Sony Music is reportedly in talks to buy Queen’s music catalogue for nearly $1bn (£800m).
The rock band, fronted by Freddie Mercury until his death in 1991, were one of the most commercially successful groups in history.
Sony is working with another investor on the transaction, according to Bloomberg.
If the deal went ahead, it would include the rights to merchandising and other business opportunities.
Talks are reported to have been ongoing since last year, and may not result in a deal.
Image: Queen bandmembers (L-R): Roger Taylor, John Deacon, Brian May and Freddie Mercury. Pic: PA
Despite not releasing a new song for 27 years, the band still make tens of millions every year, shared between the three remaining members – Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon, and Mercury‘s estate.
Company filings for Queen Productions Ltd recorded revenues of $52m (£41m) in the year up to September 2022.
Should it achieve the estimated $1bn, it would be the biggest deal of its kind, doubling the $500m (£400m) paid by Sony for Bruce Springsteen’s catalogue in 2021.
Earlier this year Sony also acquired a 50% interest in Michael Jackson’s music catalogue for around $600m (£471m).
Image: Freddie Mercury on stage during Queen’s Live Aid set. Pic: PA
Selling the rights to back catalogues has become big business in recent years, with stars including Beyonce, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Shakira and Barry Manilow all selling off their music rights.
The evergreen nature of hit songs means that investors have been ready to offer high sums for the rights, tempting artists to relinquish their songwriting royalties in exchange for a big one-off payday.
Older artists can find it a particularly attractive prospect, with the added tax incentive of paying a one-off capital gains tax in place of annual income tax on royalties.
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Earlier this year, music investment company Hipgnosis – which owns 138 catalogues with more than 40,000 songs by artists including Blondie and Red Hot Chili Peppers – agreed to a $1.6bn (£1.3bn) takeover by private equity firm Blackstone, following a revolt by shareholders over its leadership.
Queen are famous for hits including Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga, We Will Rock You, Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Another One Bites The Dust.
The band notched up six number one singles and 10 number one albums in the UK across five decades.
In 2018 a biopic about the band, Bohemian Rhapsody, won three Oscars – including best actor for its star Rami Malek, who played Mercury.
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.