投资家——你所不知的摇滚巨星大卫•鲍伊

在与癌症抗争18个月后，音乐传奇巨星大卫•鲍伊于周一早些时候去世。鲍伊的音乐生涯长达五十年之久，他的音乐融合了不同流派和新的个人风格。除了在音乐界的影响力和创新力，鲍伊也证明了他在音乐商业化领域的高瞻远瞩。

“瘦白公爵”很早便认识到，互联网将颠覆音乐行业的传统商业模式，他在上世纪90年代末，通过出售其在未来音乐授权收入中的权益，帮助艺术家们开创了一种从自身作品中获益的新方法。

《财富》杂志曾在2003年刊文回顾了鲍伊此举的预见性。鲍伊在所谓音乐行业“黄金年代”接近尾声的时候采取了这一举措。在他大赚一笔背后，隐藏着怎样的故事呢？

齐基，也就是摇滚巨星大卫•鲍伊，他是吉他高手。而事实证明，他在玩弄华尔街方面也是个中好手。大家或许已经听说，华尔街自己的“太空怪谈”证券——鲍伊债券，再次引起了媒体关注。但这次却不是好消息：据穆迪（Moody’s）分析师杰伊•伊思布拉克表示，由于对“歌曲产生了多少收入”存在疑问，穆迪下调了鲍伊债券的信用评级。这意味着，穆迪担忧，音乐曲目的收入将日益减少，甚至可能难以向债券持有人支付足够的现金。但在音乐背后还有一些有趣的故事。

大卫•鲍伊在1995年将他的音乐版权以5,500万美元的价格，出售给一些银行家，由后者发行以鲍伊的重演版权费为担保的债券。保诚保险和其他保险公司购买了这笔债券，债券的评级为A3级，收益率约为8%。所有人都预测，此举将在摇滚艺人和音乐创作者中引领一波交易浪潮。虽然有许多人借鉴了鲍伊的作法——例如詹姆斯•布朗（《Good God！》）和艾斯利兄弟（《Fight the Power!》），但这并没有成为音乐界或华尔街的下一个大事件。

多年来，有许多公司曾涉足这个领域——总规模仅有2亿美元——但这个小规模、高关注度的缝隙市场，却一直为戴维•普尔曼主导。普尔曼是一位特立独行的银行家，拥有自己的精品投资公司。普尔曼早期曾在臭名昭著的经纪公司Gruntal任职，他与前证券化合伙人价值数十亿美元的诉讼吸引了媒体眼球，他还曾与其曼哈顿公寓大楼的合作公寓董事会对簿公堂。

当时，鲍伊和他的交易被认为走在了时代前沿（鲍伊不是一直如此吗？），但现在回想起来，“钻石狗”鲍伊具有非凡的洞察力！鲍伊拒绝谈论这篇文章，真是太可惜了，因为我还有许多关于服装和其他方面的好点子。鲍伊在1997年1月售出了他的音乐版权，当时多数人从未听说过“文件共享”。（我将其称为文件抄袭。）这是多么聪明或者幸运啊？

当时，笔者与银行家戴维•普尔曼谈论了这些情况，他坚持认为，穆迪的评级并不重要。（我在等他的时候，耳朵里一直在播放《Rebel, Rebel》。很有意思。）他轻声笑着说：“我认为这很好。它重新激起了人们对这些债券的兴趣。你看，这些债券依旧会保持投资级。它们的收益率依旧在8%左右，你不必担心像购买百代唱片（EMI）或美国在线（AOL）的股票一样，损失85%或更多的投资。”很有道理。但归根结底，如果鲍伊在2003年尝试出售他的音乐版权，还能否得到5,500万美元？普尔曼回答说：“这个很难说。那笔交易有许多独特的地方。”啊哈！

其他音乐证券化交易并未遭遇评级下调。这也证明了鲍伊债券的某些特质。来自穆迪的伊思布拉克说道：“其他类型的交易，收入更多是来自音乐出版，而不是唱片所有人的版税，而音乐出版的表现往往比唱片所有人的版税更加坚挺。”音乐出版权收入是指授权其他音乐家演奏歌曲或在广播上播放歌曲的收入。而唱片所有人版税则是销售CD的收入。所以，鲍伊现在的销售并没有那么“好”。另外一点：鲍伊债券由焦头烂额的唱片业巨头百代唱片担保——而这家公司的债务评级在2003年3月份已经下降至垃圾级，并且饱受音乐盗版的困扰。

但普尔曼对这些问题并不担心。他说道：“多数被盗版的音乐都来自年轻的音乐家。总而言之，文件共享一定会带来更大的好处。即便音乐出版的收入减少5%，依旧还有许多其他新的音乐播放平台。例如，在你的电视上有500个频道在播放音乐。”

很好。我转换了话题，询问他合作公寓的情况（《纽约时报》的一篇文章进行了详细报道）。普尔曼与董事会和其他居民交恶多年，普尔曼曾对其他居民提出人身攻击和纳粹主义等指控，其他股东通过投票将他驱逐出了董事会。这件事有什么最新进展？他说：“我依旧住在那里。”关于普尔曼与其前证券化合伙人之间的诉讼，一名法官最近驳回了这一案件。但普尔曼提出了上诉。

我们将所有事实组合在一起：文件共享正在冲击音乐行业，并且有可能使鲍伊债券陷入危机。戴维•普尔曼依旧在兴风作浪。而大卫•鲍伊早在2003年的几年前，就已经抽离了自己的资金。（财富中文网）

Music legend David Bowie passed away early Monday after battling cancer for 18 months. Bowie’s career spanned more than five decades, filled with music that blended different genres and new personas. In addition to his musical prowess and innovation, though, Bowie also often proved himself a visionary when it came to the business aspects of his music.

The Thin White Duke recognized early on that the Internet would likely upend the music industry’s traditional business model and he also helped pioneer a method for artists to capitalize on their catalogs by selling interest in his future licensing revenue in the late 1990s.

In 2003, our former Fortune editor Andy Serwer looked back at the prescience of Bowie’s move, which came just as the industry’s so-called “Golden Years” were nearing an end.

Ziggy, a.k.a. rock icon David Bowie, played guitar. Turns out he wasn’t too bad at playing Wall Street either. As you have probably heard, Bowie bonds, Wall Street’s own space-oddity securities, have been in the news again. And the news hasn’t been good: Moody’s has placed the bonds under review because of questions about “how much revenues [the songs] have been generating,” says Moody’s analyst Jay Eisbruck. That means simply that there is concern that the music catalog is earning less than it used to and at some point may no longer provide enough cash to pay bondholders. Behind the music, though, are some other interesting moving parts.

First, a refresher. Ziggy, a.k.a. rock icon David Bowie, sold his music rights for $55 million ten years ago to a group of bankers who issued bonds backed by Bowie’s residuals. Prudential and other insurance companies bought the bonds, which are rated A3 and yield about 8%. Everybody predicted that would usher in a wave of deals by rock & rollers and songwriters. And though a few followed Bowie’s lead—such as James Brown (“Good God!”) and the Isley Brothers (“Fight the Power!”)—it never became the next big thing for the music biz or Wall Street.

Over the years a few firms have dabbled in the business—which totals only about $200 million—but this small, high-profile niche has mostly been the domain of David Pullman, a rather idiosyncratic banker with his own boutique firm. Pullman, who early on worked at the infamous broker Gruntal, has been a party to headline-grabbing lawsuits involving his former securitization partners—that one for billions—and the co-op board in his Manhattan apartment building.

Bowie and his deal were considered cutting-edge at the time (isn’t he always?), but in retrospect the Diamond Dog is looking positively clairvoyant! (Bowie declined to speak to Street Life for this article, which is too bad because I had some fantastic ideas for costumes and such….) Think about it. Bowie sells the rights to his catalog in January 1997, before most of humankind had ever heard the little phrase “file sharing.” (I call it file stealing.) How smart or lucky was that?

I spoke to Pullman about the situation, and he insisted that the review by Moody’s was a non-issue. (“Rebel, Rebel” played in my ear while I was on hold for him. Cute.) “I think it’s great,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s created a resurgence in interest in these securities. Look, the bonds would still be investment-grade anyway. They still pay out close to 8%, and you wouldn’t have lost 85% or more of your investment like you did if you bought [stock in] EMI or AOL.” Okay, fair enough. But, bottom line, would Bowie be able to get the same $55 million if he had tried to sell his rights in 2003? “That’s tough to say,” responds Pullman. “There were many unique aspects to that deal.” Uh-huh.

Other music-securitization deals are not under review. That speaks to some special qualities of the Bowie bonds. “Most of the other transactions have revenues that are generated in larger portion by music publishing rather than record-master royalties, and music publishing has tended to hold up better than record-master royalties,” says Moody’s Eisbruck. Music publishing rights are when the song is licensed to be played by another musician or is played on the radio. Record-master royalties are the dough that rolls in from sales of CDs. So Ziggy’s sales these days aren’t so “Hunky Dory.” Another point: Bowie bonds are guaranteed by wheezing record giant EMI—whose debt ratings were cut to junk in March—which has been getting skewered by music pirates.

Again, Pullman is unfazed by the facts. “Most songs being pirated are by younger artists. And anyway, file sharing creates greater interest,” he says. “Even if there was a 5% or less drop in revenues from publishing, there are so many other new venues for music. For instance, there are 500 channels on your TV with music being played.”

Okay. Shifting gears, I ask him about the situation in his co-op (detailed in a New York Times article), where fellow shareholders voted to throw him out after years of acrimony between him and the board and other residents involving accusations by Pullman of everything from assault to Nazism. What’s the latest with that? “I still live there,” he says. As for Pullman’s lawsuit against his former securitization partners, a judge recently dismissed the case. Pullman’s appealing.

So let’s put all this together: File sharing is beating up the music biz and is potentially nicking Bowie bonds. David Pullman continues to make waves. And then there’s David Bowie, who took his money off the table years ago.