OTM Music founder and CEO Alex Sheridan (left) and Partisan Music COO Zena White. Photo Credit: Partisan
Partisan Music has officially become a majority partner in Alex Sheridan’s OTM Music, which is set to absorb the investing company’s Left Music team and roster to form “an expanded independent publishing operation.”
The involved parties reached out with word of the strategic merger, pointing first to Partisan’s acquiring the OTM stake previously held by Firebird Music. The latter company, for its part, took an interest in OTM (plus Ashley Gorley’s Tape Room Music and others) back in 2023.
Now, with Partisan aboard as majority partner, seven-year-old OTM will serve as the indie’s “primary publishing interest.” At present, the joint entity boasts a roster featuring Leon Michels, Gianluca Buccellati, and Sudan Archives, to name a few.
Additionally, the OTM-Left combination has “key staff” in place across London, Los Angeles, New York, and Paris, higher-ups emphasized. Moving forward, the publisher intends to build on Partisan’s label-side success by maintaining a “boutique model while adding greater scale, international reach and resources.”
As part of this objective, Partisan’s sync division will unite with that of OTM “to create a truly global service for all repertoire in the Partisan family.”
On the leadership front, Sheridan will remain CEO, working alongside existing OTM A&R head Kate Sweetsur as well as Craig Michie, who, having led Left Music since establishing the publisher with Partisan in 2020, now serves as the combined operation’s president and head of North America.
The Downtown vet Sweetsur and Michie previously worked together at BMG/Chrysalis and then Big Deal Music, which was founded by former Chrysalis employees and which Hipgnosis scooped up in 2020.
Addressing the deal, Sheridan touted Partisan’s “exceptional independent music business” and shared “belief in putting creativity and long-term relationships first.
“Craig, Kate and I have worked together at different points throughout our careers, so bringing that experience together again is particularly exciting. We have a clear shared vision for the kind of publishing company we want to build and an incredible roster to build it around.
“I would like to thank Firebird for their belief in OTM and wish them well for the future. I couldn’t be more thrilled to build the next phase of OTM with such an exciting team, and provide a Boutique at Scale option for our writers, present and future,” Sheridan concluded.
Meanwhile, Partisan COO Zena White described the OTM tie-up as enabling the company “to provide high-level creative services for music writers and publishing catalogs at the same calibre as we do for recording artists.
“The reuniting of Craig Michie and Kate Sweetsur to lead A&R is an exciting proposition, whilst Alex and OTM’s track record in sync is undeniable. We can’t wait to be involved in so much more incredible music via the writers across OTM’s roster,” White concluded.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.