From Abu Dhabi to China: Music Rights Firm Reservoir Extends its Reach

After branching out into the Middle East last year in a partnership with Abu Dhabi’s PopArabia, music rights firm Reservoir is investing in another emerging market. Reservoir has acquired a minority stake in Outdustry, China’s leading music rights and marketing services company. Under a joint venture, they will also sign and develop Chinese artists and songwriters, plus acquire local music catalogues.

Reservoir’s investment in Outdustry will enable the companies to capture more value from high-growth territories. This new investment builds on an existing sub-publishing partnership, inked in June 2020. Under that deal, Outdustry Songs became the exclusive sub-publisher in China for Reservoir’s roster of songwriters and international catalogue. Reservoir’s collections spiked by triple-digit percentage increases in the territory as a result.

“We are confident that expanding our partnership with Outdustry will build on our incredible success together to date and deepen our presence in emerging markets,” said Reservoir Founder and CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi.

Emerging Markets

Reservoir was founded as a music publisher in New York in 2007. The company now also operates from Los Angeles, Nashville, Toronto, London and Abu Dhabi. PopArabia Founder and President Hussain ‘Spek’ Yoosuf played a key role in Reservoir’s expansion into the Middle East. Spek is also Reservoir’s Executive Vice President of International and Emerging Markets.   

“Outdustry joins PopArabia as one of our trusted partners on the ground in these emerging markets, expanding our footprint ahead of what is projected to be exponential growth,” said Spek.

A Better Music Industry

Outdustry CEO Ed Peto said: “We have always prided ourselves on our independence, our artist-first approach and our belief in a better music industry no matter where we are in the world. Reservoir has exemplified all these things for over a decade, making this partnership a perfect alignment.”

Reservoir is also taking the first steps towards becoming a publicly traded company listed on Nasdaq.

Photo: Freeman Zhou/Unspalsh

Also read: PopArabia Founder Spek Predicts Seismic Shift in Music Landscape