Primary Wave Is Trying to Buy Kobalt. If It Works, Independent Music Publishing Is Over.

Primary Wave is in advanced talks to acquire Kobalt Music Group. The deal would value Kobalt at north of $1.5 billion - double what Francisco Partners paid for it in 2022. And if it closes, it changes what "independent" means in music publishing.

Kobalt was supposed to be the alternative. When the major publishers were locking songwriters into restrictive deals with bad royalty splits, Kobalt came in with a different pitch: transparent accounting, higher writer shares, admin-only deals that let artists keep ownership of their own work. It worked. The company grew into a publishing powerhouse representing Max Martin, Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks, Phoebe Bridgers, Karol G, and hundreds of others - over 1 million songs across 10 offices.

Now Primary Wave - a catalog acquisition firm backed by $2 billion from Brookfield Asset Management - wants to buy it.

What Kobalt Actually Was

To understand why this matters, you need to understand what made Kobalt different in the first place.

Traditional music publishing works like this: a publisher takes a large share of your royalties, often 25-50%, in exchange for pitching your songs for sync deals, film placements, and other uses. The accounting is opaque. Payments are slow - sometimes 18 months or more from when a royalty is earned to when it hits your account. And if you sign over your publishing rights, the publisher owns a piece of everything you make on those songs, sometimes permanently.

Kobalt built a technology platform that changed the collection and accounting side of that model. Transparent dashboards showing real-time royalty data. Faster payments. Admin deals that let writers keep ownership. The pitch was: we'll handle the collection and administration at a lower cut, and you keep control of your work.

For a certain kind of songwriter - technically independent, doing real volume, not in need of active pitching - Kobalt was genuinely better than the alternatives. That's why it grew. That's why it now has over 1 million songs on its platform.

What Primary Wave Actually Is

Primary Wave is not a publisher in the traditional sense. It's a catalog acquisition firm. The business model is: identify iconic legacy catalogs, buy a stake, then monetize every possible avenue - sync, brand deals, streaming, reissues, Broadway adaptations, whatever generates a return on the acquisition price.

Their portfolio reads like a greatest hits of 20th century music: Prince. Whitney Houston. Bob Marley. James Brown. Notorious B.I.G. Britney Spears. Stevie Nicks. These are not active songwriters they're developing. These are legacy assets they're extracting value from.

Primary Wave is valued at around $6 billion. Adding Kobalt at $1.5 billion creates a $7 billion-plus combined entity. The attraction is obvious: Kobalt's admin platform gives Primary Wave a living infrastructure to run its entire catalog operation through, plus a pipeline of active frontline songwriters to potentially acquire rights from down the road.

Kobalt's CEO Said They Want to Stay Independent. That Doesn't Mean Much.

Laurent Hubert, Kobalt's CEO, sent an internal memo to staff when news of the talks broke. His line: "Let me be clear: our intention is for Kobalt to remain an independently run company, singularly focused on delivering exceptional service for our clients globally."

That sounds reassuring. It isn't, really.

Hubert runs the company. He does not own the company. Francisco Partners - the private equity firm that bought Kobalt in 2022 for $750 million - owns the company. And Francisco Partners is reportedly considering selling it to Primary Wave for $1.5 billion, which is a 100% return in under four years. Private equity firms exist to generate returns for their investors. A 2x return in four years is a good outcome. Hubert's preference for independence is not the variable that decides this.

This is how consolidation works in every industry it touches. The people who built the thing say they want to stay independent. The people who own the thing sell it when the price is right. The new owners say nothing will change. Things change.

What This Means for Independent Artists

If you're an independent artist with music on Kobalt's platform - or considering it - here's what the acquisition risk actually looks like.

In the short term, probably nothing changes. Platforms take time to integrate. The staff stays mostly the same. The technology keeps running. Hubert might even stay on as CEO for a transition period.

In the medium term, the priorities shift. Primary Wave's core competency is legacy catalog monetization, not developing active songwriters or running admin services for independent writers. When you absorb a $1.5 billion company into a $6 billion catalog firm, the incentives eventually align with the parent company's core business. That might mean more aggressive pushes for writers to sell rights. It might mean slower development of the admin platform. It might mean rate structure changes. It probably doesn't mean things get obviously worse immediately, but the mission drift is nearly inevitable.

As an independent artist, I think about this in terms of what tools actually exist for artists who don't want to give up ownership. Kobalt was one of the better answers to that question. If it gets absorbed into a catalog acquisition firm, the independent infrastructure gets a little thinner.

At UNFINISH, I've released everything without a publishing deal of any kind - no admin deal, no traditional publisher, no rights sold. That's a different situation from a songwriter who writes for other artists and needs collection infrastructure. But the broader point stands: the tools that exist for independent operation matter, and every time one of them gets acquired by a larger entity with different incentives, those tools get a little less reliably independent.

The Consolidation Pattern

This deal, if it closes, is part of a consistent pattern over the last decade in music publishing. Hipgnosis sold to Blackstone. Round Hill got acquired. BMG bought catalogs across Europe. The Mechanical Licensing Collective launched to centralize digital royalty collection in the US. Every move in the industry trends toward consolidation, centralization, and the elimination of genuinely independent alternatives.

Kobalt was one of the last major players that could credibly claim to be on the side of songwriters rather than on the side of rights consolidation. That claim gets harder to make if Francisco Partners sells to Primary Wave.

The deal isn't closed yet. MBW reports that FP is "in no hurry" - which usually means they're waiting for the price to go higher. Primary Wave may not be the only buyer. Reservoir, which just received an unsolicited $1.2 billion bid from activist investor Irenic Capital, is its own separate story unfolding in parallel.

But the direction of travel is clear. The independent infrastructure in music publishing is contracting. That matters for every writer who built their model around having an alternative to the majors.

FAQ

Who is Primary Wave and why do they want to buy Kobalt?

Primary Wave is a music rights acquisition firm backed by $2 billion from Brookfield Asset Management. Their portfolio includes iconic catalogs from Prince, Whitney Houston, Bob Marley, and Britney Spears. Acquiring Kobalt would give them a $1.5 billion publishing platform with over 1 million songs and an admin technology infrastructure to run their entire catalog operation through.

What happens to Kobalt artists and songwriters if the deal closes?

In the short term, likely nothing visible. Existing deals, platform access, and royalty collection would continue unchanged during any integration period. The longer-term risk is mission drift - Primary Wave's core business is legacy catalog monetization, not independent songwriter services, and that difference in focus tends to show up over time.

Is the deal confirmed?

No. As of early March 2026, Primary Wave and Francisco Partners are in advanced talks but no deal has been announced. Francisco Partners is reportedly in no hurry to sell, and Primary Wave may need to pay a premium above $1.5 billion to close.

What is Kobalt Music Group?

Kobalt is a music publishing and technology company founded in 2000 that built an alternative to traditional publishing through transparent accounting, faster royalty payments, and admin deals that let songwriters keep ownership of their work. It represents over 1 million songs and writers including Max Martin, Paul McCartney, Phoebe Bridgers, and Karol G.