Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited, the aggressively acquisitive music rights company run and founded by Merck Mercuriadis, has surpassed something of a financial milestone.
The UK-based company, which floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2018, has announced that it will be added as a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, effective after market close on March 20.
This is a big deal for Hipgnosis and music-related stocks more generally – because the FTSE 250, the sibling of the FTSE 100, is a prestigious list of companies to join.
It is a UK cousin of the S&P 500, the US-based index showing the daily stock performance of 500 of America’s biggest companies.
As Rolling Stone points out, Hipgnosis’ stock price largely withstood wider market turmoil last week, staying steady despite the FTSE 100 seeing 11% of its value knocked off due to concerns over the global outbreak of coronavirus.
“We have a tremendous pipeline in place to continue, in what are very challenging times, to give the financial community access to these wonderful assets that have very low correlation to wider markets.”
Merck Mercuriadis, Hipgnosis
That made it the worst week for the FTSE 100 since the 2008 financial crash; a description which also applied to the S&P 500, which was down 11.5% in the same period.
Discussing the FTSE 250 addition, Merck Mercuriadis, Hipgnosis founder, said, “This is a tremendous achievement in only 20 months and I would like to thank our investors and our incredible songwriters for their belief and helping us to firmly establish proven SONGs as an asset class. We now have a strong track record in raising money, investing it in great songs, managing them well and paying dividends.
“We have a tremendous pipeline in place to continue, in what are very challenging times, to give the financial community access to these wonderful assets that have very low correlation to wider markets.”
Hipgnosis has spent over $650m on catalogs so far, mainly in the publishing and production space.
These catalogs have included hits recorded by the likes of Adele, Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran (pictured) and others.
In December, Hipgnosis acquired a 100% share of catalogs from both Shape Of You co-writer Johnny McDaid (covering 164 songs) and super-producer Jeff Bhasker (436 songs).
That was in addition to a 99% share of a catalog of 188 songs from Jack Antonoff – the Taylor Swift, Sara Bareilles and Lorde collaborator (and member of Fun.).Music Business Worldwide
