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Robbie Williams and his handlers have made the world's wealthiest investors an interesting offer.



According to recently published reports, Williams's most recent record contract, a four album, £55m deal with EMI, is about to run out, and he and his manager, Tim Clark, are offering private investors the opportunity to invest in their very own private 360 deal with the British pop music titan:



Invest £50m, and you're entitled to 50% of the man's profits. 



That includes everything from touring profits to ringtones to merchandise to album sales (assuming anybody's interested in those anymore).

Though outside private investment in albums is an increasingly common practice these days, it's hardly new. David Bowie and Public Enemy have both tried their hands at it recently, and a growing number of companies - the Hector Fund and Sellaband, to name just two - is trying to make money by investing in artists' albums.

But Bowie and Public Enemy were asking for significantly lower sums of money than Williams is, and it's unclear whether he's worth that kind of cash. Two albums ago, the answer absolutely would have been yes. Back then, Williams had an iron grip on the charts and a large number of fans that made touring very, very profitable (a 2007 world tour earned him £32m).

These days, with album sales drooping across the board, and even bands like U2 struggling to make a profit on the road, it's a tougher question.

What would you do if you had £50m to invest?