Born to run… to the bank. Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen sold the rights to all his music to Sony for a reported $500M+, the largest music-rights deal ever. Sony will profit from your streams of classics like “Born in the U.S.A.” on platforms such as Spotify, YouTube, and TikTok.
- Music mega-deals have boomed this year: Sony spent $1.4B on music in just the first six months of 2021.
- Bob Dylan sold his catalog to Universal Music for an estimated $300M last December, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Paul Simon sold their catalogs for $140M+ this year.
#Flated tunes… The value of popular music catalogs soared this year as demand grew across social platforms (TikTok today, the metaverse tomorrow). Many musicians chose to cash out on the premium prices. And they weren’t the only ones:
- Stocks: Corporate execs sold a record number of shares this year. Elon Musk recently sold nearly $13B worth of Tesla stock, and last month Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella offloaded half his MSFT shares.
- Entertainment: Roald Dahl’s estate sold the rights to his beloved kids’ books to Netflix for $700M, and MGM is selling its films (and itself) to Amazon for $8.5B.
- Real estate: Home prices soared to fresh records in 2021, spurring the most home sales in 15 years.
This year was the Great Cash-Out... because next year is the great unknown. 2021 was a seller’s market because of high prices (thanks, inflation) and easy borrowing (thanks, low interest rates). 2022 may be different: The Fed is expected to raise interest rates three times to curb soaring prices. President Biden and Dem lawmakers plan to increase taxes on the wealthy, which could reduce gains from cashing out. Meanwhile, the fast-spreading Omicron variant is creating greater economic uncertainty.