Believe Expands with Acquisition of Sentric and Promotions in UK Office
French digital music distribution company and Tileyard resident, Believe, is making moves to expand its global presence with the acquisition of independent UK publishing platform Sentric.
The deal, which values Sentric at €47 million, marks Believe's first foray into building a digital-first music publishing business. According to a statement released, Believe's external growth strategy is focused on capturing investment and acquisition opportunities where the group can leverage its global presence, digital expertise, and technology to offer unique and innovative solutions to artists and music rights-holders on a large scale. The digitalisation of the publishing market presents Believe with an attractive opportunity to build a service for songwriters and publishers, complementing its core recorded music offering.
Sentric is a global independent music publishing platform based in Liverpool, with offices in Europe and the United States. Partnering with over 70 collecting societies, the platform already operates in more than 200 territories, representing more than four million songs and over 400,000 songwriters either directly or via industry partners. Sentric's proprietary platform can manage publishing for self-releasing artists at scale while offering global publishing deals to rights-holders at each stage of their development.
Sentric's publishing expertise, industry-leading technology, and unique platform for the collection, combined with Believe's digital music expertise and global presence, will develop a comprehensive solution for songwriters and publishers at all levels, according to the statement.
Believe's founder and CEO, Denis Ladegaillerie, said, "The acquisition of Sentric is the first step for Believe in the roll-out of a global and comprehensive publishing offer. The growth and digital transformation of the songwriters' market is opening up many opportunities. We are excited to be able to immediately expand the services we provide to our existing TuneCore clients with Sentric's best-in-class royalty collection service, while starting to work on future innovative products and services for all of Believe's songwriters and publishers."
With the acquisition of Sentric, Believe will be able to strengthen its publishing for TuneCore's self-releasing artists and expand it to new levels. Sentric recently renewed its agreement with TuneCore, expanding services to offer songwriters more flexibility and a new publishing interface. Around 23% of TuneCore's subscribers are already benefiting from Sentric's platform, which has paid over $100 million to songwriters who use the service.
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Believe has also announced a series of senior promotions in its UK office. Malena Wolfer, who previously served as head of artist services, has been promoted to Director of Artist Services, a new position that will see her focus on signings, partnerships, and joint ventures. Wolfer joined Believe in 2016 and has worked with artists such as Knucks.
Ben Rimmer, who has been with Believe since 2012, has been promoted to Regional Director, Label & Artist Solutions, Believe UK & Northern Europe. In this role, he will focus on growing the company's operations in Benelux and Scandinavia. Both Wolfer and Rimmer will report to Believe UK MD Alex Kennedy.
Meanwhile, Panos Polimatidis has been promoted from Head of Artist Relations to Head of Label and Artist Solutions, driving new business development across label and artist distribution. Polimatidis has been with Believe UK since 2012 and has worked with artists including Mura Masa, Nia Archives, Bru-C and Fumez The Engineer.?
With the continued growth of Believe UK, we are excited to see what incredible things will come out of this dynamic team in the future.
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