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An investment company has bought a share of the rights to Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You.

The inescapable festive tune was co-written by the singer with Walter Afanasieff, whose 50% stake has now been bought by fast-growing investment vehicle Hipgnosis Songs Fund.

Its Christmas shopping basket did not stop with that barnstormer.

It bought 33,000 songs in a $323m (£250m) spree, including Fleetwood Mac's The Chain.

It is the biggest buy yet for the fund, which lets people invest in hit songs.

Founded by music industry veteran Merck Mercuriadis, Hipgnosis turns music royalties into an income stream.

It has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since July 2018.

Its latest deal covers songs previously owned by Kobalt Music Copyrights and written by more than 1,500 songwriters. Other successful tunes include:

"These special songs that have had such extraordinary success have a lot more joy to bring the world and we look forward to working with these phenomenal creators in taking their songs to new heights while protecting their legacies," said Mr Mercuriadis.

Before setting up Hipgnosis Songs Fund, Mr Mercuriadis managed artists including Beyoncé, Elton John, Iron Maiden and Guns N' Roses.

In his view, songs are "as investible as gold or oil".

Willard Ahdritz, founder and chairman of Kobalt and chief investment officer of Kobalt Capital Ltd, said: "The decision to sell to Merck and Hipgnosis was an easy one as we know them so well and the copyrights will be well taken care of under a long-term administration arrangement with Kobalt Music Group."