Round Hill’s publicly-traded UK fund has raised USD $86.5 million in a fresh share placing – comfortably exceeding its minimum target of a $50 million raise.
The news is further proof of the positive investor sentiment surrounding music rights today, and follows Hipgnosis Songs Fund also exceeding its minimum target for a share issue earlier this month. (Hipgnosis was aiming for $210 million, but due to an oversubscribed round, ended up with $215 million.)
Round Hill’s new share issue will see it place 86.5 million C shares in Round Hill Music Royalty Fund Limited (RHM) at $1.00 per share.
The firm says it intends to use the money, combined with funding from a credit facility, to “assist in acquiring [our] near-term pipeline of copyrights in line with RHM’s Investment Policy”.
The publicly-listed UK company acquired a 29% stake in Carlin Music (RH Carlin Holdings LLC) in May.
Carlin is home to 100,000 song rights including hits made famous by the likes of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, and Meatloaf.
To date, the UK Round Hill fund’s initial strategy has been to fully acquire assets – including Carlin itself – that are owned by privately-held Round Hill funds in the US.
In May, the firm’s UK fund announced it had spent $282 million doing just that, acquiring the rights to 18,000 songs.
Carlin was originally acquired by a US-based Round Hill fund in 2018 for around $245 million.
Round Hill announced that it had raised $291 million for its third private US-based fund in Q4 last year.
In February this year, US-based Round Hill Music announced that it had launched Sound Hill, a new neighbouring rights division for artists and performers.Music Business Worldwide