According to Music Business Worldwide, Taylor Swift’s father, Scott Swift, received a $15.1 million payday when her catalog was sold to Scooter Braun in 2019 amid dubious circumstances.
At the time, Braun, 41, paid $330 million for Taylor Swift’s original label, Big Machine Label Group, from then-owner Scott Borchetta, 60, through his Ithaca Holdings company.
In 2019, a spokeswoman for the 33-year-old diva stated that her father was unaware of the contract and had no idea what was in store to inform his daughter.
The rep did not mention a nondisclosure agreement surrounding the transaction, according to the outlet.
‘On June 25, there was a shareholder phone call that Scott Swift did not participate in due to a very strict NDA that bound all shareholders and prohibited any discussion at all without risk of severe penalty,’ the rep said, the outlet reported. ‘Her dad did not join that call because he did not want to be required to withhold any information from his own daughter.
‘Taylor found out from the news articles when she woke up before seeing any text from Scott Borchetta, and he did not call her in advance.’
According to a source close to the high-profile business transaction, the important board meeting with five Big Machine Label Group stockholders took place 48 hours before the sale to Braun was officially publicized.
Borchetta was in command of 90% of his company’s equity at the time, thus the deal would have gone through regardless.
According to Music Business Worldwide, Scott Swift, a former Merrill Lynch stockbroker, was one of the aforementioned Big Machine shareholders at the time the company’s library was sold to Braun.
The five percent Scott Swift owned works to $5 million from of the $300 million Braun plunked down for Big Machine.
He had invested more than $500,000 into the company in January of 2006, MBW reported, adding that his team confirmed receiving the $15.1 million in August of 2019.
