\n\tHYBE shares jumped 17.5% to 230,000 won ($170.84) this week following news<\/a> that the company struck a 10-year partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG) that calls for the label to distribute HYBE\u2019s physical and digital music and put its artists on HYBE\u2019s Weverse social media platform. HYBE America CEO Scooter Braun<\/strong> will oversee all promotional and marketing collaborations between the two companies. After dropping 9.1% over the previous four weeks, the announcement brought the South Korean company\u2019s year-to-date deficit to just 1.5%.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAnother K-pop company, SM Entertainment, was one of five music companies to post double-digit stock gains this week, with its shares rising 14% to 87,800 won ($65.22). On Wednesday (March 27), the company announced the appointment<\/a> of Tak Young-jun<\/strong>\u00a0to co-CEO alongside existing CEO\u00a0Jang Cheol-hyuk.<\/strong> SM Entertainment also announced a 1,200-won ($0.89) per-share dividend totaling 28.1 billion won ($20.8 million), an amount equal to the prior year\u2019s dividend.<\/p>\n \n\tThe 20-company Billboard Global Music Index rose 1.9% to a record 1,752.24 as 16 stocks posted gains, only three lost ground and one was unchanged. Even with an unusually high number of winners, the float-adjusted index, which gives greater weight to more valuable companies, fell this week because two of the three losers are among the most valuable music companies. Spotify, which has a market capitalization of roughly $50 billion, fell 0.4% to $263.90. Live Nation fell 0.2% to $105.77; its market capitalization is about $24 billion. Two more of the index\u2019s largest companies had gains under 2%: UMG rose 1.6% to 27.88 euros ($30.11) and Warner Music Group (WMG) improved 1.4% to $33.02. Another valuable member of the index, Chinese music streamer Tencent Music Entertainment, rose 2.2% to $11.19.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHipgnosis Songs Fund shares climbed 13.5% to 69 pence ($0.87) after the company\u2019s board of directors released an internal report on Thursday (March 28) that showed the fund\u2019s investment advisor, Hipgnosis Song Management, \u201cmaterially\u201d overstated annual revenue<\/a> and misled investors about the amount of control exercised over the rights in its portfolio. The negative news was welcomed by investors who have taken issue with the company\u2019s accounting practices and portfolio valuation. Hipgnosis shares traded as low as 52.9 pence ($0.67) on March 4 but have rebounded since the company overhauled its board and hired Shot Tower Capital to put together the due diligence report.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n\n
![\"Hipgnosis](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-billboard-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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