His recent "tours" have been pretyy irregular at best and the venues have not exactly been large enough to generate a profit AND pay Prince a large fee. His last two albums didnt exactly sell too well, although he probably took the lions share of the sales. His protege output, whilst being pretty good music-wise of late, has not generated much in the way of sales. I dont know what kind of royalty payments he gets from his past work, but it cant be that much because you cant find most of it and there is nothing directing traffic to the places where you can buy it. He isnt on radio or TV very much anymore so there's little royalty payments coming from airplay. He has his PP and employee overheads to consider and probably has band members on retainers. His lawyers are constantly in motion "cleaning up" the internet and I bet they are not cheap.

So is Prince Inc. currently running at a loss? Im sure he has a nice cushion of wealth to fall back on and isnt remotely close to running in the red. Apparently he is worth $250m but how much of that is sitting in the bank as opposed to being invested and not easily accessible? I just cant see how his enterprise is making any profit at the moment unless he has other ventures not related to music such as property investments and shares in other businesses etc which are bringing in an income. I cannot see anything big in Prince's music business that is bringing in the dough at the moment so maybe there is something in the pipeline to rectify that like a full scale tour or, dare I say it, the mother of all remaster series.

My answer based on my instinct and not fact is simply no. Everything you have said in your initial post is the sign that he is not losing any money and is not in financial trouble. All of his actions smack of someone who is doing what they want. Not what he would need to do to make oodles of money. At the end of the day Prince's actions say he is just fine. He is having fun and doing things on his terms no one elses. So no.

Rebeljuice said:

Not a chance.

No way. He gets paid up front for any performance. I'd guess his minimum fee is $500K, which I seem to recall that's what he made for each Musicology performance (I believe his comment when asked why he had so many dates on the tour was, "I could sleep, or I could make $500,000. Easy decison!").

He only played 13 dates in 2014. At $500K per, that's $6,500,000 in performance fees (or maybe more, as we know he charges $1,000,000 whenever he can). After taxes and management fees, he netted at least $3,250,000. Say he pays the band $1,000,000 total and he has $2,250,000 for himself - just from touring. Certainly he makes money from music sales, royalties, merchandise, etc.

And investment income. If Prince truly has a net worth of $250,000,000 then he has substantial investment income. Let's say he nets 5% after taxes and fees on just HALF of his portfolio. That means he brings in $6,250,000. And believe me - that is a VERY conservative calculation. With a little risk, Prince could easily be netting $10,000,000 a year from his net worth.

From just light touring and investment income we've shown a potential annual net to Prince of $8,500,000 - and we haven't added in royalties, album sales, etc.

I know Prince spends a lot of money but I'm pretty sure he can keep everything afloat with $8,000,000 a year coming in, and never worry about touching his principal.

Graycap23 said:

Not a chance.

true.. but it would depend on how much he's spending..

If Prince wants money he can tour the hits any time. He's not doing that right now, ergo he's not hard up for cash.

KingSausage said:

He may not be losing money, but what is his cash flow like? He has assets like PP that are totally sunk. He may be worth millions, but how much of that is liquid?

U expect a real answer 2 this question?

Graycap23 said:

I would expect he is always sailing pretty close to the wind in cash flow terms.

Paisley Park must run at a loss and new sales count for nothing in the overall scheme of things. His outlay must be very high end. His transport, security, hotels and studio times must be in the top range.

At the moment, he can drop a private performance or do a little tour to fill the current account, but we know he has flirted with bankruptcy more than once.

I just hope he is planning his pension. At some point when he is a bit older, the audiences will drop, at least in mainstream touring terms. If he can plan, he'll do fine.

When you hear about celebrity worth, it is rarely anyway near as high as stated.

SquirrelMeat said:

I would expect he is always sailing pretty close to the wind in cash flow terms.

Paisley Park must run at a loss and new sales count for nothing in the overall scheme of things. His outlay must be very high end. His transport, security, hotels and studio times must be in the top range.

At the moment, he can drop a private performance or do a little tour to fill the current account, but we know he has flirted with bankruptcy more than once.

I just hope he is planning his pension. At some point when he is a bit older, the audiences will drop, at least in mainstream touring terms. If he can plan, he'll do fine.

When you hear about celebrity worth, it is rarely anyway near as high as stated.

I seriously doubt this. Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, VanHalen, Rush, any of these type of classic bands don't have any problems selling tickets, in fact, as they get older the ticket prices goes up.

.

PP may run at a loss, however, Prince has written & released so much successful music, there's no way his bank is hurting.

.

At this point, as far as him Losing Money, this is entirely speculation, I don't believe there is any way of knowing this with any sense of accuracy.

Prince makes a stupid amount of money in royalties alone.

laurarichardson said:

Rebeljuice said:

His recent "tours" have been pretyy irregular at best and the venues have not exactly been large enough to generate a profit AND pay Prince a large fee. His last two albums didnt exactly sell too well, although he probably took the lions share of the sales. His protege output, whilst being pretty good music-wise of late, has not generated much in the way of sales. I dont know what kind of royalty payments he gets from his past work, but it cant be that much because you cant find most of it and there is nothing directing traffic to the places where you can buy it. He isnt on radio or TV very much anymore so there's little royalty payments coming from airplay. He has his PP and employee overheads to consider and probably has band members on retainers. His lawyers are constantly in motion "cleaning up" the internet and I bet they are not cheap.

So is Prince Inc. currently running at a loss? Im sure he has a nice cushion of wealth to fall back on and isnt remotely close to running in the red. Apparently he is worth $250m but how much of that is sitting in the bank as opposed to being invested and not easily accessible? I just cant see how his enterprise is making any profit at the moment unless he has other ventures not related to music such as property investments and shares in other businesses etc which are bringing in an income. I cannot see anything big in Prince's music business that is bringing in the dough at the moment so maybe there is something in the pipeline to rectify that like a full scale tour or, dare I say it, the mother of all remaster series.

No and you can go on I-tunes and find all of his WB output.

This isn't quite true as far as I can tell, as the albums The Gold Experience, The Black Album and Chaos and Disorder are currently not available from iTunes.

As an aside, does anybody know why Prince doesn't make his post-Warner's albums available on digital platforms, surely he could do so if he wanted?

RaspBerryGirlFriend said:

laurarichardson said:

RaspBerryGirlFriend said:

This isn't quite true as far as I can tell, as the albums The Gold Experience, The Black Album and Chaos and Disorder are currently not available from iTunes.

As an aside, does anybody know why Prince doesn't make his post-Warner's albums available on digital platforms, surely he could do so if he wanted?

So you are concerned about 3 that very few people are looking for which could be the reason they are not avalible. I am sure he will get around to doing something soon.

I'm not concerned about anything, I'm not particularly invested (excuse the pun) in the financial affairs of my favourite musicians, unless they're so broke that they can't make music anymore. I was simply stating that not all of the Warner's albums are for purchased digitally.

Whatever his business now, don't forget there is such a thing as a saving account plus investments.

I think it would be rather shocking that Prince wasn't advised to invest at some point in his career, especially around the Musicology tour.

People have a rather simple view of Prince, like he was still in a basement recording 1999. Some have being worrying about his finances for ages, yet he still puts on the shows, runs the studio and releases the records. Maybe it's time to stop wondering if he knows what he's doing and start realizing he's done pretty good without y'all advice and concerns over the years and mot likely is richer than anyone on this site, so there...

Misplaced concern.

[Edited 4/16/15 16:19pm]

Rebeljuice said:

His recent "tours" have been pretyy irregular at best and the venues have not exactly been large enough to generate a profit AND pay Prince a large fee. His last two albums didnt exactly sell too well, although he probably took the lions share of the sales. His protege output, whilst being pretty good music-wise of late, has not generated much in the way of sales. I dont know what kind of royalty payments he gets from his past work, but it cant be that much because you cant find most of it and there is nothing directing traffic to the places where you can buy it. He isnt on radio or TV very much anymore so there's little royalty payments coming from airplay. He has his PP and employee overheads to consider and probably has band members on retainers. His lawyers are constantly in motion "cleaning up" the internet and I bet they are not cheap.

So is Prince Inc. currently running at a loss? Im sure he has a nice cushion of wealth to fall back on and isnt remotely close to running in the red. Apparently he is worth $250m but how much of that is sitting in the bank as opposed to being invested and not easily accessible? I just cant see how his enterprise is making any profit at the moment unless he has other ventures not related to music such as property investments and shares in other businesses etc which are bringing in an income. I cannot see anything big in Prince's music business that is bringing in the dough at the moment so maybe there is something in the pipeline to rectify that like a full scale tour or, dare I say it, the mother of all remaster series.

ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!!

If he were hurting cash wise he would have rereleased PR last year. And he would have actually toured the two albums he did release. He may have actually did video's and radio station promotion and all that stuff. He doesn't seem to care about anything. Dude's in his 50's and relaxing. Let the man chill if he has the bank to do it.

mm hmmm secretly, when no one is looking, prince sneaks out to his part-time job at cub foods where he stocks shelves, does inventory and sweeps the floors after the storse is closed for the night.

Losing? Doubtful. Blindly giving away under a misconceived notion of redemption? Likely.

Rebeljuice said:

His recent "tours" have been pretyy irregular at best and the venues have not exactly been large enough to generate a profit AND pay Prince a large fee. His last two albums didnt exactly sell too well, although he probably took the lions share of the sales. His protege output, whilst being pretty good music-wise of late, has not generated much in the way of sales. I dont know what kind of royalty payments he gets from his past work, but it cant be that much because you cant find most of it and there is nothing directing traffic to the places where you can buy it. He isnt on radio or TV very much anymore so there's little royalty payments coming from airplay. He has his PP and employee overheads to consider and probably has band members on retainers. His lawyers are constantly in motion "cleaning up" the internet and I bet they are not cheap.

So is Prince Inc. currently running at a loss? Im sure he has a nice cushion of wealth to fall back on and isnt remotely close to running in the red. Apparently he is worth $250m but how much of that is sitting in the bank as opposed to being invested and not easily accessible? I just cant see how his enterprise is making any profit at the moment unless he has other ventures not related to music such as property investments and shares in other businesses etc which are bringing in an income. I cannot see anything big in Prince's music business that is bringing in the dough at the moment so maybe there is something in the pipeline to rectify that like a full scale tour or, dare I say it, the mother of all remaster series.

A real understanding of the business would invalidate the size of the venues and the regularity of the shows as factors for an artist of Prince's stature (if there is such a thing). In fact, all of that uninformed speculation is the classic example of the neuroses that makes this site a test of patience and a drag on IQ points most of the time: people talking what they dont know about Prince as if they do know.

JoshuaWho said:

Rebeljuice said:

His recent "tours" have been pretyy irregular at best and the venues have not exactly been large enough to generate a profit AND pay Prince a large fee. His last two albums didnt exactly sell too well, although he probably took the lions share of the sales. His protege output, whilst being pretty good music-wise of late, has not generated much in the way of sales. I dont know what kind of royalty payments he gets from his past work, but it cant be that much because you cant find most of it and there is nothing directing traffic to the places where you can buy it. He isnt on radio or TV very much anymore so there's little royalty payments coming from airplay. He has his PP and employee overheads to consider and probably has band members on retainers. His lawyers are constantly in motion "cleaning up" the internet and I bet they are not cheap.

So is Prince Inc. currently running at a loss? Im sure he has a nice cushion of wealth to fall back on and isnt remotely close to running in the red. Apparently he is worth $250m but how much of that is sitting in the bank as opposed to being invested and not easily accessible? I just cant see how his enterprise is making any profit at the moment unless he has other ventures not related to music such as property investments and shares in other businesses etc which are bringing in an income. I cannot see anything big in Prince's music business that is bringing in the dough at the moment so maybe there is something in the pipeline to rectify that like a full scale tour or, dare I say it, the mother of all remaster series.

A real understanding of the business would invalidate the size of the venues and the regularity of the shows as factors for an artist of Prince's stature (if there is such a thing). In fact, all of that uninformed speculation is the classic example of the neuroses that makes this site a test of patience and a drag on IQ points most of the time: people talking what they dont know about Prince as if they do know.

If it tests your patience and makes you feel more stupid, please feel free to depart the conversation of which you should never have participated in the first place. Free will allows you to do this.

My point of the thread was to merely speculate on Prince's business and where his income may (or may not) be coming from right now. I never said anything along the lines of him being bancrupt or crap at running his business, I just pointed out that I was interested in whether, using wild speculation, anyone thought his business may be losing money at the moment.

Let me rephrase the question so that the wild speculation can focus on my point and not go off on tangents regarding Princes wealth and the need to defend his liquidity: Prince is the CEO of his business. He may take a salary from the business or he may take dividends on profits. But I doubt he uses his own personal bank accounts to run his empire. For that he will have setup a bonefide company with its own bank accounts and ledgers and pay the relevant taxes/salaries/expenses that the business is required to. His personal wealth and what he takes out of the business is not what I am focussing on. Im sure he personally earns plenty off the interest alone in his personal savings account. And he probably has other companies set up to run his other interests and look after any investments he has made outside of the music business. But I want to focus on his music business.

You can have an extremely successful company which has billions in the bank, but if in the last financial year the expenditure exceeded the income then it would be fair to say that said company made a loss. It doesnt imply that said company is broke or is on the brink of going under, it simply means that the books show a running loss for that financial year. So to put my question another way, is Princes's (music) business currently running at a profit? Lets take 2014. With all the activities he undertook last year would they, in your opinion and using very speculative methods of deduction, have been enough to cover his overheads?

Afterall, his business will have accountants, lawyers, office staff, cleaning staff, drivers, phone bills, internet bills, utility bills, taxes, running expenses, travel expenses, hotel bills, 5 star airline tickets around the world, security, film crews, studio time in cities around the world, maintenance, band members on retainers and anything else that is reqired to run a multi-million dollar music company. Can that company run at a profit every single year? Maybe it does, but Prince does seem to be quite carefree when it comes to spending dosh. Afterall, it isnt technically his money he is spending, it is the company's. I bet Prince lives an all-expenses paid lifestyle and rarely ever has to dip into his own personal money (unless he has to bail out the company and pump some cash into it).

Personally, I think that if Prince Ltd (the business) does sometimes run at a loss, last year (and the couple of years before that, would be stand out years where there wasnt much income coming in. Could the venues he played at last year have paid him $500K? I doubt it based on the size and ticket prices. Did he make much from AOA and PE? Does he really get that much from royalties every year? What else brought money into PP last year (and the couple of years before that)?

There is nothing wrong with a business running at a loss for a while as long as it isnt on the brink of bankruptsy. Especially if the loss is incurred due to preparation of a big year or two in the future. I imagine Prince's music business often running at loss for a while and then a big year comes along and not only recoups those losses, but turns over a very healthy profit in the process. Every now and then Prince goes big after being relatively quiet or going off on tangents that appear to be unprofitable. Maybe the business has been running at a steady loss of late and there are some big plans about to take place to rectify that.

So lets all presume that Prince is personally extremely wealthy and has more money than he knows what to do with. No need to defend that or argue against it. Lets just have a wildly speculative converstion about the stone cold business side of his music.

These days,I think he's doing good financially,but I understand your concern.As we all know,there were at least two times in the past (1988 and 1994) when Prince was rumored to be near bankruptcy.He's capable of making lots of money,but he's not always good at managing it.Hopefully,he has learned from past mistakes.

vinaysfunk said:

My answer based on my instinct and not fact is simply no. Everything you have said in your initial post is the sign that he is not losing any money and is not in financial trouble. All of his actions smack of someone who is doing what they want. Not what he would need to do to make oodles of money. At the end of the day Prince's actions say he is just fine. He is having fun and doing things on his terms no one elses. So no.

Exactly. He can perform when he wants and where he wants. He has his masters back and will get paid either way. He can play in any city he chooses and knows that it will be an automatic sell out show. Prince knows that everyone will come and see him no matter what the price and how small or large the venue. Prince and his coins are doing just fine!!!

nosajd said:

SquirrelMeat said:

I would expect he is always sailing pretty close to the wind in cash flow terms.

Paisley Park must run at a loss and new sales count for nothing in the overall scheme of things. His outlay must be very high end. His transport, security, hotels and studio times must be in the top range.

At the moment, he can drop a private performance or do a little tour to fill the current account, but we know he has flirted with bankruptcy more than once.

I just hope he is planning his pension. At some point when he is a bit older, the audiences will drop, at least in mainstream touring terms. If he can plan, he'll do fine.

When you hear about celebrity worth, it is rarely anyway near as high as stated.

I seriously doubt this. Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, VanHalen, Rush, any of these type of classic bands don't have any problems selling tickets, in fact, as they get older the ticket prices goes up.

.

PP may run at a loss, however, Prince has written & released so much successful music, there's no way his bank is hurting.

.

At this point, as far as him Losing Money, this is entirely speculation, I don't believe there is any way of knowing this with any sense of accuracy.

Isn't it sad that the Stones need to tour, because some bandmember had no money left?

Paul McCartney has enough money to be happy, but rumour has it that he's frugile as if he's homeless.


I hope Prince has enough to be free to do what he wants. Being rich means independence and freedom. If his mind is free too, he's all set.


Does he have solar panels on Paisley Park?