Anthem Entertainment was originally a Canadian record label (Anthem Records) in which three members of the band Rush – Geddy Lee, Neil Peart and Alex Lifeson – were associate directors.
In November 2015, Anthem was acquired by big-spending Canadian music rights company ole Media Management. The strategic acquisition came as ole – which was best known for its publishing rights management – expanded with its own recorded music services division.
In June 2019, ole was rebranded as Anthem Entertainment, led by CEO Helen Murphy.
ole Media Management was founded in 2004, with operations in Toronto, Nashville, New York, Los Angeles and London.
Acquisitions
Before ole Media Management became Anthem Entertainment, it made a string of significant acquisitions in the music business.
Led by then-CEO Robert Ott, these buyouts included ole’s 2014 acquisition of film and TV music rights from Sony Pictures for a reported $130 million.
In March 2015, ole acquired the music agency Jingle Punks.
ole then moved on to buy other assets in 2015 such as Rush’s music publishing company, Core Music, plus the Canadian record label, Taurus Recordings.
In February 2016, ole acquired the production music company of Dutch publisher Imagem.
Seven months later, in September 2016, ole announced that it had secured a $500m USD credit facility from twelve U.S. and Canadian banks led by Los Angeles-based City National Bank.
Ole called it “the largest credit facility in independent music publishing industry in recent years”.
As part of that same announcement, the company confirmed that it had already deployed $520m on music acquisitions, and that its owned portfolio included songs recorded by artists such as Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Carrie Underwood, Eric Church, Jay Z, Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Madonna, Michael Jackson, One Direction, Rihanna, Rush, Taylor Swift, and Timbaland.
Ole subsequently used its USD $500m credit facility to acquire assets including London-based Compact Media, which managed Audio-Visual Secondary Rights for more than 700 clients around the world.
In the first quarter of 2017, ole spent $20 million on acquisitions including its buyout of Nashville-based independent music publisher Red Vinyl Music, LLC.
In November 2017, Bloomberg reported that Ole had twice failed to sell itself for $600 million, as part of a capitalization review process.
In October 2019, now known as Anthem Entertainment, the company announced it had acquired the music publishing rights to Ricky Reed’s catalog.
Leadership change
In November 2018, seven months before ole was rebranded to Anthem Entertainment, it was announced that Helen Murphy would be replacing Robert Ott as the CEO of ole.
Prior to founding her own company, International Media Services, Inc, in 2004, Murphy was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Warner Music Group.
The 2018 announcement of Murphy’s CEO appointment at ole came six months after Robert Ott sold his stake in ole to the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.Music Business Worldwide