He raised $1B of others' money; he hasn't spent anything close to that yet, even in aggregate. The article is extremely light on details of why this guy thinks he can turn a bigger profit off these song catalogs than the traditional publishers can, but I guess he's cutting a lot of fat compared to the big publishing houses? This seems positive to me because it's shifting more money towards the artists:

"In the music industry, paying for assets at a 10x multiple is considered top dollar. Mercuriadis is reportedly paying up to 20x, making it impossible for others to compete."