Justin Bieber has sold an extensive rights package to Blackstone-funded Hipgnosis Songs Capital (HSC).

According to a Tuesday announcement, the deal includes the royalties to which he is entitled in the marketing of his recordings, the ancillary copyright and performance rights ("neighbouring rights") and his author's rights.

Universal Music still owns the rights to Bieber's recordings.

Benjamin Fisher

Editor in Business.

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As is the rule with catalog deals, financial details were not disclosed.

According to the industry magazine Billboard, the price should be more than 200 million dollars.

As early as December, Billboard and the Wall Street Journal reported on talks between the two parties.

Like the listed Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF), HSC is managed by Hipgnosis Song Management, led by former artist manager Merck Mercuriadis.

Blackstone acquired a stake in Hipgnosis Song Management in October 2021 and also launched a $1 billion unlisted fund.

According to Hipgnosis, the deal includes rights to more than 290 songs by the Canadian superstar.

His most recent album ("Justice") was released in 2021.

Dylan, Springsteen and Tina Turner also sold

The listed Hipgnosis Songs Fund, launched in 2018, holds rights to the work of Shakira, Neil Young and Jack Antonoff, among others, known as the producer and co-songwriter of Taylor Swift.

While HSF's last acquisition was a while ago, Mercuriadis recently took over the rights to lyrics and compositions for the songs (co-)written by Justin Timberlake and part of the author's rights from Leonard Cohen with funds from the Blackstone Fund.

In addition to Blackstone, other large financial investors had (again) invested in music rights in recent months, including KKR (alone and through a partnership with Bertelsmann's music division BMG), Pimco, Blackrock and Apollo Global Management.

With the rising interest rates, the market had recently cooled off somewhat,

but there are still big deals.

Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford sold an extensive rights package to the US music company Concord Music at the end of September 2022.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the price was more than $300 million.

The appeal of catalogs is still great, as the streaming market in particular continues to grow and there are also various other new digital marketing channels that can also be used to increase income.

"What's happening right now: there are a lot of artists who had to accept that they might have missed the peak, but if you don't take the level of 2021 as a benchmark, but instead, for example, the level of 2011, then we are 100 percent above it." , Bertelsmann's music director Hartwig Masuch told the FAZ at the end of December as soon as the first disappointment subsided, the market would pick up speed again - "not least because so much relevant repertoire is now owned by people who are between 70 and 80 years old and want to settle their inheritance more easily, for example".

With currently more than 70 million monthly listeners on the music streaming portal Spotify, Justin Bieber is currently one of the most popular musicians of all.

His debut was published in 2009, so his catalog is significantly younger than many of the recently highly regarded rights packages, for example from Bob Dylan (he sold to Universal and Sony), Bruce Springsteen (Sony and Eldridge Industries), Tina Turner (BMG), Sting (Universal Music ) or David Bowie (Warner Music).

There were and still are deals from younger musicians, but catalogs from older musicians have made up the majority of sales recently - and for good reason: while there is no doubt about Bieber's popularity at the moment, the short time frame is still a factor that plays a role in sales.

Older catalogs usually have higher prices, based on the annual royalty recordings of a package (multiples), since the annual income for these can be easily calculated based on the data available over many years.

Younger songs, including those by Bieber, first have to go through what the industry calls a “declining curve” in order to reach a level unaffected by current developments.