The game is on. Citi has started preparing the final papers for the auctioning of EMI. The bidding floor is expected to be $2.5 billion, according to a report last week in The Wrap by Johnnie L. Roberts, with at least half a dozen buyers readying offers. Of course Len Blavatnik’s name is the...
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Now that Warner Music has been sold the next big event will be the imminent sale of EMI Music. Most observers assume that Access Industries, the new owner of Warner, and CEO Junior Bronfman will go after EMI. The conventional wisdom is that the savings resulting from a combined Warner-EMI would be substantial enough...
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By now your grandmother knows how Guy Hands has squandered EMI Music, decreasing its value dramatically through mismanagement and sheer hubris, leaving a long trail of dead bodies and ruined careers in his wake. The Guardian reported over the weekend that Hands would not be able to meet the company’s debt covenant this coming...
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The recent verdict in the Citi/Terra Firma lawsuit has been analyzed more than the federal budget in the media recently. Reporters I’ve spoken with who were present during the entire trial say that there was a black cloud hanging over the courtroom during Guy Hands’ testimony. He acquitted himself so poorly that a jury...
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Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend… Mao Tse-Tung’s famous words of encouragement about the arts and sciences in the people’s China harkens back to the halcyon days of when Terra Firma bought EMI Music. In fact, it pretty much is what every EMI Records CEO has said when...
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As we all know, the CEO merry-go-round at EMI has been quite entertaining for the outside world, if not for EMI staffers. One of Terra Firma boss Guy Hands’ very first mistakes after he closed his purchase of EMI was appointing himself as CEO. In an industry known for its hubris, Hands set the...
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I want to officially welcome Elio Leoni-Sceti, Ronn Werre and Sylvia Coleman of EMI to my little site. I was in London a couple of days ago with a friend and we just happened to bump into the three of them and I was introduced. They told me that they were avid readers so...
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Here’s a really good one for you. Last week EMI sales reps started making calls to many if not all of their small accounts, mostly independent mom & pop stores, to tell them that they would no longer sell them product!!! Were these accounts bad payers? Nope. Would they not stock catalog or new...
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I know that I have been writing a lot lately about EMI. I know that it seems as though I’m beating up on them. But to paraphrase the great Willie “The Actor” Sutton’s response when asked why he robbed banks, “Because that’s where the money is”. Last week brought lots of news from the...
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