and anchored a $1.8 billion ABS, the largest-ever and highest-rated ABS of music catalog rights. Nine months after that transaction, Concord upsized its ABS master trust by $500 million with the support of Apollo to acquire Round Hill Music Royalty Fund, adding more than 150,000 songs and 50 catalogs to its portfolio.
Concord’s leadership team worked hand-in-hand with Apollo to develop a customized solution that was long term in nature, cost efficient and could grow alongside their business. Concord had been on a strong trajectory in an industry that had benefitted from the proliferation and adoption of digital streaming, and they wanted flexible capital that suited their corporate strategy, including the pursuit of accretive catalog acquisitions, which is exactly what Apollo was able to provide.
“We're really partners with Apollo in this. Apollo really has a true understanding of all the intricacies of the music business. Having a partner with that level of knowledge is extraordinarily powerful for us.”
Bob Valentine, CEO, Concord
These three transactions leveraged the best of Apollo’s ecosystem – including diverse expertise, permanent capital, and strong client and investor relationships – to provide creative, long-term solutions with certainty of execution. Apollo’s Capital Solutions and Asset-Backed Finance teams, along with affiliate Redding Ridge Asset Management and ATLAS SP Securities, all played critical roles supporting Concord through cost-effective, asset-backed financing that seeks to drive growth for years to come.
If you are interested to learn how we can help solve your business funding needs, contact ACS@Apollo.com.
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Hear from Concord CEO Bob Valentine and Apollo team members on how they executed a strategy to establish a scaled, flexible financing platform that could grow alongside Concord’s business, which resulted in more than $3 billion being issued into the ABS market, including the largest-ever and highest-rated music ABS in history.
*Source: Apollo analysis based on precedent music asset-backed securitization transactions.
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