How Vinyl, Australia's only ASX-listed music company, got into publishing by buying The Brag Media

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today’s edition features a conversation with the key players behind the deal for Vinyl Group to acquire The Brag Media, Josh Simons and Luke Girgis.There was some unconventional elements to the announcement that Vinyl Group was going to buy The Brag Media for a little over $8m. Not least was the fact that The Brag Media, while no colossus, is larger in both revenue and profits than its new owner.During today’s Unmade podcast interview with the two key players in the acquisition - Vinyl Group’s Josh Simons and The Brag Media’s Luke Girgis - the rationale for the deal begins to make more sense.Vinyl Group consists of:* Jaxta - positioned as the IMDB of the music industry, acting as a repository of official music credits ;* Vampr (which was founded by muso Simons) - positioned as the LinkedIn, or possibly Tinder, of the music industry, connecting musicians;* Vinyl, which, as the name might suggests, is an ecommerce offering selling vinyl recordsIt’s only a matter of weeks since the overall group rebranded from Jaxta to Vinyl, and months since Simons took charge after the ousting of former CEO Beth Appleton. He goes on the record about those circumstances for the first time, and shares what he’s already learned the hard way about ASX rules.Simons won the confidence of his board after helping secure Richard Wise (who made his fortune through technology firm WiseTech) as a cornerstone investor.Other major shareholders in Vinyl Group include the US based music licencing platform Songtradr run by Paul Wiltshire. In the interview, Simons points to the interest owned by Songtradr as a key reason to be confident in the prospects for the business, despite it not yet being profitable. “I don’t want to put words in Paul’s mouth, but they can’t allow us to fail. When you know that, you make decisions with a much longer term view.”The duo also tackle the structure of the deal, which was mostly in cash rather than stock, in part because Girgis’s business partner and majority owner of The Brag Media Sam Benjamin, has left the business.Meanwhile, Girgis argues that although the deal would allow him to exit after two years, he’s excited to stay for the long term. He says: “All I know is that I've started this business having more fun and I'm more inspired than I've ever been.“And we have big ambitions and I I just want to build something incredible and that's what I'm really inspired to do with Vinyl Group.”Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.Message us: [email protected] BurrowesPublisher - Unmade This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit unmade.substack.com