A 10 percent stake in Led Zeppelin‘s music catalog is up for sale. The share is owned by Helen Grant, daughter of the band’s former manager, Peter Grant, who managed the band from 1968 through their breakup in 1980.
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The former manager initially had a 20 percent stake and left 10 percent to each of his two children, following his death in 1995. The current share includes a portion of Led Zeppelin’s recorded music rights and publishing rights, in addition to a stake in the rights to the band’s trademarks, including their name and logo.
“Her father managed Led Zeppelin and owned 20 percent of the Zeppelin companies,” said Ian Penman of New Media Law, the firm handling the sale. “So [the deal] is quite rare in that respect, because it includes trademarks. It includes the name. The name, Led Zeppelin, is owned by a company that Helen co-owns.”
Penman added that Grant “considered selling the rights earlier this year” and was approached with “several offers and extreme interest from some of the biggest names in the business.” She is currently in talks with several interested parties, according to Penman, and the surviving members of Led Zeppelin—Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones—have no involvement in the sale.
The lawyer added that he and Grant got along instantly over their love of Led Zeppelin. “When I was 17, I had gone to see Zeppelin play at Knebworth, which was the last concert they played with John Bonham [in the UK], and she was at the same gig, a couple of years younger than me, but was backstage with her dad,” said Penman. “We both talked about what an incredible concert it was, and how we were both extremely lucky to have been at it. So we had this kind of mutual bonding on that.”
Though the price tag of the entire Led Zeppelin catalog is unknown, a 2016 court case involving the copyright infringement of the band’s 1971 classic “Stairway to Heaven,” revealed an estimated worth of $58.5 million at the time.
“[Deals like this] just never happen really,” said Penman. “And especially on one of your all-time favorite bands. It’s a dream world to be involved with the story at all.”
Photo by Dick Barnatt/Redferns
