One Direction Holds a Financial Stake in 5 Seconds Of Summer

According to a new report, One Direction (Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson) hold a financial stake in 5 Seconds Of Summer.

The report from a UK newspaper was the first to make the connection, that states that the members of One Direction, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson, own a share of London-based company 5SOS LLP. Billboard has confirmed that the registered partners listed for the company are the four members of 5 Seconds Of Summer and One Mode Productions, whose directors include the five members of One Direction in addition to Modest’s Griffiths and Will Bloomfield.

According to the documents filed at London’s Companies House, the split allots for 120 shares: One Direction holds 50 percent, and the managers hold the other 50. Looking at 5 Seconds Of Summer's record sales so far, 788,000 albums and EPs and 2.4 million song downloads sold, per Nielsen SoundScan - that would amount to $250,000 in earnings for Modest and 1D, or $25,000 added to each One Direction's member’s bank account, Billboard estimates. Consider bigger revenue generators like merchandise, and 1D could see far greater returns.

The pairing is a no-brainer, says one insider privy to the arrangement. “The thinking is, ‘The bigger these guys get, the more money we make,’ ” says the source. “They’re going to put someone on as the opening act on the tour anyway, why not put somebody that they have a financial interest in?” Modest principals Griffiths and Harry Magee, who manage both groups, declined to comment, but in an interview with Billboard in March, Magee credited One Direction as “early adopters of 5SOS” explaining that Horan and Tomlinson played the music to the rest of the band who agreed 5SOS should support 1D on their arena tour.