Downtown’s acquisition of AVL’s portfolio of companies follows a year (2018) in which total revenue generated by ‘self-releasing\u2019 independent artists\u00a0was $643 million<\/a>, according to figures published by MIDiA Research.<\/p>\n CD Baby alone\u00a0contributed over $100m<\/a> of that $600m-plus figure.<\/p>\n AVL Digital and its portfolio of companies will continue to operate as a separate subsidiary of Downtown Music Holdings following the acquisition.<\/p>\n AVL\u2019s physical product divisions, Disc Makers, BookBaby, and Merchly, will be acquired in a separate transaction by the Disc Makers executive team as part of the newly-formed DIY Media Group.<\/p>\n Founded by CEO Justin Kalifowitz (pictured) in New York in 2007,\u00a0 Downtown’s publishing division is home to some of the most iconic songs in the world, including Gershwin & Heyward\u2019s Summertime and John Lennon and Yoko Ono\u2019s Imagine.<\/p>\n The company has also been growing a high-profile contemporary publishing portfolio via recent acquisitions, such as\u00a0the Salli Isaak companies<\/a> started by Nick Raphael and Jo Charrington in 2006 (home to Sam Smith collaborator Jimmy Napes and Paloma Faith) and\u00a0more than 170 Ryan Tedder compositions<\/a> \u2013 including cuts on Halo by Beyonce and Rumor Has It and Turning Tables by Adele.<\/p>\n In 2019, Downtown’s songwriters have been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and scored multiple No.1 hit singles including Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper\u2019s Shallow.<\/p>\n Downtown’s royalty collection division Songtrust serves over 170,000 songwriters and music publishers across 1.6m song copyrights.<\/p>\n As a result of this acquisition, Downtown’s global footprint will include over 300 employees spanning 14 markets in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Latin America.<\/p>\n There are also currently 25 job openings<\/a> across AVL and Downtown and the company expects to increase its global headcount by an additional 10-15% in the next 12 months.<\/p>\n AVL will be led by CD Baby\u2019s widely respected CEO Tracy Maddux, who is based in Portland, Oregon.<\/p>\n Downtown was advised by Perella Weinberg Partners and McDermott Will & Emery, while AVL’s advisors included Stephens Inc., The Raine Group and Offit Kurman.<\/p>\n \u201cBeyond shared values, the acquisition of AVL expands upon our existing portfolio and represents Downtown\u2019s strategy of developing and investing in preeminent music businesses serving the full spectrum of music creators.”<\/p>\n Justin Kalifowitz, Downtown<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Downtown Founder and CEO Justin Kalifowitz said: \u201cTracy and his team have built a portfolio of music businesses operating at unmatched scale.<\/p>\n “AVL\u2019s technology, diverse offerings and artist-first approach are well-positioned to power some of the fastest growing segments of the industry.<\/p>\n \u201cBeyond shared values, the acquisition of AVL expands upon our existing portfolio and represents Downtown\u2019s strategy of developing and investing in preeminent music businesses serving the full spectrum of music creators.”<\/p>\n \u201cThis transaction will allow us to take the services we offer the independent music community to the next level.”<\/p>\n Tracy Maddux, AVL<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Tracy Maddux added: \u201cThis transaction will allow us to take the services we offer the independent music community to the next level.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are excited to continue to build leading platforms that help artists release, promote and monetize their music all around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Picture credit: Stephanie Severance<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AVL\u2019s client base includes over 900,000 artists, labels and other rights holders<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":60930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1414,1914],"class_list":["post-60922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-cd-baby","tag-downtown"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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