Sony Music Edges Closer to Acquiring Recognition Music

Photo Credit: Recognition Music Group

Sony Music Group is in the home stretch to acquire Blackstone’s Recognition Music Group at a $3.5 billion to $4 billion price tag.

Sony Music Group is negotiating with Blackstone to acquire Recognition Music Group, according to reports from Bloomberg. If completed, the deal would be Sony’s third and largest acquisition of assets previously held under the Hipgnosis banner, following similar deals in February 2024 and June 2025.

Depending on who you ask, the new deal could only include another piece of the Recognition catalog, similar to Sony’s two previous deals with the company. But other sources say the deal could include all of Recognition’s publishing assets. Recognition is home to roughly 45,000 songs from A-list artists like Justin Bieber, Neil Young, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, and Beyoncé.

Blackstone has been accruing a portfolio since 2017 that now contains an estimated $4 billion in music assets, acquired by two of its separate investment teams in New York and London.

In 2017, a New York-based investment team acquired SESAC for $1 billion. That same team also acquired eOne Music in 2021 for $385 million, which it renamed MNRK Music Group.

Since 2021, a Blackstone investment team in London has spent around $800 million on music assets through Hipgnosis Songs Capital. It also purchased Hipgnosis Songs Management’s admin arm before subsequently acquiring the publicly traded music assets of Hipgnosis Songs Fund in April 2024 for $1.6 billion.

Fast forward to June 2025, when Sony acquired Hipgnosis Songs Management, the admin arm of the rebranded Recognition Music Group, and the contracts of its current roster of songwriters—along with approximately 4,400 songs recorded by the likes of Sabrina Carpenter and One Direction. In February of this year, Sony acquired yet another group of Recognition assets for over $200 million, including songs by Jack Antonoff.

In January, Sony’s partnership with GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, was announced with a commitment to invest up to $2 billion in music assets with the major. But the specifics of how the new acquisition will be financed remain a secret.