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(Alliance News) - Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd on Thursday said its portfolio value grew over the course of its recently-ended financial year and remained upbeat on the outlook for the music streaming market.
Operative net asset value per share stood at USD1.8491 at the end of March, up 9.9% from USD1.6829 a year before.
The music intellectual property rights investor said NAV growth was driven by a 9.5% like-for-like value uplift across the portfolio to USD2.7 billion. This was helped by strong like-for-like streaming growth in the second half of 2021.
Hipgnosis's portfolio now comprises 146 catalogues, containing 65,413 songs.
Net revenue for the financial year ended March 31 was USD168.3 million, up 22% from USD138.3 million the year before. However, it swung to a pretax loss of USD16.7 million from a profit of USD44.5 million the year prior as operating expenses rose to USD185.0 million from USD93.8 million.
The company said the performance of its portfolio, particularly in the second half, gives it confidence despite a challenging economics backdrop.
"Music streaming represents extremely good value to the consumer; as such we anticipate that it will continue to be resilient and that the streaming providers should retain pricing power for their services, thus helping to sustain the company's royalty income," said Hipgnosis.
Hipgnosis's total dividend for the year was 5.25 pence, which it intends to maintain for the financial year ahead.
Separately, Hipgnosis said it and investment adviser Hipgnosis Song Management Ltd have agreed digital administration and sub-publishing partnerships with the Society of Authors, Composers & Publishers of Music and peermusic.
"Together these partnerships eliminate a link in the royalty collection process, which is expected to materially reduce third party administration and collection fees, the length of time it takes to collect digital revenues and to expand our global publishing and synch footprint," said Hipgnosis.
Shares in Hipgnosis were up 4.1% at 112.60p in London on Thursday morning.
By Lucy Heming; lucyheming@alliancenews.com
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