Some people might think that some of the things that I’ve been writing of late are, well, rather odd, looking at some of the financial aspects of the music industry, and it is an industry the same way that the airline industry is an industry or the automobile industry is an industry or an. . . .You get it.
But here’s something that I find to be absolutely unusual.
Hasbro.
Yes, as in the company that is associated with Play-Doh, Playskool, My Little Pony, Nerf, and more.
A toy company.
But nowadays being a company that makes things like toys (or presumably damn near any other product, be it airliners or automobiles) is completely insufficient.
Turns out that Hasbro is a “content” company, too.
And up until last week, part of its content portfolio included Entertainment One, a.k.a., eOne. Hasbro bought the company in 2019 for $3.8 billion.
eOne Music happens to own the libraries of Artemis Records, Death Row Records and Dualtone Records. And as a result of label or management association, eOne is (or was) involved with Boston, Brandy, Cypress Hill, Shakey Graves, Snoop Dogg, Tegan and Sara, Wu-Tang Clan and more.
Now also in the eOne acquisition was Peppa Pig, which seems to make a whole lot of more sense.
But Hasbro sold eOne Music to a private equity firm, Blackstone, for $385 million. Note that there is more to eOne than just the music portion, so it isn’t like Hasbro took a bath (although there is probably an array of bath toys within its remaining portfolio) on the sale.
Blackstone?
Well, according to its boilerplate, “Blackstone is one of the world’s leading investment firms and seeks to create positive economic impact and long-term value for investors, the companies they invest in, and the communities in which they work. Blackstone does this by using extraordinary people and flexible capital to help companies solve problems. Blackstone’s $649 billion in assets under management include investment vehicles focused on private equity, real estate, public debt and equity, life sciences, growth equity, opportunistic, non-investment grade credit, real assets, and secondary funds, all on a global basis.”
Surely doesn’t sound a whole lot of rock and roll to me, but then Hasbro didn’t seem like it would be in the music business, either.