Beauty and the beat: Hipgnosis spends £163m to buy Justin Bieber’s hits
Hipgnosis Song Management has bought the back catalogue of Canadian superstar artist and songwriter Justin Bieber in a deal reported to be worth $200m (£163m).
Bieber’s songs have been streamed over 32 billion times on Spotify, where he has 82 million monthly listeners.
Hipgnosis said today it had acquired Justin Bieber’s 100 per cent interest in his publishing copyrights, master recordings and neighbouring rights for Bieber’s entire back catalogue, which includes over 290 titles.
Music industry website Variety reported that the deal was worth an estimated $200m (£163m).
Bieber is one of the best-selling music artists of all time having sold 150 million records worldwide, with all of Bieber’s six official studio albums have been certified platinum or multi-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
“This acquisition ranks among the biggest deals ever made for an artist under the age of 70, such is the power of this incredible catalogue,” Merck Mercuriadis, founder and chief executive officer of Hipgnosis Song Management, said.
Scooter Braun, chief executive off Hybe America and Justin Bieber’s manager of 15 years, said: “When Justin made the decision to make a catalogue deal we quickly found the best partner to preserve and grow this amazing legacy was Merck and Hipgnosis.”
The deal has been made on behalf of Hipgnosis Songs Capital, a partnership between Hipgnosis
Song Management and funds managed by Blackstone.
At the time of reporting, shares in Hipgnosis, which trades as Hipgnosis Songs Fund on the FTSE 250, were up 0.2 percent trading at around 85p.