Beatles record label is so ‘Yesterday’
TEXT OF STORY
STEVE CHIOTAKIS: The Beatles record label EMI must look longingly back to its heydays of the 1960s. But record profits are now long gone. Today, the debt laden group has been taken over by Citigroup. And the label could be sold off.
From London, here’s Marketplace’s Stephen Beard.
STEPHEN BEARD: If there were a top ten of truly dreadful deals, this might be close to number one. A private equity firm — backed by Citi — bought EMI for $6.75 billion three and a half years ago. Today EMI is worth a fraction of that. Citi has written off most of its loans and the private equity firm has lost all of its investment. They hugely overpaid …at a time when record sales were slumping due to illegal downloads.
Chris Cooke of the CMU music website says that Citi will likely sell off EMI’s still lucrative publishing companies.
CHRIS COOKE: They own copyrights in vast numbers of songs and sound recordings and these copyrights are profitable. They can be turned into cash.
Analysts say Warner music and the German group BMG could be in the market for what’s left of EMI.
In London this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace.
Stories You Might Like
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
