Dr. Taylor Swift

[Jonathan Whatley]

University of Virginia Darden School of Business just published a "Taylor Swift-centric" case study for teaching finance: Shamrock Capital: Pricing the Masters of Taylor Swift.

Swift, the most listened-to musician in the world, had expressed displeasure with Braun’s ownership of her masters and a desire to own the recordings herself—even threatening to rerecord new versions of the master recordings. Inez Reynolds, an analyst at Shamrock, has been tasked with estimating the value of the masters and recommending how to advise the partners at Shamrock regarding a bid to Braun. The case provides a context for introducing students to firm valuation using discounted-cash-flow (DCF), market multiples, and the perpetuity model for terminal value estimation. The case is intended to provide a bridge between project valuation and firm valuation in a corporate finance course. This case is designed to be taught at Darden in the core finance curriculum as an introduction to firm valuation.

Reynolds knew that Swift had opinions about transactions involving her work, and her reaction mattered to this decision.