Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited has acquired a music catalog from Benny Blanco which includes a raft of No.1 songs.
The Merck Mercuriadis-led company has acquired 100% of Blanco’s copyright ownership in the catalog of songs, which comprises 93 compositions that have been streamed over 10 billion times.
Chart-toppers featured within the 93 songs include Blanco’s share of the likes of ‘Love Yourself’ by Justin Bieber; ‘Cold Water’ by Major Lazer featuring Justin Bieber and MØ; ‘Fire and the Flood’ by Vance Joy; ‘Same Old Love’ by Selena Gomez; ‘Luv’ by Tory Lanez; ‘Don’t Wanna Know’ by Maroon 5 featuring Kendrick Lamar; and ‘Freaky Friday’ by Lil Dicky as well as the Platinum and Multi-Platinum certified ‘Castle on the Hill’ by Ed Sheeran; ‘2002’ by Anne-Marie and ‘Lonely Together’ by Avicii.
The entire tranche of 93 songs have all been released since 2015.
US-based Benny Blanco was represented in the deal by Doug Mark, Andrew Luftman, and Zvi Edelman.
Merck Mercuriadis, Founder of The Family (Music) Limited and Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited, said: “In a week when Benny is at No. 1 with Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello it’s fortuitous to have closed our deal and welcome him to the Hipgnosis family. Benny’s been having No. 1 songs for the last 12 years now, 10 of them since 2015 alone.
“That longevity, to be able to write No. 1 songs consistently for more than a decade and to have made incomparable contributions to establishing the most important artists of our time, is an almost impossible feat. He has literally defined the modern pop era in a way that very few others can lay claim to.”
In addition to his commercial success, Benny Blanco has received significant critical acclaim and was awarded the Hal David Starlight Award by the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2013. He has also received the BMI ‘Songwriter of the Year’ award fives times, won ‘Producer of the Year’ at the 2017 iHeart Radio awards as well as being nominated for seven Grammy awards.
In April, Hipgnosis raised additional funds of $185m with which to buy rights in the songwriter/publishing marketplace.
Hipgnosis, which was founded by veteran artist manager Merck Mercuriadis (pictured with client Nile Rodgers) acquired 12 catalogs in the period between June 8, 2018 and end of March 2019 for a total of approximately £120m ($153m): The-Dream, Poo Bear, TMS, Tricky Stewart, Giorgio Tuinfort, Bernard Edwards, Itaal Shur, Rico Love, Sean Garrett, Johnta Austin, Ari Levine and Sam Hollander.
The firm recently told its investors: “We now have a pipeline of catalogs with an aggregate value in excess of £1 billion.”Music Business Worldwide
