top of page

The Pullman Group® LLC is a principal investment bank and specialty finance company servicing the entertainment and intellectual property industries. The group experience includes over 1 billion dollars in transactions through 2018. The group is best known for creating the first ever securitization of entertainment royalties and intellectual properties, including future music royalties for

 

  • David Bowie, a $55 million transaction

  • Motown Bonds, a $30 million transaction

  • Ashford & Simpson, an eight-figure transaction

  • James Brown, a $30 million transaction

  • The Isley Brothers, an eight-figure transaction

  • Marvin Gaye, representative previous client, catalogue, and related articles.

 

Our Mission

The ownership and exploitation of intellectual properties, in the form of copyrights, trademarks and patents, is quite possibly the single greatest and fastest growing source of wealth in the world. To capitalize on the growth opportunities in the globally expanding entertainment content marketplace, entertainment and intellectual property creators, artists, and companies need ready access to capital. Historically, entertainment and intellectual property owners could only get substantial cash from their asset’s value by selling, while only minimal opportunities to borrow against future cash flow existed before.

 

The Pullman Group® LLC’s clients have ownership of or substantial contractual income derived from intellectual property assets or other entertainment assets in

  • Copyrights

  • Publishers and writer shares

  • Music Royalties

  • Record masters

  • Artists record royalties

  • Literary catalogues

  • Literary estates

  • Authors' royalties

  • Film libraries

  • Television libraries/syndication rights

  • Animation libraries

  • Director, actor, screenwriter royalties

  • TV/film producer profit participation

  • Guild Monies: SAG, DGA, WGA

  • Software license streams

  • Biotechnology license streams

  • Pharmaceutical license streams

  • Video game license streams

  • Franchise fee royalty streams

  • Future receivables

  • Trademarks

  • Patents

  • Formulae

  • Trade secrets

  • Brand-name merchandising

  • Sports revenues

  • Players contracts

  • Team and player licenses

  • Future ticket sales

  • Team and stadium financing

  • ... and other intellectual property and contract rights.

 

The Pullman Group® LLC originates and underwrites loans collateralized by most existing entertainment intellectual property assets. Intellectual property owners can realize a substantial sum of their intellectual property value by financing future revenue streams and monetizing previously illiquid assets. The Pullman Group® LLC, thus, provides a direct source of capital to entertainment intellectual property asset owners through our funding.  The group works specifically with each asset owner to develop a suitable and unique financing structure taking into account tax planning, marital, and estate planning issues. 

 

The Pullman Group® LLC satisfied this growing need for capital by monetizing valuable entertainment and intellectual property assets, allowing an owner to realize the proceeds of an asset sale while keeping the upside in the future growth of the asset.

 

"Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing"

 

The Pullman Group® LLC provides capital markets access to artists, creators, and companies in the form of liquidity, leverage, and low cost financing. We will finance assets in annual cash flow with no maximum boundary. There is no minimum annual cash flow for acquisitions and no maximum. The Pullman Group® LLC is the only group to have thus far been able to successfully securitize music, entertainment and intellectual property of this kind and/or create term securitizations rated at the single A-level by more than one nationally recognized rating agency, and to maintain such ratings. The Pullman Group® LLC retains 100% market-share in this area.

 

Acting as exclusive agents, The Pullman Group® LLC handles of the sales and securitization of assets such as

 

  • lease portfolios

  • business loans

  • equipment leases

  • student loans

  • residential b/c mortgages

  • healthcare receivables

  • trade and consumer receivables

  • boat loans

  • SBA installment loans

  • music publishing

  • copyrights, publisher and writer shares

  • record masters and publishing catalogues

  • artist, record and producer's royalties

  • film and television libraries

  • animation libraries

  • television syndication

  • screenwriters’ profit participation

  • literary estates and catalogues

  • author's royalties

  • other entertainment and intellectual property royalties (minimum of $200k in annual royalties and up)

  • intellectual property/entertainment loans

  • trademarks

  • utilities

  • applications

  • formulae

  • patents

  • brand-name merchandising

  • franchise fee royalty streams

  • software license streams

  • video game license streams

  • biotechnology license streams

  • pharmaceutical license streams

 

The Pullman Group® LLC has tailored its financing to creators and owners of entertainment and intellectual property assets to provide substantial benefits over traditional sources of capital. Typically, intellectual property owners find their most valuable assets are illiquid and undervalued. They suffer from inaccurate valuations because most traditional financiers believe intellectual property assets are not appropriate collateral for lending.

Due to the limited options of short term, low leverage bank loans and the onerous terms of venture capital, major corporations have traditionally acted as the bankers to their respective intellectual property industries. However, an advance from a record company, for example, is a fully taxable event offered with high rates of return and significant loss of control or even ownership.

 

Financing and securitization by The Pullman Group® LLC provides substantial financial benefits to intellectual property owners over other sources of capital. The Pullman Group® LLC works specifically with each asset owner to develop a suitable and unique financing structure, taking into account tax planning, marital, and estate planning issues.  Such benefits include:

 

  • the maximizing of upfront proceeds

  • non-taxable, self liquidating event --- artist pays taxes as earned over years and interest is deductible to the degree money is invested

  • off-balance sheet financing

  • long term, fixed-rate financing

  • self-amortizing, self-liquidating deal that pays the notes off

  • cash up-front

  • lower administration costs

  • tapping the capital markets for favorable, inexpensive financing

  • treatment of loan proceeds as debt for tax purposes, tax arbitrage opportunity and tax deference

  • higher yielding reinvestment strategies

  • non-recourse financing; no personal guarantees

  • retirement of existing unfavorable debt/lien liabilities

  • ability to monetize previously inaccessible cash flows

  • appreciation retention; owner receives proceeds of a sale without selling future upside value

  • control retention; intellectual property owner maintains significant control of assets

  • asset value documentation; create a new balance sheet value

  • added leverage in business negotiations

  • lock-in of basis for estate planning purposes

  • basic trust and estate planning for heirs

bottom of page