No deal has closed for Helen Grant’s 10% share in Led Zeppelin and Bad Company royalties, LedZepNews can reveal.

In July, Helen Grant, the daughter of Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant, publicly announced that she wished to sell her share of Led Zeppelin royalties.

Despite LedZepNews revealing in September that an offer had been received of £8.5 million for Grant’s stake in Led Zeppelin’s royalties, no deal has closed and Grant retains her shares. At the time, sources close to the sale process described the offer as tentative and emphasised that the deal hadn’t been finalised and could fall through.

A Companies House filing published in the UK on April 30 by Bad Company Entertainment, one of the four businesses Grant is selling a stake in, shows that the estate of Peter Grant continues to own the 20% stake in the company it has controlled since at least 1995.

Helen Grant and her brother Warren Grant each own 10% of Bad Company’s royalties business, with only Helen Grant’s stake publicly advertised for sale.

Any change in the shareholders of the company resulting from the closure of a deal for Grant’s royalties would have required the company to file an updated breakdown of its shareholders.

Grant’s lawyer Ian Penman declined to comment when contacted by LedZepNews on May 1.

A public sale of 10% of Led Zeppelin royalties

Grant publicly announced her intention to sell her stake in Led Zeppelin and Bad Company royalties in an interview with The Times on July 10.

“I’m hoping it will allow me to showcase Dad again in the way he should be presented,” she told the newspaper. “A film is being talked about. I never had a chance to do it before — I’ve got five bloody kids, for God’s sake — but I’m at that stage in life where I’m thinking we could do something great with Dad’s legacy.”

Publicly advertising the intention to sell a stake in a legacy musical artist is an unusual strategy. Most transactions are carried out privately and only announced once deals have been signed.

The decision to go public about the sale was made after Grant had spent months trying to privately sell her stake, LedZepNews understands.

Later that day, Penman told LedZepNews that “there have been a number of companies that have started to show interest and take it further and I felt that we should make sure that the net is as wide as possible.”

Grant spoke to The Guardian on July 19, saying: “It’s time to move on. And it’ll be incredible to be able to do something with Dad’s legacy – maybe a film or documentary.”

Sources have confirmed to LedZepNews that Grant and her lawyer have been seeking to sell an equity stake in four companies connected to Led Zeppelin and Bad Company as part of the deal.

LedZepNews reported in July that Grant hopes to sell a 10% stake in the British business Superhype Tapes that controls the Led Zeppelin trademarks, a 10% stake in Led Zeppelin’s British royalties business United Blag Productions as well as a 10% stake in Bad Company’s UK royalties business Bad Company Entertainment and a stake in the New York company Swan Song Entertainment which also handles Bad Company royalties.

​​The assets up for sale won’t give a buyer any direct control over Led Zeppelin’s music. LedZepNews previously published this exhaustive breakdown of all companies relating to Led Zeppelin.

Speaking to LedZepNews on July 16, Penman claimed he had been “deluged with offers” for Grant’s royalties stake in the days following the publication of her interview with The Times.

Potential bidders being approached include wealthy fans of Led Zeppelin and music investment funds, LedZepNews understands. We ran through a series of likely buyers in this July article.

A source close to the sales process named Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group as a possible buyer who has been in talks with Grant regarding her stake.

The fund previously bought the catalogues of artists including David Crosby, The Beach Boys, Dean Martin, Joe Cocker and Stephen Stills.

Spokespeople for the fund have not responded to multiple emails from LedZepNews asking whether the business is in talks regarding Grant’s stake.

Another potential buyer for Grant’s stake had been Hipgnosis, a prolific acquirer of music catalogues that’s not to be confused with the design firm of the same name that created multiple Led Zeppelin album covers.

“I’m afraid our policy is not to comment on market rumour or speculation,” a spokesman for the fund told LedZepNews when approached last year to ask whether it is in talks with Grant.

Merck Mercuriadis, the company’s chair, previously spoke of his admiration for Led Zeppelin’s catalogue, comparing it to Bob Dylan’s catalogue. Led Zeppelin’s music “is of that stature, the shares of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, particularly,” he told HITS in 2020.

However, Hipgnosis is currently in the middle of a takeover battle and Mercuriadis stepped down as CEO in February amid a debate over catalogue valuation and strained relations at the firm.