Sony Music Group is closing in on a deal to buy Blackstone‘s Recognition Music Group, whose catalog is home to songs from Justin Bieber, Neil Young, and others.
That’s according to Bloomberg, which reported on Wednesday (May 6) that Sony is in exclusive negotiations with the private equity giant in what it described as “one of the largest such deals in music history”.
The acquisition would be made through Sony‘s music rights-buying joint venture with Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, which would pay between $3.5 billion and $4 billion, the news outlet reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Bloomberg’s report follows a Billboard story from May 1 that reported Sony was negotiating a deal for Recognition’s assets.
Sony and Blackstone are pushing to finalize the agreement inside the next seven days, the report said, though Bloomberg cautioned that the talks could yet collapse.
Bloomberg further reported that “a couple of other entities” had tried to acquire Recognition, with at least one making “an unsolicited offer it believed to be higher than Sony‘s bid” — though Blackstone declined to share data with some of those rival bidders, the news outlet said.
Sony Music Publishing already administers the Recognition catalog, the report noted.
An agreement at the figures cited by Bloomberg would mark Sony‘s third, and by far its largest, acquisition of assets from the former Hipgnosis portfolio.
Sony Music Publishing bought a $200 million-plus tranche of Recognition assets from Blackstone in February, in a deal previously covered by MBW that included publishing rights and master recording royalty streams to songs by Jeff Bhasker and Jack Antonoff.
That February transaction followed Sony Music Publishing‘s June 2025 acquisition of Hipgnosis Songs Group, formerly known as Big Deal Music, in a deal sources told Billboard was worth around $70 million.
Recognition Music Group, formed in March 2025 when Blackstone consolidated its Hipgnosis assets under a new brand, has a portfolio of more than 45,000 songs across over 145 catalogs that the company either owns outright or administers, with marquee artists also including Rihanna, Beyoncé, Leonard Cohen and Justin Timberlake.
The company is led by CEO Ben Katovsky, who took the reins after Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis stepped away from the firm in July 2024.
Blackstone assembled the Recognition portfolio over several years.
A London-based Blackstone tactical opportunities team spent around $800 million on music assets via Hipgnosis Songs Capital from 2021, before acquiring Hipgnosis Songs Fund from its UK public investors for $1.58 billion in July 2024.
That latter transaction gave the Hipgnosis Songs Fund portfolio an enterprise value of approximately $2.2 billion at the time, according to MBW‘s analysis.
Bloomberg reported that Hipgnosis, under Mercuriadis‘s leadership, had acquired Bieber‘s catalog for “more than $200 million,” and songs from Justin Timberlake in a deal the Wall Street Journal reported at the time was worth $100 million.
The Recognition catalog backed two asset-backed securitizations under Blackstone‘s ownership: a $1.47 billion bond deal in November 2024, and a $372 million issuance in July 2025.
According to a Kroll report based on a third-party valuation as of March 31, 2025, the catalog backing those bond deals was valued at $2.95 billion, inclusive of $340.8 million in additional assets that Recognition had added.
Sony formed its joint venture with GIC in January, in a partnership Bloomberg reported would invest between $2 billion and $3 billion in music assets.
“Partnering with GIC brings together long-term capital and Sony Music Group‘s operational capabilities to acquire and manage premier catalogs, creating new opportunities for artists’ and songwriters’ music globally,” Kevin Kelleher, Sony Music‘s Chief Operating Officer, said in a statement at the time.
Bloomberg noted that UMG, Sony Music and WMG have each turned to investor-backed JVs in recent years to keep pace with private equity bidders such as Apollo and KKR — vehicles that let the majors pursue larger catalogs without stretching their own balance sheets.
If completed, the Sony–Recognition agreement would be the latest in a run of large-scale music industry M&A this year.
Bertelsmann‘s BMG and Concord confirmed their merger on April 28 in a deal that, per MBW sources, values the combined entity at around $15 billion, while Primary Wave Music in March confirmed its acquisition of Kobalt from Francisco Partners.
Blackstone and Sony Music declined to comment to Bloomberg.Music Business Worldwide
