The Weeknd’s Billion Dollar Catalog Sale: What Is Going On?

About 18 months ago, a pair of entrepreneurs, operating under the banner Fractal Asset Partners, approached financial firms experienced in buying and selling music assets to help them find potential partners and raise funding to buy The Weeknd’s master recording and publishing assets, sources say.

While sources initially described the two entrepreneurs as either affiliated with The Weeknd’s camp or friends of The Weeknd’s management company, Billboard has learned the two potential deal makers are Lindsay Unwin and Emma Toshack. Unwin is known as a longtime employee of SALXCO, the management company of Wassim “Sal” Slaiby, who is the superstar artist’s manager. At the time the duo initiated their funding effort, Unwin was chief operating officer of SALXCO; and, in December 2024, was promoted to CEO.

Toshack, meanwhile, is identified on her Linkedin profile as partner and managing director of Fractal Asset Partners, while her Facebook page also identifies her as a co-founder of Nomadica, the canned wine purveyor, and a Forbes story on that company refers to her as a former “Snapchat bigwig.” Besides Fractal, the LinkedIn profile currently lists Toshack as holding the position of “strategy & special projects” for SALXCO since January 2025.

The assignment to find partners and funding for Fractal was eventually taken on by PJT Partners, whose website says it has been involved in mergers and acquisitions worth more than $1 trillion and that its shareholder advisory clients have a combined aggregate market capitalization of more than $22 trillion.

While talks with most potential investors didn’t come to fruition, at one point, sources said Pophouse showed interest in The Weeknd deal, even meeting with the artist, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye. Pophouse ultimately backed away from the deal, sources say — the company declined to comment — and with that the Fractal/PJT Partners funding exercise appears to have ended.

Now, The Weeknd’s team may be seeking an alternative source of funding by raising capital collateralized by his catalog with the aid of Lyric Capital Partners, according to a story first reported by Bloomberg. Sources confirmed to Billboard that some kind of a financing effort that includes Lyric Capital is ongoing, but it’s unclear what the ingredients of the deal will ultimately become because — as one source puts it — “the cake is still being baked.” In any event, if any deal comes to fruition, sources say The Weeknd absolutely “will not be giving up control” of his music assets, which suggests that the assets could be used to raise debt, as in an asset-backed securitization; or the artist would at most sell a minority stake in the assets and retain majority ownership and control of his music rights. A combination of both selling a stake and raising debt could also be possible.

Asset-backed securitizations (ABS) have become a popular financing vehicle in the music industry over the past 18 months, but most ABS deals have been done against a company’s music assets, like those done by HarbourView Equity Partners in June and Recognition Music Group in July — and not backed by a single artist’s assets. But it’s not like that hasn’t been done in the music industry before — think back to the 1990s and Bowie bonds.

While The Weeknd has been signed to the Universal Music Group’s Republic Records since 2012, the artist and his manager Slaiby, CEO of XO, own his master recording catalog. As for publishing, The Weeknd signed a co-publishing deal with SONGS over a decade ago and those rights have been subsequently sold to Kobalt, and then to Chord Music Partners. That publishing agreement, which includes all of his music up to the Dawn FM album, likely gives The Weeknd a 75% interest in his song rights (50% for the writer’s share and 25% of publishing), while industry players suggest he owns the publishing for the music on his latest album Hurry Up Tomorrow. In 2022, Tesfaye reached an agreement with UMPG allowing it to administer his back catalog and future works when his contract with Kobalt ended, making UMPG The Weekend’s current song catalog administrator.

As part of that agreement, his relationship with the Universal Music Group expanded, and The Weeknd and XO Records extended agreements with UMG’s in-house brand management and merchandise company Bravado for releases like Tesfaye’s successful 2016 “Starboy” merch collection and extended a label deal with Republic for an undisclosed amount of time, adding that it would include audiovisual projects.

Potential suitors said they passed on the earlier deal because they considered the target valuation too frothy. According to informed sources, that earlier proposed deal was aiming to sell The Weeknd’s assets for at least $1 billion based on about $55 million in net label and net publisher share, which implies an 18.2 times multiple.

While other superstar catalogs — like the deals Sony did for the Michael Jackson publishing and recorded masters assets and the one it did for Queen’s recorded music catalog — are said to have traded at more than a 20 times multiple, both those catalogs’ earnings fully matured long ago. Meanwhile, The Weeknd’s catalog has many songs that still enjoy hit status, meaning his songs’ earnings haven’t fully decayed to the level where a catalog’s annual income becomes more predictable.

Decay is a key component in valuing catalog — suitors try to figure out what level of activity, and thus revenue, a catalog will throw off when the music matures and is no longer a current hit. But The Weeknd’s catalog is far from that threshold; 25 of his songs each generated over 400,000 song equivalents in 2024, and six of them were over 1 million units, according to Billboard’s count based on Luminate data. Sources suggest that since The Weeknd’s catalog still has so many songs near gold-level status (500,000 song equivalents), it’s hard to ascertain how decay will impact The Weeknd’s music as it evolves to catalog status. That’s one of the reasons why some investors say they were wary of the earlier deal that was shopped by PJT Partners. 

Another concern, according to some music asset buyers who were approached by PJT, was uncertainty around whether Fractal was raising funds on behalf of The Weeknd, or trying to buy the assets for themselves and any partners they could bring aboard. Nevertheless, it was assumed that The Weeknd and his management team were aware of Fractal and PJT’s effort because of Unwin’s presence and because Fractal had detailed financials for the artist’s recorded music and publishing assets, sources say.

Despite the hesitancy by some suitors to pursue that earlier deal, The Weeknd’s artistic accomplishments are impressive. Luminate data shows that over the course of his career, The Weeknd has generated a whopping 36.2 million album consumption units in the U.S. alone through Aug. 21, 2025. That includes 9.4 million consumption units for Beauty Behind the Madness; 8.3 million album consumption units for Starboy; and 6.22 million for After Hours. Meanwhile, more recent albums like Hurry Up Tomorrow, released earlier this year, so far has accumulated 1.53 million on its way to a probable 2-million-unit-year, while Dawn FM sits at nearly 2.4 million units, according to Luminate.

The Weeknd’s 2019 single “Blinding Lights” was ranked No. 1 on Billboard‘s Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs in November 2021 after it logged a record-shattering run on the weekly Hot 100. As the performing artist for the 2021 Super Bowl halftime show, he performed his blockbuster hits including “The Hills,” “Can’t Feel My Face,” “I Feel It Coming,” “Save Your Tears.”

The Weeknd has also become known for his work on the creative and audiovisual side of his music, having put in $7 million of his own money for his Super Bowl Halftime Show and his work as co-creator and star in the HBO drama series The Idol in 2023 alongside Lily-Rose Depp. Though Idol was cancelled after its first season following a barrage of controversy, the show featured cameos and music from the likes Troye Sivan, Madonna, Jennie of BLACKPINK and Playboi Carti, and its soundtrack included three Billboard Hot 100 top 10s.

Considering all of these activities, The Weeknd is positioned to secure financing not only against his music publishing and recorded masters but possibly also assets such as merch; touring; name, image and likeness rights; and his other artistic endeavors, if he so chooses, music asset buyers say. Allowing investors to participate in returns tied to these additional assets could sweeten any deal around the music catalogs. Moreover, some financial sources speculate the funding could be used to create additional commercial endeavors that could also deliver further investment returns to participants in the deal. But how potential investors respond to the offer all depends on what financial parameters are offered as part of the deal, according to the financial sources.

Billboard reached out separately to SALXCO, PJT Partners, and Lyric Capital Partners but representatives for those companies either declined to speak to Billboard or didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Dilts Marshall.