A 10 percent stake in Led Zeppelin’s music is up for sale
Led Zep’s manager Peter Grant owned a 20 percent stake in their music, and passed it evenly to his two children upon his death. Now, Helen Grant is selling her share.
Image: Bill Tompkins / Getty
A 10 percent stake in Led Zeppelin’s music is being sold by Helen Grant, the daughter of the band’s former manager, Peter Grant.
Although the sale of artist catalogues has risen in popularity over recent years, with the likes of Pink Floyd, Peter Frampton, Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison and more reported to have handed over their music to publishing giants in multi-million dollar deals.
This deal, however, is being described as “quite rare”. In a new interview with The Times, Helen Grant shares that her father Peter owned a 20 percent stake in Led Zeppelin’s music. Helen and her sibling Warren Grant each inherited 10 percent of that stake after their father’s death in 1995, and now she is selling her share.
London-based New Media Law is the firm handling the sale, and when speaking to Music Business Worldwide, the firm’s Ian Penman confirmed that the deal includes a share of recorded music rights, publishing rights as well as a stake in the rights to the band’s trademarks including name and logo.
“Her father managed Led Zeppelin and owned 20 percent of the Zeppelin companies,” Penman told MBW. “So [the deal] is quite rare in that respect, because it includes trademarks. It includes the name. The name, Led Zeppelin, is owned by a company that Helen co-owns.”
Penman later added that when Helen originally put the word out that she was considering selling her stake, she was approached with “several offers and extreme interest from some of the biggest names in the business”.
Penman further told MBW that she had instructed him to manage the sale around three months ago, adding: “We immediately got on. I was a big Zeppelin fan growing up.”
Penman confirmed that talks are still ongoing.