Kilometre Music Lands More Money, And A Hit Song Catalogue

By FYI Staff

Canadian music rights management company Kilometre Music Group has secured a US$50 million Credit facility with financial services firm Pinnacle Financial Partners and acquired the catalogue of British electronic musician, producer, and songwriter William Phillips, also known as Tourist. 

Included in the deal is Sam Smith’s Grammy-winning hit Stay With Me, co-written by Phillips.

Stay With Me earned Phillips a Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 2015 and remains Smith’s most-streamed song to date, with over 1.7 billion streams on Spotify. 

As reported by Kilometre, Nashville -based Pinnacle has $45.1 billion in assets as of March 31, 2023, including a $2B book of business in the entertainment sector.

Kilometre Music Group, co-founded by music industry veterans Michael McCarty and Rodney Murphy in 2021, was specifically created to buy music rights created in Canada.

The IP company manages sports a portfolio of over 1,500 songs, including 6% of Spotify’s Billions Club – songs with 1 billion streams or more, and four of the ten most streamed Spotify songs of all time: The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights, Drake’s One Dance, Closer by the Chainsmokers, and Sunflower by Post Malone.

Other key songs in the portfolio are The Weeknd’s Save Your Tears and Die for You”, Levitating by Dua Lipa, Havana by Camilla Cabello, Post Malone’s Circles, Flo Rida’s Whistle, Pitbull’s Timber, Travis Scott’s Butterfly Effect, and Sucker by the Jonas Brothers.

The acquisition of capital and Phillips’ catalogue was announced by trade publication MBW, and no official statement has yet to appear on the websites of Kilometre or its partnering firms and it's unclear how Tourist's catalogue fits in with Kilometre's mission to acquire Canadian IP rights.