How Much Is Kurt Cobain Worth 20 Years After He Died? Would You Believe $450 Million?
That’s the estimate made by The Daily Beast.
Larry Mestel has experienced the power of Cobain’s brand firsthand as CEO of Primary Wave, a company that held publishing rights to a large portion of Nirvana’s catalog from 2006 until late last year.”Kurt Cobain was a titan in pop culture,” Mestel said. “He is one of a very small handful of artists that I consider the absolute peak of credibility and value when it comes to copyrights and music.”Mestel purchased a stake in the publishing rights of Nirvana’s music from Cobain’s widow, rocker Courtney Love, in a 2006 deal that has been estimated at more than $50 million. At the time, Love was the primary beneficiary of the publishing rights to Kurt Cobain’s estate, which included more than 98 percent of the publishing rights to Nirvana’s music.
Mestel and Primary Wave at one point held 50 percent of the publishing rights to Nirvana’s music, before divesting their interest as part of a $150 million deal with BMG.
You can read the whole article here. Talk to Courtney, though–and I have, at length–she’ll offer a different story, one that involves an alleged fraud involving hundreds of millions.
