Pink Floyd to Sell Catalog to Sony for a Half Billion Dollars?

Of all the remaining multimillion-dollar music-catalog deals on the table, the rights to Pink Floyd’s recordings and name/likeness has been the most contentious. The catalog has been in play for several years with a reported asking price of $500 million, and the group was close to a deal in 2022, but the bitter infighting between the band’s members — primarily over main songwriter Roger Waters’ controversial political statements against Israel and Ukraine, and in favor of Russia — have complicated the deal enormously and scared off a number of suitors.

However, reports and Variety sources say that Sony Music, which has spent more than a billion dollars on catalogs from Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Queen’s non-North American rights in the past few years (with backing from investment firms like Eldridge Industries), is in “advanced” talks to acquire the group’s recorded-music rights for a price between $400 million and $500 million.

While specifics on the deal are unclear — and reps for the group and Sony declined or did not respond to Variety’s requests for comment — if the price is on the high end, as reported by Financial Times, that means Waters’ comments have had little impact on the price tag; if the low end, as reported by Music Business Worldwide, it means he has devalued the catalog by as much as 20%.

Other potential suitors were said to be underwhelmed with the catalog’s annual earnings.

Key bandmembers Waters and David Gilmour (pictured above right and left, respectively, in the early 1970s), have been feuding for decades, taking public potshots at each other while recently trying to find enough common ground to close a deal.

Sony has never officially confirmed its catalog deals, although the ones listed above have been either widely reported by informed sources or been listed later on earnings reports. However, if news emerges that the deal has closed, the company is likely to face a firestorm of criticism for paying such a hefty sum to Waters, who has vehemently denied that he is antisemitic but has been quite unambiguous about his fierce criticism of the governments of Israel, Ukraine and the United States, and his strong statements in support of Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Among many other incendiary statements, Waters has compared Israel to Nazi Germany and said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “not unprovoked.” (Waters’ 2022 concerts in Poland were canceled over his comments about neighboring Ukraine.) “You are anti-Semitic to your rotten core,” Gilmour’s wife, novelist Polly Samson, told Waters on Twitter, amid other colorful comments; “Every word demonstrably true,” Gilmour added. Waters refuted their comments as “incendiary and wildly inaccurate.”

The companies that were close to a deal with the group in 2022 — said to be Hipgnosis, Warner Music and BMG — have all had leadership changes since then (and earlier this year, BMG dropped Waters from its roster as a solo artist). Waters’ comments were a major factor in the deals falling apart, although a variety of other factors — including rising interest rates, tax issues and the sinking value of the British pound — also played a role.

Sources told Variety early last year that the deal was “basically dead” because the surviving band members “just can’t get along,” although sources close to the band insisted that it wasn’t.

“You could say the deal is no longer ‘active,’” one source said. “But at the same time, it’s still on the table. It’s a strange situation!”

On a purely business level, the Pink Floyd recorded-music catalog, not to mention its merchandising rights, is one of the most valuable in contemporary music, with classic albums like “Dark Side of the Moon,” “The Wall,” “Wish You Were Here,” “Animals,” “Meddle,” “Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” “More” and more. And after the sales of catalogs by Dylan, Springsteen (both for around $600 million), Neil Young, Stevie Nicks, James Brown (all around the low nine figures) and many others, it is one of the most lucrative and desirable known to be on the market. (Song publishing is not included in the prospective Pink Floyd deal.) The principals — Waters, Nick Mason, David Gilmour and the estate of late keyboardist Rick Wright — are all in their early 80s or late 70s and presumably thinking about estate planning.

Caught in the middle of the dispute is Mason, who said in 2018, “It’s really disappointing these rather elderly gentlemen are still at loggerheads.”