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Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, New Mountain are snatching up music rights; Northrim's Crawford Gates is a dealmaker to watch

Happy Wednesday, Hubsters! Rafael Canton here closing out the month of April with the US edition of the Wire from the New York newsroom.

First, we’re going to dive into the consumer sector and look at how there’s been a high volume of deals in music royalties and copyrights.

Then, we’re going to look at PE Hub’s Dealmakers to Watch series. We have a deep dive into the career of Crawford Gates, a principal at Northrim Horizon.

Also, Right Lane Industries, a holding company that’s a spin-off of Right Lane Capital, and Hillenbrand have agreed to sell TerraSource.

Finally, we have insights from Ropes & Gray on how PE deal volume has dropped in Q1 of 2025.

Stable streaming

Let’s go to the consumer sector with a story from PE Hub’s Iris Dorbian. If there is one sector that seems immune to tariff shocks and economic uncertainty, it’s music royalties and copyrights.

Upgrade to the premium version of the Wire to read what’s happening in music royalties and copyrights PE deals.

Risk-taking

Next is our Dealmakers to Watch series which is penned by Iris. It looks at Crawford Gates of Northrim Horizon. Gates has never taken the easy way out. Whether in his career or personal life, Gates has always prided himself on taking risks, writes Iris.

Subscribe to the premium version of the Wire to learn more about Gates’ background.

PE Hub’s Dealmakers to Watch series features private equity professionals as they pivot to new challenges, such as moving to a different firm, launching a new firm, getting promoted to partner, launching an investment strategy, closing a significant deal or some other new endeavor. If you’d like to see a dealmaker profiled, reach out to PE Hub editor-in-chief Mary Kathleen (MK) Flynn at [email protected].

Crushing and separating

Right Lane Industries, a holding company that’s a spin-off of Right Lane Capital, and Hillenbrand have agreed to sell TerraSource, a St. Louis, Missouri-based provider of material handling equipment and related aftermarket parts and services for crushing and separating applications globally, for $245 million. The buyer is Astec Industries.

In April 2024, PE Hub scooped that Right Lane Industries was lining TerraSource up for sale.

Upgrade to the premium version of the Wire to learn more about the deal and our previous scoop on TerraSource.

Dealmaking slowdown

It’s felt quiet out on the dealmaking front since January, and now we’re seeing Q1 reports that show just how slow dealmaking has been. We have insights from law firm Ropes & Gray on PE deal volume.

Later in the week, we'll share more deal data on Q1, based on PE Hub's analysis of data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Subscribe to the premium version of the Wire to see how deal volume has changed in Q1 of this year and my takeaways from it.

That’s it for me. If you have any questions, thoughts, or want to chat about deals in the tech, consumer or sports sectors, please email me at [email protected].

Tomorrow, Nina Lindholm will be with you for the Europe edition of the Wire and Michael Schoeck will bring you the US edition.

Cheers,

Rafael

Read the full wire commentary on PE Hub ...

Also of note (may require subscriptions)

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Phoenix Group, the UK’s largest life insurance and pensions services provider with around £290 billion ($388.2 billion; €341.3 billion) of AUM, has seen its head of real estate depart, PERE has learned.

Deals

They said it

“Some of our near-term priorities include finding great businesses within external building services, road and traffic safety, commercial building safety, restoration and remediation, collections and recycling, and access control services, to name a few.”

— Crawford Gates, principal at Northrim Horizon on the types of businesses the firm is looking at in business services

Today's letter was prepared by Rafael Canton

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