Reservoir invests in Outdustry, expanding its emerging market strategy

22 July 2021 - Press release

Reservoir has announced the expansion of its relationship with Outdustry, China’s leading music rights and marketing services company. The deal sees Reservoir investing as a minority partner in Outdustry to build on its successes in China and India and extend its strategy to other emerging music markets. The companies have also formed a joint venture to sign and develop Chinese artists and songwriters, plus acquire local music catalogues. 

Reservoir’s investment in Outdustry will enable the companies to capture more value from high-growth territories by building on Outdustry’s unique capabilities in directly monetizing complex music markets as well as its market-leading A&R and marketing work. With direct deals at all major Chinese music services, relationships with the local talent industry, and the infrastructure to administer rights themselves, Outdustry has created its own ecosystem to monetize the hundreds of millions of newly digital music consumers in the region. 

This new investment builds on an existing sub-publishing partnership, announced in June 2020, in which Outdustry Songs became the exclusive sub-publisher in China for Reservoir’s roster of songwriters and international catalogue of contemporary and long-standing copyrights. Since this agreement, Reservoir has seen triple-digit percentage increases in collections from the territory. 

Reservoir Founder and CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi said, “We are confident that expanding our partnership with Outdustry will build on our incredible success together to date and deepen our presence in emerging markets.” 

This investment underscores Reservoir’s belief in the growth potential of these territories and augments its 2020 entrance into emerging markets via a joint venture with leading MENA music publisher PopArabia, led in a dual role by PopArabia Founder/ President and Reservoir EVP of International and Emerging Markets Hussain “Spek” Yoosuf. 

“Outdustry joins PopArabia as one of our trusted partners on the ground in these emerging markets, expanding our footprint ahead of what is projected to be exponential growth,” said Spek. 

Outdustry CEO Ed Peto added, “At Outdustry we have always prided ourselves on our independence, our artist-first approach, and our belief in a better music industry no matter where we are in the world. Reservoir has exemplified all these things for over a decade, making this partnership a perfect alignment, while allowing Outdustry to take the next steps on our ambitious journey.” 

This news comes following the announcement that Reservoir has entered into an agreement with Roth CH II ($ROCC), a special purpose acquisition company, taking the first step toward becoming a publicly traded company listed on the Nasdaq.