Kanye West is reportedly looking to sell his publishing shares.
Kanye West is making some money moves after terminating his deals with Adidas and Gap. According to Billboard, the megastar is looking for a buyer to purchase his shares of his catalog. The process began within the past year as the artist’s representatives sat down with a variety of prospective buyers to determine the valuation of his catalog.
At this point, there isn’t a price set in stone, especially since there are a few factors that make it difficult to identify. However, Kanye West is reportedly seeking 35x the estimated gross profit with the opportunity for the buyer to ink a go-forward deal with Ye.
The publication estimated that West’s catalog brings nearly $13.25M a year in publishing royalties, though the amount that Kanye receives differs. Not only does much of his later catalog have upwards of 10-24 songwriters on each song including artists sampled on his record. It’s likely that Ye has 35% of his first four albums while the latter part of his catalog from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy onward are closer to 20%. Overall, Kanye reportedly brings in $5M a year. The asking price would likely be closer to $175M if rumors that he’s asking for 35x the gross profit are true.
On top of the splits between songwriters, there’s also the fact that there are still disputes surrounding how publishing on some of his records is decided. This aspect, particularly, creates even more hesitancy among potential buyers because they don’t even know what amount of these would land in Ye’s pockets anyways.
The other factor that plays into the bidding war includes the status of his current records, as well as how his public persona effects it. As of now, Kanye continues to have success on the Billboard charts with little sign of slowing down, but there’s always a point where these hits begin to “decay.” Ye hasn’t experienced this yet and it’s hard to predict if he will.
The efforts have reportedly slowed down, which is a strong sign that they’ve either landed a bidder or took the catalog off of the market.
