The Weeknd Just Pulled Off A $1 Billion Catalog Deal ***Without*** Having To Sell His Music!

Bruce Springsteen sold his entire music catalog to Sony for $600 million. Bob Dylan cut a deal with Universal Music Group worth close to $400 million. Sting struck an agreement with Universal for around $300 million. Even Justin Bieber, who is barely in his 30s, sold his music rights to Hipgnosis Songs Capital in a deal valued at about $200 million.

These deals, and basically every deal you've ever heard of up to this point, have one big thing in common: the artists only received their massive paydays by SELLING their catalogs. Once the money was wired into their accounts, the labels or investors walked away owning the music forever. For Springsteen or Dylan, legends with decades of hits and nothing left to prove, that kind of transaction makes sense. For younger acts like Bieber, it raised eyebrows. Why give up ownership so early just to access liquidity?

That's what makes The Weeknd's newly completed deal so remarkable. Rather than sell his catalog, the global superstar has finalized a roughly $1 billion partnership that allows him to access enormous capital while retaining long-term ownership and control. In doing so, he has pulled off one of the largest and most unconventional music deals ever and fundamentally changed how elite artists can monetize their catalogs without cashing them out.

(Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

How The Deal Works

Instead of selling his music, The Weeknd structured the transaction more like a highly leveraged refinancing. In simple terms, he treated his catalog the way a homeowner treats a valuable property. Rather than handing over ownership, he used the future royalties generated by his music as collateral to secure a massive financing package.

The deal was led by New York-based Lyric Capital Partners and values The Weeknd's recorded masters and publishing at roughly $1 billion. About 75% of that figure was financed through debt, an unusually high level of leverage for a single artist's catalog, with Lyric Capital taking a minority equity stake of roughly 25%. Importantly, The Weeknd and his longtime manager Wassim "Sal" Slaiby retain overall control of the assets.

The catalog itself includes The Weeknd's master recordings, which he co-owns with Slaiby, and the majority of his publishing. He is believed to own roughly 75% of his publishing interests through a co-publishing arrangement and his writer's share. The remaining 25% of his publishing, now owned by Chord Music Partners, is not part of the Lyric Capital deal.

The debt is serviced by the steady, predictable cash flow generated by his music. Every new surge of streams for songs like "Blinding Lights," every licensing deal involving "Starboy," and every radio spin of "Can't Feel My Face" feeds into the revenue pool that pays interest and principal on the loans. Unlike artists who sold their catalogs outright, The Weeknd did not give up permanent ownership. He effectively borrowed against one of the most reliable music revenue machines in the world.

What $1 Billion Actually Means

While the headline valuation approaches $1 billion, that number does not necessarily represent cash deposited directly into The Weeknd's bank account. The total reflects a combination of debt financing, equity value, and the overall valuation of the underlying assets.

Some of the funding is believed to have been earmarked to refinance or repay a large, still partially unrecouped advance tied to The Weeknd's long-standing relationship with Universal Music Group, which has released his recordings since 2012 through its Republic label and administers his publishing. As with most complex music financings, the true liquidity outcome is meaningfully lower than the headline number, even though the valuation itself places the catalog in rarefied territory.

Why This Deal Is So Unusual

Artist catalog deals that involve debt are nothing new, but the level of leverage here is extraordinary. Traditional bank financing for music assets typically tops out around 55% debt. Even asset-backed securitizations rarely exceed 65% of a catalog's value. Leverage at the 75% level is more commonly applied to diversified portfolios spanning dozens of artists, not to a single performer's catalog.

That makes this deal potentially the most leveraged transaction ever completed for a single artist's music assets. The structure reflects growing confidence among lenders in the durability of streaming-driven revenue, particularly for global superstars whose catalogs generate billions of plays every year.

Why It Matters And What Could Go Wrong

With a valuation near $1 billion, The Weeknd now sits alongside Queen and Michael Jackson as one of the very few artists whose music assets have reached that level. Unlike those deals, however, this one prioritized ownership and control over outright monetization.

At the same time, the leverage introduces real risk. Deals of this nature typically include financial covenants tied to cash flow performance. If the catalog were to underperform for an extended period and fail to generate enough revenue to service the debt, lenders could eventually gain influence or control over the assets. In other words, the same structure that allows The Weeknd to keep ownership today could threaten that control in a prolonged downside scenario.

Not The First Time

If this all sounds brand new, it's not. The idea of raising money by securitizing music royalties goes back nearly three decades, and it started with none other than David Bowie.

In 1997, Bowie was worried about the future of his income streams. With piracy exploding through Napster and Limewire, he feared his royalties might dry up. Rather than sell his catalog, he worked with a banker to invent what became known as "Bowie Bonds." Using 25 albums and 287 songs recorded before 1990 as collateral, Bowie raised $55 million from Prudential Financial. $55 million! That's pocket change to today's artists.

The deal worked like this: for 10 years, Bowie's royalty income flowed to the bondholders instead of his bank account. In exchange, he got a giant upfront payday and even bought back songs that had been controlled by his former manager. When the bonds matured in 2007, his royalty rights reverted back to him. Bowie essentially mortgaged his music, got his money, and kept ownership in the long run.

The Weeknd's deal would be the modern, supersized version of Bowie Bonds. Only this time, the potential payday isn't $55 million… It's $1 billion.