Last month, Sony Music Publishing agreed to buy a collection of songs from Blackstone reported to be worth up to $4 billion. They included catalogs by Neil Young, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shakira, Leonard Cohen, and Nile Rodgers. This was the same portfolio of songs that Merck Mercuriadis assembled for around $3 billion ($2.2 billion in Hipgnosis Songs Fund; $700M+ in Hipgnosis Songs Capital) – and for which he was, for a while, near-universally flamed for “overpaying” to obtain.
Source: Merck Mercuariadis on Hipgnosis, vindication, and his next move