Raymond Gubbay is sold again…. to Sony
mainpress release:
Berlin, 26 June 2018 – DEAG Deutsche Entertainment Aktiengesellschaft (DEAG) is reacquiring 49% of DEAG Classics AG from Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH and will own 100% of the shares in DEAG Classics AG including the shareholding in The Classical Company AG (Switzerland).
As part of the transaction, DEAG Classics AG is selling its shares in the English Raymond Gubbay Limited to Sony Music Entertainment International Limited. The joint projects of Raymond Gubbay Limited and DEAG companies such as Kilimanjaro Live Limited will continue unchanged and the cooperation should be further expanded.
DEAG Classics works exclusively with Artists like Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov but also works with Rolando Villazón, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Till Brönner, Joja Wendt and The Piano Guys and will benefit 100 % from its success going forward. The transaction represents a first step towards successively reducing minority interests with the aim of increasing the earnings per share attributable to DEAG shareholders. Proceeds are intended to further strengthen DEAG’s position in its core market of the UK.
Prof. Peter L.H. Schwenkow, CEO and founder of DEAG, comments: “The transaction enables us to continue to achieve two strategic goals. With the complete acquisition of 100% of the shares of DEAG Classics AG, we will increase earnings per share within the next few years. And with the cash inflow of EUR 10,6 million, we are in a position to accelerate the expansion of our position in the British market. The proceeds will also continue to serve our goal of successively reducing minority interests in order to return to an attractive dividend policy.”
Raymond Gubbay himself sold his business to DEAG and has no part in this transaction.
When I parted company with my old company, the Sony director on the. Board was pretty useless so I can only sympathise with my old colleagues. Having subsequently lost the Royal Albert Hall Christmas Festival, this has to be an even more bitter pill to swallow.
It is a tremendous sadness that RGO has lost its presence at RAH. The Christmas concerts were a valid alternative to the RPO, the LPO and the LSO.
Particularly sad is the loss of the opera performances each March, that brought coaches full of people from all over the country – ordinary working people enjoying a night out at the opera together. And, of course, a genuine challenge to ENO and the ROH, with some terrific young singers. Without Raymond Gubbay, there would have been no Liping Zhang. Those who flocked to see her at ROH and the Met should recognise the debt they owe his prescience in casting her as an unknown.
It seems that the arts is all dissolving into one long set of acronyms…
When I worked for Raymond Gubbay some years ago, we did an awayday with the new owners and the man from Sony said nothing all morning and went to sleep in the afternoon. Seems to say it all really. Mind you, the German boss spent the entire day on his cellphone, taking very little notice of anything going on.
Hello, Wahab!
All of this is such fantastic news for the furthering of the crusade of Art Music. If it means nothing to you, well…. What the great Boyar Bojan (cursed be he above all cattle) makes of it, Heaven only knows…
Your post doesn’t seem to make sense; who is Boyar Bojan and why should he be cursed above all cattle? Also, what has art music got to do with a commercial music promoter?
“Cursed above all cattle?”
How could you level such a judgment against the person who is single-handedly credited with the discovery of the Slag Cinnamon Effect?
The level to which you stoop in dismissing this breathtaking accomplishment as mere side-slinging whirlybird activity driven by super-attenuated green-grocer potentiometers is, quite simply, stunning.
I, for one, am outraged.