Merck Mercuriadis

FOUNDER/CEO, HIPGNOSIS SONG MANAGEMENT/HIPGNOSIS SONGS FUND/HIPGNOSIS SONGS CAPITAL

The Hipgnosis spending spree over the past three years, during which the company bought a slew of assets from big-name music artists and left other veteran music-industry asset traders stunned, slowed down a bit last year. But Mercuriadis is looking forward to more of the same in 2022, however, now that his company is backed by mega-financial firm Blackstone. While Hipgnosis did spend $1 billion in the last 12 months as of December, according to Mercuriadis — acquiring the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ publishing catalog for $140 million, as well as the song catalogs of Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham, the publishing for both Kaiser Chiefs and Rhett Atkins, and the song and recorded-master royalties from Heart’s Ann Wilson — most of those acquisitions occurred in the first six months of 2021. The rest of the year was spent putting together the deal with Blackstone, in which the company acquired a stake in the Hipgnosis Song Management platform and brought in new financial systems to improve operational and financial controls, according to Mercuriadis. So while the second half of 2021 might have been quieter than what the industry has come to expect from Hipgnosis, Mercuriadis says his company has also made other deals in the second half of the year that haven’t been announced yet. Meanwhile, the Blackstone deal, which is expected to provide a minimum of $1 billion in funding for acquisitions, was still among the biggest announcements of the year. With Blackstone’s backing, “every deal is now possible,” says Mercuriadis, who notes that he hopes to announce and complete a new acquisition every week in 2022.