The Tax Court’s 2021 opinion, written to value his estate, is the most careful public account of Jackson’s business life. It records that his lawyer John Branca told him the ATV Music catalog was for sale, that its prize was a large share of the Lennon–McCartney songs, and that Jackson bought it for $47.5 million. [1][2]
In November 1995 Jackson merged ATV with Sony’s music publishing business, forming Sony/ATV, owned half by each. Sony paid him $115 million to balance the deal and promised more over five years. By the end of 1998 his half was pledged against bank loans, and the debt kept growing. [1][2]
Sony/ATV bought EMI Music Publishing in 2011 and became the largest music publisher in the world. In 2016 the estate sold Jackson’s half to Sony for $750 million. [1] In 2024 the estate agreed to sell Sony half of Jackson’s own songs and recordings, a separate catalog, in a deal reported to value them at more than $1.2 billion; a California appeals court approved it over his mother’s objections. [3][4]
The Tax Court valued his Sony/ATV stake at zero on the day he died, because of the debt and restrictions attached to it. That fact matters for the theories in the Sony file: his share of the Beatles catalog was not a free asset that someone could take by killing him.
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