Blackstone Group Announces $1 Bln Investment In Music Rights

(RTTNews) - Investment management company Blackstone Inc. (BX) announced on Tuesday plans to invest $1 billion in buying music rights and managing catalogs.

Blackstone said that the investment plans are part of a deal with an advisory firm related to music investment company Hipgnosis Songs Fund, which trades on the London Stock Exchange. The company, headed by former pop-star manager Merck Mercuriadis, works by purchasing artists' song catalogs and gets income when the music is streamed online or used in movies and advertising. Blackstone is partnering with Hipgnosis to gain benefits from the fast-growing world of online streaming.

Commenting on the deal, Blackstone executive Qasim Abbas said, "The music industry has been at the forefront of the fast-growing streaming economy and is unlocking new ways of consuming content."

As part of the agreement, the Hipgnosis fund will co-invest in the newly announced Blackstone partnership's catalog acquisitions, a joint statement said. Blackstone will own a stake in Mercuriadis's advisory firm and make investments to help grow the firm's data and technology abilities to manage music rights more efficiently.

Hipgnosis was founded with an aim to set up songs as investment assets. The company became public in 2018 and as of June 2021, it owned the rights to over than 64,000 songs, of which nearly 14,000 are top-ten hits. The company has invested in artists like Neil Young, Journey, Fleetwood Mac and Mariah Carey.

According to Hipgnosis, the covid-19 situation has made more people stay indoors and therefore the usage of streaming links to listen to music of their choice has increased.