Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips, the investment bank focused on the media, marketing and information sectors is pleased to announce the formation of a licensing division to help clients tap into this lucrative source of revenues.

Effective immediately, we have appointed David Graff as Managing Director of Licensing. David began his career in licensing in the 1990s at Hearst Magazines where he built a licensing business that exceeded $750 million in retail sales annually.

Licensing is an excellent way for media companies to further monetize their brands. Digiday recently reported that, “Meredith Corporation, Hearst, BuzzFeed and Conde Nast have all seen their annual total sales of branded merchandise increase from 2018 to 2019 by tens of millions of dollars, if not billions.” Meredith ranks #2 on the License Global Top 150 Licensors List with $26.5 billion in sales from branded products. Other top media companies on the list include The Walt Disney Company (ranked #1), WarnerMedia, and Viacom/CBS.