Active Catalog Management Outperforms, Investors Say at NYC Summit
At the Amplify Music Investment Summit in May in New York, investors and music executives said actively managing catalogs outperforms simply holding them.
The inaugural Amplify Music Investment Summit took place in May at Virgin Hotels in New York. Fund managers, wealth advisors and music executives discussed investment strategies for music rights and royalty income, saying active management is producing higher returns than passive ownership.
Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl and Lisa Yang, WMG’s EVP and global head of strategy, described a portfolio approach to catalog deals. The company now runs a centralized pipeline to allocate capital toward higher-return opportunities and targets returns in the high teens. Yang noted a valuation gap between WMG’s public stock, trading near 10 times EBITDA, and private sales of comparable catalogs that have fetched larger multiples.
On artificial intelligence in music, Yang estimated consumer listening to AI-generated songs at under 1 percent. Kyncl said casual creators tend to use recognizable artists and sounds rather than anonymous AI content, which he expects to support demand for established intellectual property.
Panelists on “Music Rights as an Asset Class” traced the sector’s institutionalization to streaming, which converted a hit-driven business into recurring, more predictable revenue streams. Morgan Stanley managing director Cameron Smalls warned that passive royalty holders lose control when rights owners change distribution platforms or accept advances that reduce income. He told the audience, “If you’re passive, you’re in the backseat.”
Speakers gave examples of active management. Round Hill Music founder and CEO Josh Gruss cited a period when his listed vehicle traded at about a 50 percent discount to net asset value and linked that gap to market misunderstanding of the underlying rights. Natalia Nastaskin, partner and chief content officer at Primary Wave Music, detailed a campaign around the Luther Vandross estate that combined a widely viewed documentary, a high-profile sample used by contemporary artists, brand partnerships, a planned Alvin Ailey–linked stage production at New York’s City Center in November and a biographical film in development.
The summit addressed capital structure and investor demand. Concord chief business development executive Steve Salm said the company’s majority investor, a Michigan state pension fund, provides permanent capital that removes pressure for a fixed exit timeline. Gruss argued that typical private equity time frames of five to 10 years are short for assets that can grow in value over decades. Smalls said institutional appetite for music asset-backed securitizations is very strong but supply is limited, noting global music copyright revenues of roughly $40 billion a year versus a much larger conventional credit market.
MUSQ, a co-presenter of the summit, tracks a Global Music Industry Index and carries an expense ratio of 0.76 percent. The fund reported about $22.4 million in assets under management at the time of the event. VettaFi LLC is the index provider for the MUSQ index and receives an index licensing fee; MUSQ is not issued, sponsored, endorsed or sold by VettaFi.
Speakers described forms of active stewardship that include centralized deal pipelines, marketing campaigns, synchronization placements, stage productions and strategic partnerships. They also highlighted structural risks for passive holders, such as lack of decision rights when copyright owners change distribution or financing arrangements.
