Pro Music Rights (PMR) has finalized a more than $662 million settlement with a Chinese medical-cannabis company, China Food and Beverage Company, as well as with a similar company (which is owned by the same individual), Net Savings Link (NSAV Holding).
Pro Music Rights Founder and CEO Jake Noch recently reached out to Digital Music News with word of the massive settlements. Worth noting at the outset is that PMR received two judgements, each for over $1 million, from the companies. A 20th Circuit Court in Florida ordered China Food and Beverage to pay $1,269,876.97, to a $1,298,194.72 judgement against Net Savings Link. One James Tilton, who founded China Food and Beverage in 1995 and has led NSAV since 2015, per his LinkedIn profile, signed off on the corresponding agreements.
The remaining portion of the $662 million settlement is attributable to purchase options extended to the brands, according to the legal documents. Both entities have the chance to buy “in whole and not in part” a 20 percent interest in both Pro Music Rights Distribution, LLC (separate from the overarching Pro Music Rights PRO) and Sosa Music, which is a Florida independent music company also owned by Noch. The “membership options” that comprise the one-fifth interests would cost $255 apiece, based upon “a price resulting from a valuation as determined by the manager of Pro Music Rights” and Sosa.
Moreover, in order to exercise the purchase option, China Food (as well as Net Savings Link, for the other 20 percent) and owner James Tilton would have to “provide written notice exclusively by personal delivery, and no other method,” per the text. And after outlining other provisions of the stock option, the document indicates that this “Option shall expire, and no longer be exercisable, on the four (4) month anniversary of the Effective Date.”
As the settlement agreement is dated September 30th, 2020, the purchase window is fast closing. But given Pro Music Rights’ announcing the settlement now – it bears mentioning here that Net Savings Link released a press release in February of this year stating that it had named Jake Noch CEO – one would assume that the deal is already in motion.
Lending to the plausibility of the latter point is the fact that both Net Savings Link and China Food and Beverage stated in releases that they intend “to complete the exercise of the options shortly.” Furthermore, these same announcement messages relayed that the entities had both issued an “unsecured promissory note,” totaling the $662 million settlement amount.
Of course, the substantial size of the settlement automatically raises questions about how the participating companies will front the more than $660 million worth of required funds. The settlement notice shared with DMN doesn’t describe the licensing dispute between Pro Music Rights and the Chinese cannabis companies – though PMR has levied several high-profile lawsuits on the year, including against grocery-store chain Meijer, and settled a complaint against Connoisseur Media in October.
Net Savings Link stock, traded as NSAV on the Pink Open Market, finished the day with a per-share price of $0.0003. The Pennsylvania-based company (China Food and Beverage also lists a U.S. address on its Bloomberg profile) sells hemp-based beer as Tiger Hemp Beer, according to its MarketWatch profile. The beer, which was to be brewed by Louisiana’s Ouachita Brewing, partnered with rapper 5ive Mics at launch in a promotional deal. However, the company wrote in its last tweet, dated July 1st, 2019, that a regulatory hurdle had delayed the lager’s production.
China Food and Beverage, traded as CHIF on the Pink Open (and classified as a “shell” company on the exchange), saw its per-share price jump by nearly 100 percent on the day, to $.0067.