Michael Jackson’s $400 Million Afterlife

[all4loveandbelieve]

Michael Jackson’s $400 Million Afterlife
[glow=red:3rxx2eur][/glow:3rxx2eur]



Jun. 29 2011 - 11:23 am
Over the past two years U2 has earned $320 million, fueled by a massive international tour that recently surpassed the Rolling Stones’ Bigger Bang tour as the most lucrative of all time. The whopping total makes U2 the highest-paid musical act in the world over that period–the highest-paid living musical act, that is.

The top-earning musician on either side of the grave is Michael Jackson, whose estate has raked in $400 million since the King of Pop’s death two years ago. According to court documents filed earlier this year, Jackson’s estate took in $310 million from July 2009 through December 2010. FORBES estimates that another $90 million has rolled in since then from worldwide sales of posthumous album Michael, DVD sales of film This Is It, other licensing deals and robust publishing revenues.

“The continuing overwhelming worldwide interest in Michael confirms his status as the greatest entertainer of all time,” says John Branca, Jackson’s longtime attorney and co-executor, adding that the estate has generated over $1 billion in retail sales over the past two years.

It isn’t just Jackson’s music and likeness that continues to earn prodigious amounts of money. In fact, his most valuable asset is comprised of other artists’ work. Jackson shelled out $47.5 million in 1985 to buy a publishing catalog that included 250 Beatles songs. Ten years later Sony paid Jackson $90 million for half the rights, forming a joint venture called Sony/ATV.


Today, the Jackson estate and Sony share ownership of the catalog, which now boasts half a million songs including titles by Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Eminem and other artists. Insiders place the catalog’s value somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion, based on estimated proceeds of $50 million to $100 million per year; the Jackson estate still takes half the profits.

Of the $310 million earned through December 2010, $159 million has gone toward paying down Jackson’s debts, supporting his children and covering funeral and memorial service expenses, according to court documents. Branca and the other co-executors have also renegotiated and restructured existing financing arrangements and sought out new deals to generate more income.

To be sure, Jackson’s estate is still benefiting from the massive wave of publicity and nostalgia set into motion by the Gloved One’s death two years ago, and maintaining the current $200 million-per-year average income seems unlikely. But with a number of other substantial deals in the works–including a very lucrative international Cirque de Soleil tour set to launch this fall–it’s conceivable that earnings could level off in the $75-$100 million range annually. That’s more than Justin Bieber, Katy Perry or Kanye West has ever earned in a single year.

“The cash flow on an annual basis is tremendous,” explained Donald David, an attorney who handled the postmortem finances of rapper Tupac Shakur, in a conversation with me late last year. “Sure, it’s going to decline eventually, but it’s going to be a huge amount in the foreseeable future. [Jackson's] kids are going to have grandkids before that money’s gone.”

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Thank you for sharing this article with us.

I don't understand how the attorney can say that the money will eventually be gone. "Assuming" Michael is no longer with us (as this article is believing) then he's saying that Michael's music will eventually be worth nothing and so will the Sony/ATV catalog. Maybe I'm missing something but I just don't understand the logic in the last paragraph of this article. Even if Michael never puts out another song his music is going to be around for a long, long, time. And, so will his music catalog. They aren't going to stop adding music to it.

I do like the part of the article where it states that Michael was top earner. And he deserves every bit of it.

Blessings.