Concord has renewed its global distribution agreement with Universal Music Group (UMG), continuing a B2B partnership that has spanned more than 15 years.
Under the new contract, UMG will continue to physically and digitally distribute releases from Concord’s frontline labels, led by Chief Label Executive Tom Whalley, and catalog projects led by Chief Catalog Executive Sig Sigworth, including recordings from Craft Recordings, Fantasy Records, Fearless Records, Loma Vista Recordings, Rounder Records, Concord Jazz and the No.1 children’s brand, KIDZ BOP.
“UMG and Concord have built a wonderful relationship over the past 15 years,” said Concord CEO Scott Pascucci. “As we have grown, they have provided the support that we needed to expand the worldwide success of our frontline labels, the KIDZ BOP franchise, Craft Recordings, and the rest of our catalog. We are very pleased to be renewing this partnership with Universal.”
“UMG and Concord have built a wonderful relationship over the past 15 years.”
Scott Pascucci, Concord
“Our partnership with Concord is built on a foundation of shared values,” said Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group.
“We both put artists and creativity at the center of everything we do. I couldn’t be happier to extend our partnership and l look forward to even more success working with Scott, Tom, Sig and the entire Concord team.”
“Our partnership with Concord is built on a foundation of shared values.”
Sir Lucian Grainge, Universal Music Group
Concord’s master recording catalog contains more than 16,000 active albums and includes 284 Grammy winners – which the company estimates represents over 6.5% of all Grammys ever awarded.
Concord’s historical labels are managed by its Craft Recordings team, and include storied imprints such as Fania, Independiente, Milestone, Musart, Nitro, Pablo, Prestige, Riverside, Savoy, Specialty, Stax, Telarc, Varèse Sarabande, Vee-Jay and Wind-up.
Concord announced in August that it had closed a $600m debt offering placed with 90 investment firms by J.P. Morgan.
Combined with its existing $450m revolving credit facility, the term loan B debt offering provided Concord with access to over $1bn of debt financing in total.Music Business Worldwide
