It felt like the tip of the story. Blackstone formally acquired Hipgnosis Songs Fund from its public shareholders final month for USD $1.584 billion – giving the Merck Mercuriadis-founded firm an enterprise valuation of $2.2 billion-plus.
The post-acquisition plan was apparent: Blackstone would mix HSF’s 40,000 songs with Blackstone’s privately held Hipgnosis Songs Capital, aka Hipgnosis Songs Belongings, residence to copyrights related to Leonard Cohen, Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, Nelly Furtado, and Kenny Chesney.
That Blackstone enterprise mixture, MBW understands, took mere days to occur following the HSF acquisition.
What was maybe much less clear within the wake of the Blackstone/HSF deal was what would occur to Hipgnosis Music Administration (HSM) – the funding adviser to each Hipgnosis’ non-public fund and the (beforehand) public entity of Hipgnosis Songs Fund.
Chatter round HSM gathered quantity when it was introduced on July 2 that Mercuriadis would exit his function as Chairman of the corporate six years after founding it.
Regardless of forsaking an skilled management staff together with Ben Katovsky (CEO), Dan Pounder (CFO), Jon Baker, and Sara Lord, Mercuriadis’ exit led some to imagine that Blackstone would possibly slim down HSM, because the monetary big seemed to take a quieter function in music enterprise rights possession.
That assumption is now trying questionable – as a result of Hipgnosis Music Administration is on a hiring spree post-Blackstone’s HSF deal.
HSM is at the moment recruiting for quite a few London-based roles together with Product Supervisor of Inventive/Viewers Growth, plus VP of Licensing Administration, a Junior Information Engineer, and a Group Coordinator.
This doesn’t seem like the motion of an organization trying to decrease its staff.
One other growth is happening at Hipgnosis, too, which additionally speaks to the corporate’s potential future impression within the international music house.
Whispers are breaking out amongst MBW’s sources within the US that Hipgnosis representatives have undertaken exploratory discussions with giant music publishers relating to a possible publishing admin settlement.
Thus far, Hipgnosis has relied on its in-house administration staff at Hipgnosis Songs Group (HSG) (beforehand often called Huge Deal Music) to handle the publishing admin of its tune portfolio in the USA.
Nonetheless, throughout the bidding course of for HSF, Blackstone confirmed that, following a profitable acquisition, it would promote or restructure Hipgnosis Songs Group.
Might a publishing admin deal with a serious music firm now be on the horizon for Hipgnosis?
In that case, it may very well be important to the trade’s greatest gamers.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund generated $147.2 million in revenues within the 12 months to finish of March 2023 – and that didn’t embrace Blackstone’s privately-held catalog of songs (together with Leonard Cohen, Justin Bieber and so on.).Music Enterprise Worldwide
