Shrewd Bowie’s family fortune

Singer’s smart deal means £135m legacy goes to wife and children

DAVID Bowie secured his family’s financial future in the year he turned 50, it emerged last night.

Despite his huge success, the singer was thought to be close to bankruptcy in the 1970s with a string of bad business deals.

But an astute financial move in 1997 brought him millions – allowing him to buy back the rights to some of his most popular work from a former manager.

It meant that, when he died on Sunday aged 69, Bowie is believed to have left a fortune of £135million to his second wife, Iman, and his two children.

The ‘Bowie Bonds’ scheme in 1997 gave investors the rights to his royalties for ten years, before ownership of the songs returned to the singer.

Prudential Insurance Company paid the star £37million for rights to his first 25 albums,

‘He was able to retain his legacy’

which were recorded before 1990. The scheme was put together by California-based banker David Pullman.

Yesterday, speaking from his office in Los Angeles, Mr Pullman told the Daily Mail: ‘The deal saw that the bonds were paid off and Mr Bowie then retained all his rights.

‘He was astute financially and he had the foresight to have things set up then that would look after his family.

‘He was smart enough to have confidence in himself. Most artists sell themselves short, and they don’t hold out for the rights. He was able to retain his legacy. His songs were his baby.’

Bowie wrote more than 700 songs, selling about 140million records worldwide.

However, many of the singer’s biographers have claimed that, in the early years of his success, he had been ‘fleeced’ by many of the people he came across in the music industry.

Such were his financial problems that is it thought he was almost bankrupt when he embarked on his 1974 Diamond Dogs tour.

In the years that followed Bowie formed his own management company – Isolar Enterprises, based in New York.

Throughout the Eighties the firm allowed Bowie to have greater control over his business interests as he worked not only as a singer, but as a songwriter, actor and musical arranger.

The source of much of his money was a string of incredibly successful world tours, rather than the sales of his records.

The three that made the most were 1983’s Serious Moonlight, for which all 2.6million tickets were sold, Glass Spider in 1987, which grossed the equivalent of £120million in today’s money, and 1990’s Sound + Vision, which made the equivalent of £25million.

The Reality tour in 2004 – Bowie’s last – is understood to have grossed £41million.

In recent years estimates surrounding Bowie’s wealth have ranged from one British business magazine claiming in 1997 he was worth £600million to last year’s Sunday Times Rich List valuing the singer at £135million.

The Bowie empire now reverts to his 60-year-old wife – a Somalian-born model whose own cosmetics business is thought to be worth £20million.

Bowie’s 44-year- old film producer son Duncan Jones – from his ten-year marriage to Angie Barnett – and his 15-year- old daughter Alexandria, will also each inherit a large amount.

All three were with Bowie and at his bedside when he died of liver cancer in New York.

The Bowie Bonds paid out at an interest rate of 7.9 per cent before they expired in 2007 and the rights reverted to the star. Mr Pullman said: ‘At the time of the deal we were talking of just before he was due to celebrate his 50th birthday. He wanted it sorted out after reaching that milestone birthday.

‘He was very much into estate planning issues at a relatively young age.

‘I believe he was keen for his estate to benefit from his entire back catalogue.

‘His planning was that at the time of his death his assets would all transfer to his family and beneficiaries. Everything that he had was to be left to his family.’

Following his death, three of his albums – including his latest work, Blackstar, soared to the top of the charts.