HitCo Entertainment, the music company launched by Antonio L.A. Reid and Charles Goldstuck in 2017, has been sold to Concord, according to Variety. Home to such artists as Jennifer Lopez, Saint Jhn, Outkast’s Big Boi, Yella Beezy and Dixie D’Amelio, HitCo had been distributed through ADA.
Concord, a private company funded by long-term institutional capital, in addition to equity holders from Concord’s senior management team, represents close to 900,000 songs and trades in recorded music, music publishing, theatrical and original productions. Headquartered in Nashville, it has additional offices in Los Angeles, New York, London, Berlin and Miami. Its frontline labels include Concord, Concord Jazz, Easy Eye Sound, Fantasy Records, Fearless Records, KIDZ BOP, Loma Vista Recordings and Rounder Records. Its publishing arm owns or administers more than 600,000 copyrighted musical works and represents the catalogs of Benny Blanco, Sammy Cahn, Phil Collins, John Fogerty, Cyndi Lauper, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Ryan Tedder.
With offices in Beverly Hills, Atlanta and New York, the name and entity HitCo dates back to early in Reid’s career — around 1996. A musician himself, in 1989 he co-founded LaFace Records whose roster included several superstar artists, including OutKast, Pink, TLC, Toni Braxton and Usher. Reid’s track record resulted in a joint venture with Arista Records, a label he would later head as president and CEO, succeeding Clive Davis.
Reid went on to run Island Def Jam Records, where he played a key role in multi-platinum releases by Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber, Kanye West and Rihanna. He returned to Sony Music as chairman of Epic Records in 2011; during his six-year run, Future, Travis Scott and DJ Khaled would sign with the label. In May 2017, Reid was dismissed from his post following accusations by a female ex-employee of sexual misconduct.
Goldstuck, who serves as co-chairman of HitCo, also comes from the Clive Davis school of top music executives, having co-founded J Records (the future RCA) in 2000 with the industry icon and served as EVP/GM of Arista. Among the artists under Goldstuck’s purview were Rod Stewart, Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Sarah McLachlan and Avril Lavigne.
When Reid and Goldstuck first set up shop as HitCo, the company launched with a reported $75 million raised from private equity. The label saw one legitimately massive hit in a remix of Saint Jhn’s “Roses,” which won a Grammy and is approaching 4 billion on-demand streams.
Financial terms of the sale to Concord are as yet unknown. In terms of existing HitCo staff, a number of executives will be retained by Concord, among them label president Joel Klaiman and head of A&R Jaha Johnson, who will continue to work HitCo projects.
