United Consortium Ltd. (UCSO)

[amadeus]

read this about the Sony/ATV music publishing biz that Michael Jackson owned 50% of, which included 250 Beatles tunes. It saved his estate, with his 50% stake mentioned in this article valued potentially as much as $1 billion...

for anyone who doesn't understand the value of catalogues of music its worth reading the time magazine article

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1908185,00.html

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Jackson's 1985 purchase of ATV Music, which included in its catalog some 250 Beatles tunes, for $47.5 million formed the basis of his stake in the music-publishing business and was by far his shrewdest music deal. Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow, and Paul McCartney had considered bidding a combined $20 million for the collection, but Ono decided that was more than the collection was worth. Jackson's purchase price of more than double that is still far less than what the songs would sell for now.

In 1995, Jackson agreed to merge ATV with Sony's music-publishing business. The Japanese corporation paid Jackson $150 million to complete the deal and split ownership of the new company with the performer 50-50. In March 2007 an audit of Jackson's finances valued his half of Sony/ATV at $390 million.

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What does that mean Sony/ATV is worth? In a recent financial filing, Sony said the division had $1.3 billion in assets and $479 million in debt. That would give the division a net value of about $850 million. But it would be likely to fetch much more than that in a sale. When Universal Music bought BMG Music Publishing in September 2006, Universal paid $2.1 billion, or nearly 12 times BMG's estimated net publisher's share. Sony/ATV probably wouldn't get the same multiple in today's market. But even at 10 times its current publisher's earnings, the company would be worth $2 billion.