Insights·Research
Korean music catalogs at 5–10×, global peers at 10–15×
Same asset category, roughly half the multiple. The discount is legible. The underlying copyright math is not.
Case · Music IP, Global vs Korea, 2024–2025
Six anchors on why Korean music catalogs trade at a discount, and what that discount is actually pricing.
Global Catalog · 2024
Average multiple on deals over $20M
Evergreen catalogs trade at 10–15×. Premium or iconic catalogs at 15–20× and above. The 2024 set skewed higher when $200M+ iconic catalogs are included.
Citrin Cooperman 2025 catalog valuation review
Korean / Newer Catalogs
Typical multiple range
Korean catalogs and newer masters globally sit in the 5–10× band. Same durable-IP asset category, priced at roughly half the evergreen-global multiple.
Citrin Cooperman; Korean transaction comparables
Hipgnosis · Cautionary
Discount to NAV on forced sale
Hipgnosis Songs Fund bought 65,413 songs for $2.2B. 67 of 105 deals ended up worth less than purchase. Sold to Blackstone at $1.6B in 2024. Stale discount rate and passive-versus-active rights were never separately modeled.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund filings; Shot Tower revaluation
Beyond Music · Korea
Capital raised for Korean catalog roll-up
Founded 2021. Backed by KB Securities and Praxis Capital. 100+ Korean and Asian catalog acquisitions, 35,000+ songs, over $200M deployed. The reference case that Korean music IP is an investable asset class.
Beyond Music disclosures; KB Securities
Platform Retention
Korean streaming platform retention rate
Korean platforms retain 35% of streaming economics. US 29.4%. UK 29%. Japan 22%. Korean copyright holders receive 10.5% of streaming revenue; UK 16%, Japan 15%, US 12.3%. Platform economics compress the income side of any Korean catalog DCF.
Music sector comparative disclosures
Copyright Duration
Post-death protection, Korean copyright
Article 39 of Korea's Copyright Act: life of the author plus 70 years. Article 86: 70 years on performer and phonogram rights. A Korean catalog acquired in 2026 is a multi-generational asset. K-IFRS 1038 bars internally-generated catalogs from the balance sheet, so the intrinsic value is off-sheet until sold.
Copyright Act Articles 39, 86; K-IFRS 1038
The discount prices information friction and country risk. It does not price the asset itself.
Global music catalogs trade on a well-understood DCF. Standard WACC of 8–10% for stable catalogs, 12–15% for riskier ones, terminal value at 60–75% of total value, forecast horizons bounded by copyright life. The framework is portable.
Applied to Korean catalogs, the same framework yields multiples that sit below global comparables. A portion of the gap is real: platform retention is higher in Korea, copyright-holder share is lower, and currency and country risk add 0.5–1.0% to the discount rate under the Damodaran framework. The rest of the gap is informational. Korean catalogs do not show up in global databases. The trade press is in Korean. Western institutional capital applies an informational discount the moment the source document is not in English.
Hipgnosis is the cautionary note on the global side. A high-fee catalog roll-up with a stale discount rate and no separation of active and passive rights ended up selling at a 39% discount to its own NAV. Beyond Music is the Korean reference case. $381M raised, 100+ catalogs, $200M+ deployed. Both tell the same structural story: music IP is an asset class that rewards specialist underwriting.
The 5–10× Korean range is not a judgment on the asset. It is a measure of how many institutions can read the cash flow.