John Branca secured the Northern Songs catalog containing Beatles' music for Michael Jackson in 1985 and managed negotiations to build Jackson's music publishing empire into the world's largest. This case study discusses negotiation strategies.
In 1985, pop music superstar Michael Jackson instructed his attorney, John Branca , to bid for the Northern Songs music catalog, which contained the songs of the Beatles . In a challenging negotiation, Branca secured the rights to the collection.
And he went to his friend Paul McCartney, who said, “I collect publication rights, the words and the music, not the master recordings, but the words and the music for use anywhere, and maybe you’d be interested in that too?” And Jackson really was. And in fact, he began to ask his lawyer, John Branca, to begin to find different catalogs. So he bought Sly and the Family Stone and some other things.
BRIAN KENNY: Yeah, Branca was really young when this case starts. Michael Jackson was such an enigmatic figure. Particularly at this point in his career, there’s a lot of mystique around him. How does Branca come to know him and come to work for him? BRIAN KENNY: Yeah, and I’ll just say for our listeners who are listening, what we’re looking at right now is a handwritten note it looks like from Michael Jackson to Branca.He passed that note to Branca in the meeting where they were evaluating whether or not to go ahead with the-JIM SEBENIUS: “Lost a lot of deals that way, don’t do that. Except, don’t overpay.”
JIM SEBENIUS: In Branca’s experience, they shook hands on more than one deal, one for an initial 37 and a half million dollars, then for 40, then for 47. And each time he thought he had a handshake deal, in fact, enough to do a lot of expensive due diligence. And then Holmes à Court would use that to leverage another offer. And so it was a frustrating and dicey piece. Holmes à Court was also highly analytical and he was intimidating, but not in a pound the table kind of way.
BRIAN KENNY: How was he able to stay competitive in these negotiations given the fact that Holmes à Court was so capricious in who he was inviting in and not really respecting the handshake deals that they had? JIM SEBENIUS: So there’s a point here where you can then have an interesting conversation about what you might do because Marty Bandier and Charles Koppelman were in the business and they had just started a new company and they had bid, and Holmes à Court had accepted an offer for 47.5. So you could kind of imagine how there’s an interesting classroom discussion about “what do you do?” in this circumstance. And I’m tempted to turn it to you guys, but you can’t.
JIM SEBENIUS: This leads to an interesting conversation, right about, “Okay, you’ve essentially disabled your competitor in a bidding situation. What do you think about that?” It was certainly effective, but is that okay? And you get a pretty rich discussion about whether it’s okay. And one of the reasons I particularly like this case is it comes from the world. We didn’t make this stuff up. We didn’t think it up in sort of an philosophical article on ethics.
JIM SEBENIUS: Well, the fascinating thing is when Branca got to London to do all the signing, and Charles and Marty actually called him at this Savoy where he was staying and said, “How come you’re in London?” And he sort of said, “Oh, I’m working on a deal.” And anyway, so they get the deal done and they’re on the plane on the Concord again, which was still at that time flying back to New York. And Charles and Marty are seated behind him.
Michael Jackson John Branca Northern Songs Beatles Music Publishing
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Michael Jackson's Attorney Secures Beatles Catalogue Rights and Expands Music EmpireJohn Branca, Michael Jackson's attorney, secured the rights to the Beatles' Northern Songs catalog in 1985. Over 30 years, he navigated complex negotiations to expand Jackson's music publishing empire, turning it into the largest in the world. A Harvard Business School case study examined effective negotiation strategies.
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