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Canada’s Loft Entertainment Partners with 'Impact Agency' One Twenty Eight

The company that recently acquired Canadian Music Week has made another strategic relationship to expand its reach.

Loft Entertainment Logo

Loft Entertainment Logo

Courtesy Photo

Weeks after teaming with Oak View Group to acquire Canadian Music Week, Loft Entertainment has made another strategic partnership to expand its reach.

The Toronto-based music company is joining forces with one twenty eight, a talent booking and cause marketing “impact agency” that focuses on connecting artists and influencers with social causes. The company has worked with a variety of companies and celebrities including Natalie Portman, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, Canadian artist Mustafa and Selena Gomez’s Rare Impact Fund Benefit.


It’s a natural fit. One of Loft’s first initiatives was Artists for Feel Out Loud, a Canadian benefit song for Kids Help Phone co-produced by Loft co-founder and former head of Universal Music Canada and Bell Media, Randy Lennox. Kids Help Phone is also a client of one twenty eight, and both companies have also worked with innovation festival Elevate. Loft and one twenty eight both launched within the last three years, but the working relationships of the people involved go back decades.

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“Relationships are an essential part of our business and having trusted access is the key to ensuring extraordinary results,” says Loft co-founder and partner Jeffrey Latimer.

“We are in the business of impact and this partnership with Loft Entertainment is only going to multiply our efforts,” agrees one twenty eight founder David Johnson. “Loft Entertainment’s team of experts will help one twenty eight to up-source our offerings with a deeper expansion into creative and content.”

Johnson co-founded one twenty eight in 2021 with Cameron Kennedy, who left the following year to join Canada’s leading rights management organization SOCAN. Loft Entertainment also partners with Paquin Entertainment Group, Canada’s Walk of Fame and film and television studio Pinewood, among others. The company – which handles artists as diverse as Tom Cochrane, The Tenors and Rêve – straddles the music and entertainment world, uniquely combining production, management and events.

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The Weeknd performs onstage during the Michael Rubin REFORM Alliance Casino Night Event on September 13, 2025 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

The Weeknd performs onstage during the Michael Rubin REFORM Alliance Casino Night Event on September 13, 2025 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Publishing

Meet the Swiss Investment Firm Behind The Weeknd and Lyric Capital’s Billion-Dollar Deal

Partners Group bought royalty backed notes to finance a joint venture that gives Lyric a 25% equity stake and allows The Weeknd "creative freedom" over publishing and master rights.

The Weeknd and Lyric Capital‘s deal to move the Starboy artist’s back catalog into a new joint venture was financed through royalty-backed notes bought by the Swiss-based investment firm Partners Group, according to a press release.

The Weeknd’s masters catalog and Lyric Capital raised $1 billion — including $750 million in debt — in a deal that gave Lyric a 25% equity stake in artist Abel Tesfaye‘s masters, Billboard reported earlier in December. Partners said on Wednesday that The Weeknd will maintain “freedom to utilize the publishing and masters’ rights over the catalog” in the new vehicle, which it financed through the purchase of royalty-backed notes bought with client funds from its cross-sector royalty strategy.

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