Industry veteran to drive revenue growth across all channels 

ATLANTA, December 12, 2023 – CarNow, the leading automotive digital retailing company, announced today Will Farmer as its Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). In this role, Farmer will be responsible for overseeing revenue growth across field sales, national sales, and independent sales with a focus on delivering exceptional value to customers and driving impactful results for CarNow’s extensive dealer network. 

“My focus is to lead efforts in delivering recurring impact to our customers and make it easier for our dealers to do business with CarNow,” said Farmer. “We’ll build on the customer-centric approach throughout the entire organization, seeking to improve efficiencies in the sales process while enhancing and expanding our offerings.” 

Farmer brings a wealth of experience and a demonstrated history of success as a senior sales and operational leader across diverse industries, including automotive, mobile technology, telecommunications, real estate, and auctions. Throughout his career, Farmer has consistently fueled growth by developing and leading motivated high-performance teams, transforming underperforming organizations, and expanding market footprints. 

“Will’s impressive track record and dynamic leadership style, honed across diverse industries, perfectly align with our commitment to driving innovation and exceeding expectations for our customers,” said Kanye Grau, CEO at CarNow. “Will brings a unique blend of strategic insight and operational prowess, and we’re excited to leverage his disruptive mindset to elevate our revenue streams, foster customer-centric approaches, and solidify CarNow’s position as an industry trailblazer.” 

Farmer’s career includes previous senior leadership roles in sales and revenue operations at Traxero, BacklotCars, TradeRev, and ADESA. He holds an MBA from Virginia Tech and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Roanoke College, where he sits on the Board of Directors for The Management Institute. Farmer also volunteers as a fundraising auctioneer for various community organizations, including Global Camps Africa, American Heart Association, Children’s Miracle Network, and The Spot on Kirk. 

To learn more about CarNow’s technology, visit www.carnow.com. 

About CarNow 

CarNow is a market leader in automotive digital retail solutions. Providing frictionless, real-time enterprise software solutions, CarNow enhances online engagement and streamlines communication between dealers and consumers. CarNow’s solutions empower dealers to seamlessly manage the entire car-buying journey and provide shoppers with enhanced digital retailing, messaging, and virtual showroom services. With 5,000 dealership customers and more than twenty manufacturer certifications, CarNow is one of the fastest-growing companies in automotive. CarNow is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Learn more at www.carnow.com. 

SAN FRANCISCO – Today, Francisco Partners, a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology and media businesses, announced its growth investment and funding of the combination of Hal Leonard, the legendary sheet music publisher and music-learning provider, and Muse Group, an industry leader in music content and creation. The partnership of the two companies creates a leading global music learning content platform, solidifies its competitive position in the music creation industry, and allows for significant growth potential to lead content and education in both the traditional and digital form.

Hal Leonard’s exclusively licensed, premium arrangements include the world’s most iconic artists and scores from Taylor Swift and The Beatles to John Williams and Disney soundtracks. Combined with over 3 million expert and community-created tabs and compositions, 300 million annual visitors and over 40 million accounts on Muse Group’s Ultimate Guitar and MuseScore, the joint business now includes a content library of over 5.5 million scores, tabs, books, video courses, backing tracks, and presets.

“This partnership will create more music makers worldwide and will lead to even more advances in music education technology, while also expanding ways creators and rights holders can make their musical works more widely available,” said Larry Morton, Hal Leonard’s Chairman. “Hal Leonard and Muse have been working closely together in commercial partnerships for over fifteen years and have built trust and mutual respect over that time. Combining the strengths of both companies is a truly exciting prospect, full of potential ways to grow the music industry in new directions.”

“Our passion for improving the lives of all musicians has always been at the heart of Muse Group and we’re immensely excited to partner with the Hal Leonard team who share that passion,” said Eugeny Naidenov, CEO of Muse Group.

“We are excited to partner with Muse Group and Hal Leonard to help enable their combination and usher in the joint company’s next stage of growth. The combined business will offer its customers unparalleled content and technology focused on music learning across digital, print, and educational channels,” said Matt Spetzler, Partner & Co-Head of Europe at Francisco Partners. “We are thrilled to provide a tailored capital solution in support of this transaction and are excited to back the innovative growth strategy of the combined company,” added Lee Rubenstein, Managing Director at Francisco Partners.

While Hal Leonard will join Muse Group, both companies will retain their respective headquarters in the U.S. and Cyprus, respectively, and distinct operational expertise. The combined company will apply Francisco Partners’ investment to accelerate organic and inorganic growth and is actively looking to partner with innovators in the sector.

Hal Leonard was advised by Lincoln International and JEGI CLARITY as its financial advisors, and O’Melveny & Myers LLP as its legal advisor. Muse Group was advised by Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C. as its legal advisor. Francisco Partners was advised by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP as its legal advisor.

About Muse Group

Muse Group is a visionary, international team of music lovers and audio obsessives, empowering millions of creatives to play, produce and compose every day. The company began life in 1998 as Ultimate Guitar, a tab sharing site that grew into the world’s most popular online musician community. Muse Group now includes products such as MuseScore, Audacity, StaffPad and more (https://www.mu.se/).

About Hal Leonard

Hal Leonard is the world-leader in sheet music publishing, and boasts a storied history of providing music learners with the very best arrangements of popular music for over 70 years. With experienced teams based all over the globe, Hal Leonard also supplies books, instruments, gear and software to millions of educators and learners worldwide (https://www.halleonard.com/).

About Francisco Partners

Francisco Partners is a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology and technology-enabled businesses. Since its launch nearly 25 years ago, Francisco Partners has invested in more than 400 technology companies, making it one of the most active and longstanding investors in the technology industry. With approximately $45 billion in capital raised to date, the firm invests in opportunities where its deep sectoral knowledge and operational expertise can help companies realize their full potential. For more information on Francisco Partners, please visit www.franciscopartners.com.

Contacts

For Muse Group
Jack Sutton, Head of Communications at Muse Group
j.sutton@mu.se

For Francisco Partners
Whit Clay / Sarah Braunstein
wclay@sloanepr.com / sbraunstein@sloanepr.com

Leading Growth-Oriented Investment Firm to Accelerate BMI’s Growth Plan to Drive Increased Distributions and Enhanced Services for its Affiliates

BMI Affiliates to Receive $100 Million of Sale Proceeds Following Transaction Closing

New York, NY – November 21, 2023 – New Mountain Capital, LLC, (“New Mountain”) a leading growth-oriented investment firm with over $45 billion in assets under management, announced today that it will lead a shareholder group to acquire Broadcast Music Inc. (“BMI”), the world’s largest performing rights organization (“PRO”). Headquartered in New York, BMI protects the rights of and advocates for more than 1.4 million songwriters, composers and music publishers (“affiliates”). BMI secures royalties for its affiliates by offering licenses to businesses for the performing rights in 22.4 million musical works. Mike O’Neill, BMI’s President & CEO, will continue to lead the company, along with his leadership team, following the closing.

New Mountain will acquire the company from the shareholders who own BMI today. New Mountain has also reserved additional capital to fund growth investments, new ventures and technology enhancements to help accelerate BMI’s long-term plan to maximize distributions for its affiliates and improve the service it provides to songwriters, composers and publishers.

As part of the agreement, and in recognition of the creativity of the songwriters, composers and publishers they have had the privilege to represent, BMI’s current shareholders will allocate $100 million of the proceeds of the sale to affiliates shortly after the transaction closing. The allocation of those funds, while not a distribution of royalties, will be in keeping with the company’s distribution methodologies, which are based on performance levels over a set period of time. BMI will work to finalize an equitable payout plan for this allocation in the coming months.

“Today marks an exciting new chapter for BMI that puts us in the best possible position to stay ahead of the evolving industry and ensure the long-term success of our music creators,” said Mike O’Neill, BMI President & CEO. “New Mountain is an ideal partner because they believe in our mission and understand that the key to success for our company lies in delivering value to our affiliates. We are excited about the many ways New Mountain will accelerate our growth plan, bringing new vision, technological expertise and an outstanding track record of strengthening businesses, all of which will help us build an even stronger future for BMI and our songwriters, composers and publishers.” He added, “I would also like to thank the BMI Board of Directors and BMI’s shareholders for their excellent stewardship and unwavering support of our creative community since the company’s founding in 1939.”

“BMI has been a trusted guide and champion of music creators from the beginning, and we are privileged to work with the company and its 1.4 million affiliates to build on that incredible legacy,” said Pete Masucci, Managing Director at New Mountain. “There are numerous growth opportunities ahead for BMI with significant potential to generate more value for the work of its songwriters, composers and publishers. We look forward to working together alongside Mike and his team to capitalize on those opportunities for the benefit of all BMI stakeholders.”

“While the music industry has undergone a technology-driven transformation over the past two decades, music infrastructure, including the performing rights ecosystem has been slower to transform,” said Mike Oshinsky, Director at New Mountain. “There is tremendous opportunity to modernize this critical part of music infrastructure and ensure that long term royalty collections for songwriters, composers and publishers continue to grow. With our support, BMI is ideally positioned to drive this transformation as the only PRO in the world to combine an open-door policy to all music creators with the innovation and commercial drive of a for-profit business.”

Growth Plan to Accelerate Value for Affiliates

New Mountain’s motto is “building great businesses,” and it brings to BMI significant experience partnering with management teams to grow and add value to the benefit of all constituents. The firm has added or created nearly 69,000 jobs, net of job losses across all of its current and past portfolio companies, has invested over $7 billion into research and development, software, and capital expenditures and generated an estimated $79 billion of enterprise value gains.

New Mountain’s growth investment in BMI will accelerate the company’s ambitious value creation plan, which has three core tenets:

1. First, to continue to grow cash distributions for its affiliates, as it has always done.
2. Second, to invest in next generation technology platforms and new service offerings that will improve royalty collections, enhance BMI’s customer service, and deliver the best possible experience for its affiliates.
3. Third, to add new revenue streams driven by organic growth investments and M&A opportunities, with an initial focus on improving general licensing royalty collections, international partnerships and new service offerings. New growth investments will create additional opportunities for distribution income for its affiliates.

New Mountain’s investment does not change the distribution targets previously communicated, which is the same approach the company followed in calendar year 2023 and which it will follow moving forward. For the calendar year, BMI targeted a payout of 85% of its licensing revenues and delivered +11% growth in cash distributions to affiliates over 2022’s distributions, which were reflective of the company’s prior not-for-profit model.

The transaction is subject to approval by BMI shareholders and customary regulatory approvals and is expected to close by the end of Q1 2024. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC served as financial advisor to BMI and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP served as its legal advisor. Moelis & Company served as financial advisor to New Mountain, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, LLP served as its legal advisor. As part of New Mountain’s investment, CapitalG will also invest a passive minority stake in BMI.

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About BMI
Celebrating over 80 years of service to songwriters, composers, music publishers and businesses, Broadcast Music, Inc.® (BMI®) is a global leader in music rights management, serving as an advocate for the value of music. BMI represents the public performance rights in over 22.4 million musical works created and owned by more than 1.4 million songwriters, composers, and music publishers. The Company negotiates music license agreements and distributes the fees it generates as royalties to its affiliated writers and publishers when their songs are performed in public. In 1939, BMI created a groundbreaking open-door policy becoming the only performing rights organization to welcome and represent the creators of blues, jazz, country, and American roots music. Today, the musical compositions in BMI’s repertoire, from chart toppers to perennial favorites, span all genres of music and are consistently among the most-performed hits of the year. For additional information and the latest BMI news, visit bmi.com, follow us on X and Instagram @BMI or stay connected through Broadcast Music, Inc.‘s Facebook page. Sign up for BMI’s The Weekly™ and receive our e-newsletter every week to stay up to date on all things music.

Media Contacts