Blackstone has upped its offer for Hipgnosis Songs Fund by $0.01 (less than a penny) in an attempt to sweeten the deal for shareholders in its takeover pursuit.
Today, the American private equity giant raised its offer from $1.30 (102p) per share to $1.31 (103p) per share. The new offer valued Hipgnosis at $1.58bn (£1.27bn), an almost 60 per cent premium to its market value before the bidding began.
The music rights company had been at the centre of a heated bidding war between Blackstone and Concord which ultimately led Concord to bow out last month.
Concord said it would not be increasing its offer of $1.25 per Hipgnosis share, leaving Blackstone’s offer of $1.30 per share as the highest offer on the table.
Now, Blackstone has attempted to sweeten the deal for investors, many of which had jumped into Hipgnosis since the bidding war began in an attempt to make a profit from the eventual sale.
Before today’s offer shares in the trust were trading at 100.8p, or $1.28.
Blackstone’s $1.31 offer is a 17 per cent premium on the music rights company’s adjusted net asset value of its portfolio of over 40,000 songs.
The board of Hipgnosis and its Blackstone-owned adviser, Hipgnosis Songs Management, have frequently clashed in recent months, taking potshots at each other as the relationship grew increasingly tense.
Most recently, an independent valuer found that the trust’s adviser had inflated growth figures and overstated the value of its portfolio, leading to strong disagreements between the two parties over whether to accept the report.
The independent valuer Shot Capital slammed the adviser for falling “below industry standards”, adding that it had “failed to invest in systems and provide the services required to effectively manage a catalogue of 40,000+ songs”.