Having arrived on NASDAQ late last month, New York City-based music publisher Reservoir Media has officially released its first earnings report as a publicly traded company.
Reservoir Media (NASDAQ: RSVR) made its way onto the stock market after merging with Roth CH Acquisition II, a blank-check acquisition company operated by Roth Capital and Minneapolis-based Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Reservoir’s existing executive team remained in place post-merger, and it’s worth noting that Arabic streaming giant Anghami is set to list shares on NASDAQ in Q4 2021 as part of a separate SPAC merger.
Regarding 14-year-old Reservoir’s financial performance during the first quarter of its 2022 fiscal year (covering the three months ending on June 30th), revenue came in at $16.7 million – a 23 percent year-over-year uptick, per the breakdown. Within the total, music-publishing income improved by eight percent YoY, to $12.3 million, “mainly driven by existing catalog and catalog acquisitions, plus growth and contribution from streaming services for music consumption.”
Reservoir attributed $4.2 million in quarterly revenue to recorded music – a 94 percent increase from the same stretch in 2020 – “largely due to strong physical sales on the Chrysalis catalog, the continued growth of streaming services and the acquisition of Tommy Boy Music,” per the performance analysis.
Operating income, Reservoir Media relayed in a corrected earnings report, finished at $282,000 across April, May, and June of 2021, with OIBDA, having totaled $4.4 million. Adjusting for a $617,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan, “OIBDA increased by 6% even with the additional costs during the first quarter 2022 associated with preparing to be a public company.”
Notwithstanding the influx of high-profile music-IP acquisitions ushered in by 2020 and 2021 – as well as the above-mentioned plays from Reservoir – the music publisher’s chief financial officer, Jim Heindlmeyer, made clear in a statement that his company intends to make additional catalog purchases yet.
“Revenue for the first quarter 2022 was approximately 16% of our previously stated forecast for fiscal 2022, compared to revenue for the first quarter 2021 as a percent of total revenue of 17% in fiscal 2021,” said Heindlmeyer.
“As we look forward, we plan to remain focused on driving industry-leading organic growth through our value enhancement initiatives, and we expect to continue to complement that work by executing strategic acquisitions of leading music portfolios. We look forward to leveraging the power of our recurring revenue model, which includes strong operating leverage and substantial cash flow generation that will support our growth strategy,” he finished.
A number of other music-industry companies – including Tencent Music, BTS agency Hybe, Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music, and Live Nation – also recorded substantial year-over-year revenue hikes during April, May, and June. Lastly, Reservoir stock (RSVR on NASDAQ, once again) turned in a roughly one percent boost during today’s trading hours, for a per-share price of $7.49 when the market closed.