US-headquartered Concord is setting its sights on expanding its presence in the recorded music business.
To that end, this past June it announced the launch of a joint-venture label with PULSE Music Group, to be dubbed Pulse Records.
The latest step in this expansion, announced on Wednesday (August 9), is the creation of a new Chief Executive position at Concord Label Group, to oversee the company’s entire recorded music division, including global frontline label and catalog operations.
Into that role will be stepping Tom Becci, a music industry veteran with three decades of experience, including a seven-plus-year stint at Red Light Management, the world’s largest independent music management agency.
Prior to joining Red Light, Becci was Chief Operating Officer at Universal Music Group Nashville.
Becci will be based in Concord’s Los Angeles office, home to most of the company’s labels, and will report to CEO Bob Valentine.
“Having admired the work of Concord for years, I am thrilled to join this incredible company,” Becci said in a statement.
“It is abundantly clear that the Label Group’s passionate, dedicated team works day in and day out in service of its artists and has built something truly unique.
“With the help of the label presidents, the entire Concord staff, and inimitable artists like Pierce the Veil, Killer Mike, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Allison Russell, and so, so many more, I can’t wait to continue building on what has been established and usher Concord Label Group into a new era.”
A “new era” is certainly where Concord is headed. The company recently experienced a management shakeup with the departure of its longtime CEO, Scott Pascucci. He was succeeded on July 1 by Bob Valentine, the company’s former President and Chief Financial Officer and another longtime member of the Concord family.
Concord’s former Chief Label Officer, Tom Whalley, stepped down from his day-to-day role at the company at the same time as Pascucci.
“Concord is at a pivotal point in its company story. We have assembled an incredible and diverse roster of artists and a terrific, artist-centric staff around the world… and we are not slowing down,” Bob Valentine said in a statement Wednesday.
He added that Becci “has spent his career helping to operate and lead some of the most important recorded music and artist management groups in the US. He knows what it takes to keep a music enterprise culturally, financially, and operationally healthy and I am eager to work with him as we continue to bolster our global footprint in support of artists and creators, as well as their legacies.”
“It is abundantly clear that the Label Group’s passionate, dedicated team works day in and day out in service of its artists and has built something truly unique… I can’t wait to continue building on what has been established and usher Concord Label Group into a new era.”
Tom Becci, Concord
In an interview with MBW published earlier this summer, Valentine made it clear that he sees more opportunity for Concord in the frontline record space.
Valentine estimated that 85% of the company’s current recorded music revenues come from catalog, rather than newly-developed, music.
That catalog includes recordings from star artists such as Phil Collins, Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Coltrane, Nine Inch Nails, R.E.M., Traveling Wilburys, Joan Sebastian, Antonio Aguilar, Evanescence, Willie Colon, Otis Redding and Genesis, among others.
Concord’s Craft Recordings and Craft Latino divisions are also home to acclaimed soundtrack and score label VareÌse Sarabande, homegrown label Jazz Dispensary, and the Billie Holiday and Tammy Wynette estates.
Overall, Concord counts some 275,000 recordings in its masters business today. They include 300 Grammy winners, and KIDZ BOP, the world’s number-one kids’ music brand, with 23 million album sales and 8 billion streams to date.
In just the past year, Concord acquired music publisher Native Tongue, giving it a foothold in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the music rights to works by Phil Collins and his bandmates in Genesis, reportedly for more than $300 million.
“Concord is at a pivotal point in its company story. We have assembled an incredible and diverse roster of artists and a terrific, artist-centric staff around the world… and we are not slowing down.”
Bob Valentine, Concord
In December of 2022, Concord fattened its coffers and restructured its debt through a ~$1.8-billion bond issuance, the first securitization of its music assets ever, backed by 1 million music copyrights.
The company’s owners also explored the possibility of a sale, eventually turning down a $5-billion offer from an unnamed buyer. Owners and management had been looking for a bid closer to $6 billion, roughly 30 times net income.
“Despite there being some good proposals… there just wasn’t that ‘extraordinary’ number,” Valentine told MBW earlier this year.
The company remains majority-owned by the Michigan Retirement Systems pension fund.Music Business Worldwide
