As rumoured, Sony Music Publishing is acquiring the complete catalogue of Recognition Music Group (RMG) – the company formerly known as three different Hipgnosis entities.
The deal covers rights to more than 45,000 songs, and reunites RMG with yet another Hipgnosis company – Hipgnosis Songs Group – which Sony Music Publishing bought in 2025.
It’s a big-bucks deal, but how big? Recent reports suggested that the price might be over $2bn, but now it’s actually been announced, the estimates have risen sharply. “Almost $4bn” according to both Bloomberg and the Financial Times.
There’s a big story about music-rights values here. Sony Music is buying RMG from a group of funds managed by investment giant Blackstone.
It snapped up the catalogues in 2024 in a deal that valued Hipgnosis Songs Fund – the company – at $1.58bn. although the latter’s portfolio of rights was actually valued at around $2.2bn at the time.
Sony Music Publishing is buying RMG in partnership with the investment fund that it announced in January with GIC, one of the official sovereign wealth funds of Singapore. Sony Bank, another arm of the wider Sony corporate family, is also involved.
It’s quite the week for news of catalogue-related acquisitions, with the RMG news following the revelation that Warner Music Group’s joint venture with Bain Capital had spent $300m-plus on the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ recordings catalogue.
As we noted in our coverage of that story, the Chili Peppers sold their publishing catalogue to Hipgnosis Songs Fund in 2021 for a reported $140m-plus – so those rights are included in Sony Music’s RMG deal this week.
2026 is certainly shaping up as The Year Of Big Deals. We’ve seen BMG and Concord reveal plans to merge; Primary Wave announce that it’s buying Kobalt; and Universal Music Group complete its delayed acquisition of Downtown Music.
DistroKid and Reservoir have been the subject of acquisition speculation, while the biggest Big Deal of them all may yet come if hedge-fund Pershing Square succeeds with its $63.5bn bid for UMG.
