New York-based New Mountain Capital is leading a shareholder group to purchase BMI, with an eye on accelerating the latter’s goals of increasing its monetary distributions to affiliates. The deal is subject to regulatory and BMI shareholder approval but is expected to close by the end of Q1 2024. Though no dollar figure for the transaction has been made public, recent rumors had NMC forking over $1.2b for the PRO.

Those current shareholders will allocate $100 million from the proceeds to BMI-affiliated artists and songwriters. New Mountain has also set aside additional capital to fund technology updates, growth investments and other new ventures for BMI. Further terms have yet to be disclosed.

“Today marks an exciting new chapter for BMI that puts us in the best possible position to stay ahead of the evolving industry and ensure the long-term success of our music creators,” said BMI President/CEO Mike O’Neill. “New Mountain is an ideal partner because they believe in our mission and understand that the key to success for our company lies in delivering value to our affiliates.”

“There is tremendous opportunity to modernize this critical part of music infrastructure and ensure that long-term royalty collections for songwriters, composers and publishers continue to grow,” added New Mountain director Mike Oshinsky. “With our support, BMI is ideally positioned to drive this transformation as the only PRO in the world to combine an open-door policy to all music creators with the innovation and commercial drive of a for-profit business.”

New Mountain manages more than $45 billion in private equity, credit and net lease investment strategies, including many partnerships in the tech-services space.

In 2023 BMI targeted a payout of 85% of its licensing revenue and delivered an 11% increase in cash distributions to affiliates compared to last year.