Courtney Love has confirmed she has sold a 25% share of her 98% stake in Nirvana's publishing catalogue to Larry Mestel of Primary Wave Music Publishing. The confirmation follows a previous announcement that she was seeking a business partner to co-manage the publishing assets she inherited from Kurt Cobain.
Talking about the move, she told reporters: "I took on a strategic partner, Larry Mestel, to help me co-manage the estate because it was overwhelming. The affairs of Nirvana are so massive and so huge, and they've all fallen on my lap. I own almost all of it and it proved to be too much for me. I needed a partner to take Kurt Cobain's songs and bring them into the future and into the next generation. And this guy's the guy to do it."
Mestel, meanwhile, told Rolling Stone: "The appeal to me is that Kurt was one of the most important songwriters of his time. Kurt was an incredible songwriter, and Courtney is an exceptionally talented person herself. So I felt the combination of Courtney's creativity and the things I can add can really help in creating more value for these copyrights."
Love assured Nirvana fans that while the new partnership would take the band where they'd "never been before", any future ventures would be true to "the spirit" of the group.