Next month the shareholders of the Hipgnosis Songs fund will vote on whether to wind the fund up and accept the proposed sale of some of the portfolio to, erm, another entity linked to Hipgnosis.
The other listed vehicle in the music royalty space, Round Hill, is being sold and wound up, with investors receiving a premium to the prevailing share price but a steep discount to net asset value.
So it could be that by the end of October, “music royalties” effectively cease to exist as an investable asset class.
A total of six of the allocators we cover will be watching events closely: three are invested in each of Round Hill and Hipgnosis.
And none of the allocators invested there have been recent converts. There have been no new buyers or sellers since 2020, and all of the buyers there were for both trusts, with the most recent buyer of either trust being the third quarter of 2020.
So what did it all mean? It may be these funds were a product of their time, and a useful place to park cash that would otherwise have gone into bonds during a period when bond yields were at record lows, but with Hipgnosis having lost 20 per cent over the past five years, it may be the sector will not be lamented if it does bite the dust.
