In late March, reports revealed that Reservoir Media would arrive on the stock market following a merger with Roth CH Acquisition II, a blank-check acquisition company operated by Roth Capital and Minneapolis-based Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Now, the transaction has officially closed, and the New York City-based music publisher’s shares are trading on NASDAQ.
Reservoir Media (NASDAQ: RSVR) just recently announced the merger’s completion – as well as the stock-market debut and the closure of a previously detailed $150 million common-stock PIPE – via a formal release. Operating as Reservoir Media, with the music publisher’s existing management team remaining in place, the combined company made its shares available for purchase today, along with warrants (albeit under the symbol RSVRW).
Reservoir shares were trading for about $9.50 each when the market opened, though the stock’s per-share price dipped to $9.30 about an hour into trading. Shares then fell beneath $9 apiece during the final half hour of trading, before rebounding to just over the $9 price point once again. The warrants – each exercisable for one RSVR share at $11.50 – hovered around $1.30 apiece throughout the day, given the price of the stock proper.
Addressing the market arrival in a statement, Reservoir founder and CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi said in part: “This represents an important milestone for our company as we become the first U.S.-based publicly traded independent music company and the first female founded and led publicly traded music company in the U.S.
“As we focus on our growth, our listing on Nasdaq provides us the resources to execute on our penetration into emerging markets and continue rapidly with our strategic acquisitions,” concluded Khosrowshahi, whose cousin Dara serves as Uber’s CEO.
On this front, 14-year-old Reservoir has joined several other music industry companies in making all manner of “strategic acquisitions” in recent months. Early June saw the company acquire hip-hop label Tommy Boy Music, complete with north of 6,000 master recordings, in what was reportedly a more than $100 million deal. And three weeks later, the entity purchased the entire catalog of legendary rock producer Tom Werman.
Building upon these multimillion-dollar plays, Reservoir – which says that it represents some 130,000 copyrights and 36,000 masters – purchased a minority stake in Outdustry, “China’s leading music rights and marketing services company,” one week ago. And before that, the quick-expanding business signed a worldwide publishing deal with Rufio Hooks, the co-writer of BTS’s ultra-popular “Butter.”
About three weeks ago, UK-based song-investment fund Hipgnosis raised another $215 million to fund catalog acquisitions – after spending over $1 billion on music IP in FY 2021 – while BeatStars and Sony Music Publishing expanded their partnership yesterday. Worth mentioning in conclusion is that Arabic music-streaming giant Anghami is also set to debut on NASDAQ by merging with an acquisition company.