UK-based Cutting Edge Music Holdings has partnered with affiliates of London-based investment firm Blantyre Capital to acquire music publishing rights owned by composers who write music for film and TV.
The partnership has committed an initial $125 million to the strategy and a third (33%) of this sum has already been invested in music rights for productions aired by what Cutting Edge says are major networks and streaming platforms.
The four catalogs of rights purchased to date include what Cutting Edge says are successful franchises with productions broadcast on networks / streaming platforms including: Fox, FX, ABC, CBS, Disney, Paramount, HBO, TNT, Warner, NBC Universal, Hulu, Starz, Netflix, Amazon and Apple.
Blantyre manages long-term committed capital in excess of €1.6 billion (approx. $1.8bn) on behalf of institutional investors including public and private pension plans, endowments, foundations, and family offices.
Founded in the UK in the early 2000s, Cutting Edge operates as a financier, publisher, and record label.
Led by founder and CEO Philip Moross, the company provides a range of music services to such films and TV titles Stranger Things, Bridgerton, The King’s Speech, Moonlight, Drive, Star Trek: Discovery, Fury, John Wick, Sicario, Whiplash, Hacksaw Ridge, and The Walking Dead; Broadway shows Matilda, The Color Purple, Anastasia, and My Fair Lady; and triple-A video games such as: Sunset Overdrive, Assassins Creed Valhalla, Red Dead Redemption and Cyberpunk 2077.
Cutting Edge’s divisions include Lakeshore Records (Soundtracks), Music.Film (Film & TV Music Licensing Platform), Broadway Records (Musical Theatre), Cutting Edge Music Publishing (Music Publisher), and White Stork (Custom Music House).
The firm reports to have published and released the music for over 400 feature films, TV shows, and games.
CEG’s previous musical theatre releases include Matilda, The Color Purple, Anastasia, and The Lightning Thief.
Cutting Edge also operates a wellness label, myndstream, which is home to artists who it says have collectively amassed billions of streams across Spotify, Apple, Pandora, and Amazon.
Back in 2018, Concord Music acquired movie soundtrack and score label Varèse Sarabande from Film Score Records, an investor group led and managed by The Cutting Edge Group. As part of the deal, Cutting Edge itself became a client of Concord Music, which started to provide distribution, marketing, and label services to the firm on a worldwide basis.
Music Business Worldwide