Christine McVie Sells Songwriting Publishing

Following the lead of four of her Fleetwood Mac bandmates, Christine McVie has sold her publishing catalogue. The keyboardist and songwriter made the deal with London-based company Hipgnosis for her 115-song portfolio in exchange for an undisclosed sum.

McVie said in a statement: “I am so excited to belong to the Hipgnosis family, and thrilled that you all regard my songs worthy of merit.”

Last January, the company bought Lindsey Buckingham's 161-song catalogue. That same month BMG acquired Mick Fleetwood’s interests in Fleetwood Mac recordings. November 2019 saw Stevie Nicks sell an 80 percent stake of her publishing rights to Primary Wave for a reported $100 million.

As of now, with the new Hipgnosis deal with McVie, Hipgnosis owns the rights to 48 of 68 songs on Fleetwood Mac's most successful albums.

The Guardian posted, “Hipgnosis published financial figures showing that McVie’s share of the royalties made by her song catalogue totaled $1.7 million last year. McVie’s top five revenue-generating songs — 'Don’t Stop,' 'Everywhere,' 'You Make Loving Fun,' 'Songbird,' and 'Little Lies' — accounted for 81 percent of total revenues.”

Christine McVie says that as the years roll by, she’s instinctively become the greatest editor of her material: “I’ve never been a really prolific songwriter. I don’t write millions and millions of songs. I write when I know there’s a project coming up or when I. . . It’s not something that I must do all the time, every day, every day. . . So, when I do come up with a song — when I do write a song — for me, it has to be special; y’know, otherwise I’ll throw it out before it gets anywhere near being finished. If I don’t like the chords and I don’t like the way it’s going, then I’ll drop it.”