LARRY MESTEL

Founder/CEO PRIMARY WAVE MUSIC

With 24 acquisitions totaling about $650 million closed by the beginning of December and another handful in the works, according to Mestel, Primary Wave continues to buy up music assets in a market that has seen the downfall of at least one of its rivals. “We’ve grown significantly in the past two years, and we are expecting to grow even more significantly,” he says. “We have well over a billion dollars in deals in the pipeline.”

With a portfolio of song catalogs that includes work by Whitney Houston, The Doors, James Brown, Stevie Nicks, Nirvana, Prince and Bob Marley, Mestel says his team is focused on boosting the value of those assets. It was involved in licensing “Redemption Song” to last year’s biopic Bob Marley: One Love, which grossed $180.8 million globally, according to Box Office Mojo, and Mestel says he is excited about the upcoming Bob Marley Hope Road live show at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, which his company is co-producing. “It’s a bit like Cirque du Soleil with one-of-a-kind technology,” he says. A theatrical musical based on Prince’s Purple Rain is also in the works.

Mestel says he has stayed steadfast in his vision of being a “partner” with the estates of the artists whose assets Primary Wave acquires. “We’ve increased the Whitney Houston estate’s earnings four- or fivefold,” he claims. “The 50% of the estate that the Houston family kept is worth more today than 100% was four years ago when we did the deal.” That, Mestel says, “is our No. 1 priority — create opportunities to protect and grow the legacy of the most important artists in the world.”