HarbourView Equity Partners has acquired the producer royalties of American record producer David Kershenbaum, announced on September 3, 2026. The deal covers his producer royalty income and related rights across a group of master recordings he produced over a career of more than five decades. Financial terms were not disclosed.
What changes hands
HarbourView is buying Kershenbaum's producer royalties, the share of master recording income that a producer earns on the records he made. This is not a purchase of the masters themselves or of the songwriting copyrights: the buyer steps into the producer's income stream on the recordings. Kershenbaum produced Tracy Chapman's self-titled 1988 debut and its 1989 follow-up, Crossroads, as well as Joe Jackson albums such as Look Sharp!, Night and Day and Body and Soul. He has received four Grammy nominations and more than 75 international award nominations, and has also worked with Duran Duran.
The catalog
- Fast Car (Tracy Chapman): one of the defining singles of the late 1980s.
- Baby Can I Hold You and Talkin' Bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman): further tracks from the 1988 debut.
- Steppin' Out and Is She Really Going Out With Him (Joe Jackson): two of Jackson's best-known hits.
- Walking in Memphis (Marc Cohn): a long-running radio and cover favorite.
- I Wanna Stay with You (Gallagher & Lyle).
Why it matters
Producer royalties are a smaller and less visible asset class than publishing or masters, but HarbourView has made them a clear part of its strategy. It previously bought the producer royalties of Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins (May 2025), acquired assets from the Quincy Jones estate (March 2026) and bought Wolf Cousins compositions linked to Max Martin and Shellback (June 2026). The firm says its assets under management grew from about $1.5 billion in April 2024 to roughly $3.88 billion by December 2025, spread across more than 70 catalogs.
For producers, the takeaway is that a royalty stream on a handful of evergreen records can be sold on its own, without owning the underlying masters or songs. Catalogs anchored by tracks that keep streaming, get covered and get licensed decades after release are exactly what financial buyers are looking for.