The Financial Times is reporting Pink Floyd has struck a deal to sell its back catalog to Sony for approximately US $400 million.
The deal is said to include rights to the band’s original recordings, as well as its “name and likeness.” The publishing rights of the band’s output is not included.
The band has been searching for a buyer for the last couple years. Potential suitors have been rumoured to include Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, BMG, Hipgnosis, Concord, Primary Wave, and Blackstone, a private equity group.
Royalities for Floyd’s recordings are collected by two UK-based businesses: One for work that included band co-founder Roger Waters, and another for work completed after Waters’s departure in the mid-1980s.
For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023, the combined revenue of those two entities was approximately US $50 million.
According to the Financial Times, David Gilmour declined to comment on the sale; and Waters was unavailable for comment. But Gilmour recently told Rolling Stone, “To be rid of the decision making and the arguments that are involved with keeping it going is my dream. … I’m only interested in it from getting out of the mud bath that it has been for quite a while.”
