Pink Floyd reportedly eyeing £400m for sale of back catalogue

Pink Floyd are reportedly set to make £400m from the sale of their back catalogue.

Earlier this year reports circulated that the prog rockers were in talks to sell their entire catalogue in the region of hundreds of millions of pounds. Pink Floyd would be following in the footsteps of acts including Stevie Nicks, Bob Dylan, ZZ Top and Sting in securing large payouts for such sales.

The Times now reports that the band – who have seen several regroupings over the years after entering a protracted hiatus in 1994 before reuniting in 2005 as well as for a couple of years from 2012 – are due to make a decision about who will own their copyrights.

The American private equity group Blackstone is vying with other firms including Sony, Warner, BMG and Primary Wave for Pink Floyd’s catalogue, which include the band’s songs and master copy recordings.

It follows Pink Floyd reuniting earlier this year to release their first new music in decades with ‘Hey Hey Rise Up’, a song featuring a sample of Ukrainian singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk that raises funds for the Ukraine war relief.

‘Hey Hey Rise Up’, the band’s first original recorded music since 1994’s ‘The Division Bell’, hears them join up with Khlyvnyuk from the band Boombox to use his singing sample from the Ukrainian protest song, ‘The Red Viburnum In The Meadow’, for the moving track.

All proceeds go to Ukraine Humanitarian Relief.

The track hears guitarist/singer David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason being joined by long-time Pink Floyd bass player Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney on keyboards. You can watch the Mat Whitecross-directed video above.

Gilmour, who has a Ukrainian daughter-in-law and grandchildren, said: “We, like so many, have been feeling the fury and the frustration of this vile act of an independent, peaceful democratic country being invaded and having its people murdered by one of the world’s major powers”.