The Beatles hand Universal a worldwide merchandise and licensing deal

The Beatles' company, Apple Corps, has given Universal Music Group an exclusive long-term partnership covering merchandise, licensing and e-commerce. Music Business Worldwide reported the agreement on August 19, 2026, the day it was announced.

What moves is the worldwide physical and digital merchandise rights. Bravado, UMG's merchandise and brand management company, has run the band's merchandise in North America since September 2022, and the new terms widen that to every market. Apple Corps, founded in 1968 to look after the group's creative and business interests, has kept the recorded catalogue with UMG since 2012.

Tom Greene, who runs Apple Corps, said the company was "delighted to partner with UMG on a new global merchandising deal" and pointed at the 3 Savile Row fan attraction due in 2027 and the biopics in 2028. He became only the third chief executive in the company's history when he took the job in September 2025, having previously run Pottermore Publishing and Wizarding World Digital. Sir Lucian Grainge, Universal's chairman and chief executive, called building on a relationship 14 years old one of the great highlights of his career, and Dickon Stainer, who runs UMG in the UK, said the agreement would open the band up to audiences everywhere.

Universal has assembled arrangements like this before around long-selling acts. Its 2018 deal with The Rolling Stones put global merchandising, retail licensing, brand management and e-commerce through Bravado while extending the recorded music side; the same year it signed Elton John across records, merchandise and publishing. It provides those services to Taylor Swift too.

The deal lands on a soft quarter for that part of the business. UMG reported merchandising and other revenue of 167 million euros, or $194.2m, for the second quarter of 2026, down 10.7% year on year at constant currency, with an adjusted EBITDA loss of 5 million euros against a 1 million euro profit a year earlier. The company put the fall down to the timing of tours and weaker direct-to-consumer sales. The division took around $915m across 2025.

Catalogue work carries on under the same roof, and the site has covered the unheard Day Tripper demo on the Rubber Soul special edition, newly mixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell and due on October 2, as well as Universal's second share buyback, worth 250 million euros; the band's own filing here is rock. The merchandise now sits with the company that owns Abbey Road Studios, where UMG says the group recorded 190 of their 210 songs between 1962 and 1970.