Investors tune in for a £200m royalties fund

THE former manager of Guns N’ Roses is launching a fund to make money out of music royalties.

The Hipgnosis Songs Fund, set up by Merck Mercuriadis, is to list on the stock exchange next month in a £200m flotation. It plans to buy the rights to tracks, and will invest in a catalogue of more than 1,000 songs and ten number one hits from more than 50 artists including Adele ( pictured), Rihanna, Bruno Mars and another former Mercuriadis client, Beyonce.

Every time a song is played on a music streaming website, in a shop, bar, cinema or on the radio, it triggers a royalty payment to the artist, and investors in the fund will get to pocket some of this income.

£527.6m of royalties were paid to songwriters last year 4.3trillion songs were played – up from 2.5trillion in 2015 22.2m tracks are registered to pay out royalties That’s enough to play 148 years of music without a break The Happy Birthday song...