The world lost David Bowie on January 10, 2016, at the age of 69. He was one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists. Along with his tremendous music legacy, he left a “couple” of millions needing good management.
Back in the 1980s, David Bowie was a world superstar. Although he had record sales of over 100 million, he reportedly had many financial problems that almost led him to bankruptcy. At the beginning of the ’90s, when he married Iman, David Bowie began working to secure his finances. Five years later, in 1997, he met with an investment banker who would secure his financial patrimony forever with the now-famous “Bowie Bonds.”
In this article, we will examine this “Bowie Bonds” system, the singer’s net worth at the time of his death, and who currently inherits his millions.
What Is a “Bowie Bond”?
A “Bowie Bond” was an innovative financial instrument that securitized David Bowie’s music royalties. These asset-backed securities used the income from Bowie’s existing and future album sales and live performances as collateral. Created by banker David Pullman in 1997, they were the first bonds to leverage a musician’s intellectual property rights. The bonds, sometimes called “Pullman bonds” after their creator, paved the way for similar securitization deals with artists such as James Brown, Ashford & Simpson, and the Isley Brothers.
The primary purpose of the “Bowie Bond” was to enable investors to earn from David Bowie’s music catalog without Bowie having to lose his copyrights and licensing rights. Investors received an annual return of 7.9 percent over a decade.
Prudential Life Insurance Company bought all the Bowie Bonds for $55 million and received full repayment by the end of the ten-year term from investors’ income generated by his back catalog of 25 albums (recorded before 1990 and included classics such as Hony Dory, Ziggy Stardust, and Heroes), which were used as the underlying assets for Bowie bonds.
David Bowie’s Net Worth At The Time Of His Death: $230 million
This wise financial move helped David Bowie amass a net worth estimated at $230 million at his death. That number included a $100 million value estimate for his music catalog.
In January 2022, Forbes reported that David Bowie’s estate had sold his publishing catalog to Warner Chappell for $250 million. The deal includes over six decades of music, 26 studio albums released during his lifetime, one posthumously released, and roughly 400 songs.
According to the investment banker, David Bowie wished to enjoy tax savings and ensure his estate would benefit his wife (Iman), their daughter (Alexandria Zahra Jones), and son (Duncan Jones) from an earlier marriage.
David Bowie is thought to have also set up a number of trusts to transfer his wealth privately and protect his family from court. On the other hand, many well-known musicians died without properly arranging their estates, leaving their possible successors to fight in court over their possessions and properties.
Who Inherited David Bowie’s Wealth and Estate?
When David Bowie died, he left to his family almost $100 Million.
David Bowie left half his fortune to model Iman and his apartment according to his will. The other half of his estate was divided into two parts, one for each of his children. The two will each receive twenty-five percent of his net worth, while his daughter was also gifted a home in upstate New York.
Bowie also went out of his way to ensure that those who had worked with him long were cared for, gifting his longtime assistant $2 million and a former nanny $1 million.
What Was David Bowie’s Cause of Death?
For 18 months, David Bowie battled liver cancer after being diagnosed in mid-2014. He kept his terminal illness out of the public eye, maintaining the secret until the very end. The only people he confided in were his family and a few collaborators. One of the people aware of David Bowie’s illness was stage director Ivo van Hove, who was directing the play Lazarus at the time.
“We began collaborating on our show, Lazarus, and at some point he took me to one side to say that he wouldn’t always be able to be there due to his illness. He told me he had cancer, liver cancer,” he later recalled.
Eventually, on 10 January 2016, David Bowie died at his home in New York, two days after the release of his twenty-sixth and final studio album, Blackstar, which coincided with his 69th birthday.