Hipgnosis fund sells $465m of songs as City doubts music rights funding mannequin
T
he City’s rising scepticism over the value of investments in track catalogues at the moment led the London-listed Hipgnosis Songs Fund to promote $465million value of music royalty
rights after claiming its shares didn’t mirror the true worth of its portfolio.
The Hipgnosis fund bought the rights to songs by artists together with Shakira, the Kaiser Chiefs and Barry Manilow to an unlisted partnership between its dad or mum firm and personal fairness big Blackstone. It will use the proceeds to pay down money owed and purchase again $180 million value of shares.
Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis mentioned the enterprise had lengthy felt “the true value of our iconic songs was not being reflected in our share price”, and that the sale would assist right that.
He mentioned: “”Earlier this year we initiated consultations with shareholders, in contemplation of the continuation vote and our concerns that the true value of our iconic songs was not being reflected in our share price.
“It was clear that shareholders shared our belief in the continuing long-term opportunity of Hipgnosis Songs Fund and wished to see a significant share buy back programme and reduction of our leverage in order to deliver a re-rating in the share price.”
The songs being bought characterize round 19% of the Hipgnosis portfolio, and largely characterize twenty first century hits because the fund goals to focus extra on older tunes.
It comes simply days after fellow songs fund Round Hill was bought to an American group after its shares had slid since a 2021 IPO.
After Round Hill was bought, analysts at Jeffries famous that the Hipgnosis catalogue may be too large to make a sale viable.
Shares within the Hipgnosis fund had been up 1.2p to 94.2p this morning, however are nonetheless down 24% during the last two years.