Hipgnosis Songs is bidding to raise a further £200 million through the issuing of new C shares after delivering its latest set of financial results.
Driven by streaming revenues, the Merck Mercuriadis-led company announced it had increased its catalogue revenue to £64.7m for the 12 months ending March 31, 2020.
Its portfolio of 54 catalogues (13,291 songs) has been independently valued at £757m, a net increase of 11.4% since acquisition. Song highlights include Amy Winehouse's Back To Black, Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This), Justin Timberlake's SexyBack, Journey's Don't Stop Believin', Believe by Cher, Al Green's Let's Stay Together, Adele's Set Fire To The Rain and Bon Jovi's Livin' On A Prayer.
Mercuriadis, founder of Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited, said: "We have spent more than two years now demonstrating the incredible power of proven songs to the investment community and establishing them as an uncorrelated asset class that can be as important as gold. We have curated a very small and enviable catalogue of 13,000 songs with a very high ratio of extraordinary success within it. Included are many of the most famous songs of all time that we add real value to through our song management. These results have made us a FTSE 250 Company and are a testament to our thesis and the tremendous support we have received from our shareholders.
"We are particularly grateful to the great songwriters who have entrusted us with their incomparable songs. We are proud of everything we have achieved in the past year, including the expansion and diversification of our portfolio to include a further 42 catalogues which include some of the most culturally important and commercially successful songs of all time. The capital raise announced yesterday will provide us with further opportunities to continue the growth of our portfolio with songs of significant value. As a FTSE 250 company and one of its biggest yielders we are now seeing significant retail demand and it's exciting to have PrimaryBid highlight us on their platform.
"As I've said before people are always listening to music. If you are experiencing your best life it's to a soundtrack of music, equally well if you are experiencing challenges you are escaping with music. This has never been more true than against the backdrop of the pandemic where we have seen people turn to the feelgood hits and much loved songs, such as those in our catalogue, proving the uncorrelated nature of songs as an asset class and giving them great comfort."
