This week we pick up where that one left off- what happens after the price has been paid and the claim has to become a working reality across every system that pays. Operators should be under no illusion that once a deal completes- the paperwork is signed (with the lawyers laughing all the way to the bank), the cash has gone out and the press release is scheduled- the real work begins. On paper, the catalog now belongs to the fund- but of course the industry's systems don't

Every catalog acquisition starts in the same place. A data room opens, and inside sits the familiar furniture: a stack of royalty statements, some contract summaries, perhaps a seller-commissioned earnings report with a decay curve that always seems to flatten out at exactly the right moment (funny that). And at the centre of it all, the schedule of works- the document that defines what is actually for sale.