It’s a new year but Hipgnosis continues its strategy of buying big catalogs from hit making producers and songwriters.
Jimmy Iovine is the latest producer who has sold off worldwide rights to his producer royalties to Hipgnosis Song Fund for an undisclosed sum. It has acquired the veteran musician’s worldwide producer royalties across 259 recordings, in addition to movie production royalties for Eminem’s 8 Mile and 50 Cent’s Get Rich Or Die Tryin’.
Iovine, who co-founded Interscope Records and launched numerous music stars, is also the co-founder of Beats By Dre, which sold to Apple for $3bn in 2014. He has announced that he will be using the money to build a high school in South LA under the USC Iovine And Young Academy initiative.
Iovine said of the deal: “I’m happy that my work as a producer with so many great artists has found the right home with Merck and Hipgnosis. I am going to use the proceeds from the deal to help Iovine Young Academy’s initiative to build a high school in South LA as part of the Iovine Young Academy at USC and continue our efforts to support education.”
Hipgnosis Song Fund founder Merck Mercuriadis said: “While barely in my teens I noticed that so many of my favourite albums had one name in common. The best albums by John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith all had Jimmy Iovine on them. This continued through the ’80s with Stevie Nicks, Dire Straits, U2, Simple Minds, The Pretenders and more from Tom and Patti.”
“I have been glued to everything Jimmy does ever since. His incomparable success with Interscope and Beats means that he would never have to make a deal for money again, but leave it to Jimmy to figure out the most efficient way possible to use his producer royalties to build a best-in-class high school in the inner city and once again make a massive difference, as he has throughout his life. It’s an honor to now be a custodian of his incredible work on these iconic albums and I’m very happy to welcome him to the Hipgnosis family.”
Previously, Hipgnosis has acquired catalogs from L.A. Reid, RZA, The-Dream and No I.D. among others. They also bought 42 catalogs from  Kobalt Music Copyrights S.à .r.l. in November which includes songs from Beyonce, 50 Cent, Justin Bieber and more.
