‘Content is Queen’ Investor Targets $20 Billion Under Management

(Bloomberg) -- Sherrese Clarke Soares is thinking big.

The founder and chief executive officer of HarbourView Equity Partners plans to build the investment firm she launched this month into a $20 billion asset manager by 2026. 

HarbourView, which announced that it would start with $1 billion in backing from Apollo Global Management and others, is looking  to invest in deals in the $50 million to $300 million range. In particular she’s eyeing the music business, which has been a hot area for dealmaking with the growth in streaming and TV and film licensing revenue.

“Music really is everywhere,”  Clarke Soares said in an interview for Bloomberg’s Black in Focus series.  “We're seeing it in gaming platforms.  Obviously out-of-home fitness. Nobody's riding their Peloton in silence. They're all riding to the Lizzo ride or the Beyonce ride. Music really is ubiquitous. And so from that perspective, we  really do see a world where content is everywhere.”

Investor interest in media — and music in particular — seems insatiable. BMG and KKR have partnered to spend $1 billion to buy song copyrights.  Hipgnosis and Blackstone have formed their own song catalogs.  This week Universal Music Group — whose artists range from Abba to The Weeknd — announced a 16% quarterly sales jump, reflecting the overall five-year growth trend in industrywide music sales. On Thursday, Bloomberg News reported that 300 Entertainment — the record label of Megan Thee Stallion and Young Thug — is exploring  a sale that could be value it at $400 million.

Are these valuations realistic and sustainable? There are “very strong macro trends that are really providing tailwinds to all of these businesses,” Clarke Soares said. Institutional investors are waking up to the ability for content to “really be the linchpin, be the tip of the spear to actually drive outcomes.”

Clarke Soares, whose resume includes working as an entertainment industry banker at Morgan Stanley and CIT Group, was the CEO of Tempo Music, before starting HarbourView.  She says she trademarked the phrase “content is queen.’’

 “As you think about a chess board, the queen can move in any direction,’’ she said. “We're bullish. We're long-term investors in content.”

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