Sony Music Publishing will take possession of Hipgnosis Songs Group, Selection has confirmed. Phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed.

The deal contains songs from Sabrina Carpenter, Blake Mills, My Morning Jacket, Alex Warren, St. Vincent, Kali Uchis and extra, with Sony Music Publishing taking on Hipgnosis Songs’ publishing and third-party administration companies. This information was first reported by Billboard.

The acquisition comes on the heels of Hipgnosis rebranding to Recognition Music Group in March, which folded the Hipgnosis Songs Fund and Hipgnosis Songs Belongings into the brand new group.

In 2024, Hipgnosis struck two huge offers: the sale of the Hipgnosis Songs Fund to monetary behemoth Blackstone for $1.6 billion, after which founder Merck Mercuriadis exited and Blackstone took the then-publicly traded firm personal. The second was Hipgnosis’ issuance of $1.47 billion in bonds backed by royalties of music from the Purple Sizzling Chili Peppers, Bon Jovi, 50 Cent and extra.

Final 12 months “marked a pivotal transition for the corporate with the Hipgnosis entities coming underneath frequent possession and the completion of a landmark $1.47 billion financing – demonstrating robust investor conviction within the asset class,” Qasim Abbas, head of tactical alternatives worldwide for Blackstone, mentioned on the time.

As Selection reported final 12 months, Hipgnosis helped drive up the value of music catalogs by its purchases, paying high greenback to numerous high producers and songwriters for his or her work. The market then adopted go well with, driving up the worth of catalogs enormously — Hipgnosis paid a reported $100 million for half of Neil Younger’s songs catalog. In separate offers Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen reportedly had been paid as a lot as 4 to 6 occasions that — however Hipgnosis grew overextended as buyers questioned the corporate’s skill to take advantage of the catalogs it had acquired.

Sony Music Publishing is the most important such firm on the earth, with 6.63 million songs in its catalog as of March 31, in line with the newest out there knowledge.

+ HarbourView, the content-focused funding agency based in 2021, has introduced $500 million in debt financing through the monetary conglomerate KKR. Final 12 months, the 2 corporations struck an analogous deal, additionally for $500 million.

“This extra capital from KKR will assist us speed up our technique to align with the place the media, sports activities and leisure markets are headed,” HarbourView Founder and CEO Sherrese Clarke mentioned in an announcement.

Final 12 months, it was introduced HarbourView can be financing a Queen Latifah biopic. Earlier this 12 months, it bought the rights to T-Ache’s catalog, together with sure property from Grammy-winning producer Rodney Jerkins. The corporate’s catalog contains music from Brad Paisley, Justin Bieber, Olivia Rodrigo and Cardi B and hits like Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Greatest Shot” and Nelly’s “Sizzling in Herre,” the latter as a part of a $50 million deal.

“Within the industrialized revolution, we’re going from horse and buggy into motorized automobiles,” Clarke advised Selection‘s “Strictly Enterprise” podcast final 12 months.

+ Cooking Vinyl, residence to Billy Bragg, Roger Waters, the Jesus and Mary Chain and lots of extra iconic artists from the UK and past, is being acquired by the U.S.-based Exceleration Music, the businesses have introduced.

Exceleration has struck offers with quite a few corporations together with its acquisition of Redeye in 2023, the acquisition of Kill Rock Stars and a “monetary alliance” with Mother+Pop Music in 2022 and buying Bloodshot Information in 2021, amongst others. One of many firm’s earliest offers was with Chicago-based blues stalwart Alligator Information in 2021.

Exceleration was based in 2021 by former Harmony Music Group CEO Glenn Barros together with Amy Dietz, John Burk, Charles Caldas and Dave Hansen with “substantial funding capital,” in line with Music Enterprise Worldwide.

“It’s nice to see the music trade being embraced by the funding world. Not so way back, most buyers thought this trade was completed,” Barros mentioned on the time. “However this inflow of capital has in some ways turned music right into a commodity to be traded like every other monetary asset.”