They have the weakest catalogue of any major act: Abba: Voyage reviewed

One of the biggest talking points in pop these past couple of years has been how successful old musicians have become at making money. Swathes of stars have simply auctioned off their past: rather than collecting the royalties on their publishing and their recordings year by year, they have just sold the whole lot. Last year Bruce Springsteen collected half a billion dollars for selling the rights to his recordings and publishing to Sony. Bob Dylan got a similar amount for selling his recorded catalogue to Sony and his publishing to Universal.

Abba have been in on the act, too. But not selling: a company founded by Bjorn Ulvaeus of Abba has been buying up other artists’ catalogues. Abba themselves have no need to sell: they were so far ahead of the curve in exploiting their past that they could probably afford to buy Sweden, as well as most of Denmark and Norway.