A joint venture of SONY Music and the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC is closing in on a deal to acquire Blackstone's Recognition Music Group music-rights portfolio for up to US$4 billion (HK$31.2 billion), a catalog that includes works by Justin Bieber and Neil Young, Bloomberg reported.
Upon the deal's completion, it will become one of the largest acquisitions in music history, the report said.
Sony is in exclusive negotiations to buy Recognition Music Group, which is expected to be closed next week.
Many other companies are also trying to acquire Recognition, which owns or manages rights to more than 45,000 songs, the report said, adding that at least one of these entities even offers higher bids than Sony.
The Sony deal marks the third multi-billion-dollar music transaction in recent months, following Concord's merger with BMG and Primary Wave Music's acquisition of Kobalt.
𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽 ↓