Authentic Brands takes a majority stake in the IP of rapper Drake's OVO

Authentic Brands Group has bought a majority stake in the intellectual property behind OVO, the apparel and lifestyle company Drake co-founded, with financial terms left undisclosed. A media release issued on Thursday, August 27 says Drake keeps a significant ownership stake and continues shaping the brand's creative direction alongside Authentic. Music Business Worldwide reported the deal the same day.

The operating side goes elsewhere. Vince Holding Corp., listed on the Nasdaq as VNCE and a partner in the Authentic network, has acquired OVO's operating business and will run design, product development, merchandising and the retail stores as the brand's core apparel licensee. Authentic describes that split as its standard model, pairing a brand it owns with an operator it does not.

OVO now joins a portfolio that has very little to do with music. Authentic owns Reebok, Champion, Brooks Brothers, Sports Illustrated and the Care Bears, and works with Shaquille O'Neal, David Beckham and Kevin Hart. The company says its brands drive more than $38 billion in annual systemwide retail sales.

What it is buying is a brand built on the owl logo since 2008, when Drake founded it with Oliver El-Khatib and Noah "40" Shebib. It has grown from a merchandise line into 12 flagship stores plus an e-commerce business, and is run day to day by chief executive Drex Jancar.

The public statements were warm. "We're just a couple kids from Toronto who started something we believed in," Drake said, calling Authentic and Vince the right partners for the next stage. Jamie Salter, Authentic's founder and executive chairman, said the brand had earned its place among influential lifestyle names and that the opportunity was new markets rather than a redesign, while Vince chief executive Brendan Hoffman said OVO's creative identity would stay its own.

Authentic has been circling music for years. It launched a strategic alliance with Universal Music Group in November 2021 to acquire and manage artist brands and their name and likeness rights, and five months later Universal Music Publishing struck an exclusive global deal with Authentic, which owns Elvis Presley Enterprises, to represent the Presley song catalog outside the UK.

The recorded music is a separate matter and stays that way. Drake's OVO Sound label took an investment from Sony Music's Santa Anna Label Group in January 2024, having previously been distributed by Warner's ADA. Universal owns the bulk of his earlier recordings through its 2021 purchase of the Cash Money catalog, while Drake has owned his own masters since Certified Lover Boy that year, released through OVO and Republic. He has been back in the studio while ICEMAN holds the charts, and rights sales keep reshaping the genre, as with T-Pain's catalog sale reported at $100 million. More is on the hip-hop hub.