Concord Music agreed to acquire Victory Records for an amount of money in the range of $27 million-$34 million, Billboard reports. This is a deal that Concord has spent years working on and now has the entire Victory Records catalog, as well as the Another Victory Publishing catalog.
Founded by Tony Brummel, Victory Records is a Chicago-based independent record label. Another Victory, founded in 1997, is the sister publishing company to Victory Records. The label originally signed hardcore punk and post-hardcore bands, then later included emo and pop-punk performers.
“Concord is a market leader across rock genres in both new releases and catalog,” Concord’s chief business development officer Steve Salm stated. He added, “Tony’s dedication to Victory and the development of talent within these rock genres of metal, emo and hardcore as a true independent operator is incredibly admirable and he’s made a very significant impact in that world.”
Not only will Concord own the catalog, but it also will engage in conversations with the active rosters of the Victory label and publishing company. Salm said, “Tony and I have gotten to know each other over the years and all of us at Concord very much look forward to being the next creative managers of the Victory masters and publishing catalogs as well as insuring all of the artists that have been part of Victory feel very much at home at Concord.”
Founder Brummel commented: “I have had the pleasure of knowing Steve Salm and the Concord team for a few years now. My dealings with Steve and Concord have been nothing but enjoyable. Concord has a great team, infrastructure and the financial backing and support to do great things with the music and entertainment assets that they represent.”
“Victory and Another Victory’s great catalog of music and songs will be in caring and fantastic hands going forward. We’ve had a great run and with Concord it will only continue.” Brummel added, “my team at Victory will be remaining intact as we embark, going forward, on our new and existing business journeys.”
While Brummel decided to continue his third-party merch business, Concord is trying to acquire the merch rights for the artists who signed the contracts covering that asset. “We are building out our merch business as we acquire more rights over time,” Salm said.
Speaking of the future of the label, Salm clarified, “with the backing of the same main institutional investor [Barings Asset Management] with a very long investment horizon, Concord will stay the course and be as aggressive as it has always been,” he said. While Salm expressed that Victory is a good example of the acquisitions it likes to make — buying companies that have both recorded music and own a publishing catalog — he declared the company will continue to look across its three main areas, “record labels, songwriters and theatrical assets and sometimes they intertwine.”
Prominent post-hardcore and metalcore bands on Victory Records currently include Thursday, Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Taking Back Sunday, Bayside, Streetlight Manifesto and A Day to Remember.
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