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R.I.P. Hipgnosis: New Owners Change Influential Catalog Company’s Name to Recognition Music

Hipgnosis has undergone a name change, with the music catalog company now called Recognition Music Group. It owns rights to songs by Shakira and more.

Since Blackstone acquired Hipgnosis’s public fund for $1.47 billion and Mercuriadis stepped down from his role as chair of the investment manager last year, the company decided it was time to shed the old name, CEO Ben Katovsky tells Billboard. Recognition’s portfolio of publishing and master recording rights to some 45,000 songs include stakes in megahits like Shakira ‘s “Whenever, Whereever,” The B-52s’ “Love Shack,” Fleetwood Mac ‘s “Go Your Own Way” and Diana Ross ‘ “I’m coming out.” A video made by the company to promote its new name to its roughly 40 employees weaves together lyrics from these and other songs in its portfolio to send a message that despite their history as separate entities, the Hipgnosis companies are meant to “get together,” even if one almost went its “own way” during Blackstone’s billion-dollar bidding war with Concord. Qasim Abbas, Blackstone’s head of tactical opportunities international, the division of the global financial fund that owns Recognition, said in a statement that last year showed “strong investor conviction in this asset class.”

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