A pop song can be an investment, and a private-equity-backed fund just bought a slice of some very famous ones.
The deal
HarbourView Equity Partners has acquired the publisher's share of select compositions from Wolf Cousins, the songwriting collective built around Swedish hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback, Music Business Worldwide reported. The deal gives HarbourView a cut of royalties from a deep bench of streaming-era hits, including Taylor Swift's "Style" and "…Ready For It?" and songs by Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Imagine Dragons and Ellie Goulding, per Fortune. The price is in the "low nine-figure range" — north of $100 million — according to reports HarbourView declined to confirm. Warner Chappell Music continues to administer the catalog.
How music rights work
Every song has two layers of ownership. The master recording is the specific audio file, typically owned by an artist or label. The composition is the underlying melody and lyrics, owned by the songwriter or their publisher. When a song is streamed, played on the radio or licensed for a film or ad, the composition generates royalties that flow to whoever holds the rights.
HarbourView bought the publisher's share of these compositions; Martin and Shellback keep their writer's share. In practice, that entitles HarbourView to a portion of what these songs earn every time they are streamed, performed or licensed — a stream of income that can run for decades.
Why investors want songs
Music catalogs have become a sought-after asset class because streaming turned royalties into predictable, recurring cash flow — bond-like income that doesn't move with the stock market. Established hits "trade at a higher multiple" precisely because their earnings are stable and well-understood after years of data, music valuation specialist Barry Massarsky told Fortune. There's also a practical upside to consolidation: when one owner holds multiple writers' shares of the same song, it is far easier for a film studio or advertiser to license it.
HarbourView, founded in 2021 and backed by Apollo Global Management, manages roughly $3.9 billion and has amassed 70-plus catalogs covering tens of thousands of songs, alongside rivals such as Hipgnosis, Primary Wave and KKR-backed BMG that have spent billions buying songwriters' rights.
What it means for Swift
The deal does not touch Taylor Swift's own master recordings or her songwriter royalties. She co-wrote both songs and keeps her writer's share, and she has separately re-recorded much of her older work as "Taylor's Version" to regain control of her masters. Because publishing rights attach to the composition itself, HarbourView's share applies whichever version is streamed — a reminder of how durable, and how layered, music has become as a financial asset. (One note: the original headlines around the deal sometimes name "Shake It Off" and "Blank Space"; the Swift songs confirmed in this transaction are "Style" and "…Ready For It?")
