Biz blues: IMG’s fraudster finds himself an Italian festival
NewsBillboard is running a massive feature by Frederic Dannen on the rise and fall of IMG Artists under its dodgy duopoly of Barrett Wissman and Alexander Shustorovich. Wissmann, who has pleaded guilty to fraud in the US, is now being pushed out by his Russian partner.
“Alex is very much running the show,” says Ian Smallbone, former managing director of IMG in Europe. Wissman, 58, is designated chairman and Shustorovich president/CEO, but those are not legal corporate titles. Shustorovich says he now has majority control of the privately held company. Wissman claims his stake and Shustorovich’s are equal. The two men do not appear to agree on much, and their mutual distaste is palpable. Wissman will not speak of it on the record; Shustorovich has no such qualms.
“People have asked, why would I get in bed with a guy like this?” says Shustorovich of his fellow shareholder. “I thought he’d done his penance. He presents himself like he’s a nice guy, and a lot of people fall for that crap. Now that I’ve got to know him better, I’ve learned to be more careful.”
Shustorovich says he recently had to sue Wissman in New York State Supreme Court for failing to repay a large personal loan. Wissman is currently suing Shustorovich in the same court for allegedly overcharging the agency for rental space in a New York townhouse Shustorovich owns….
Read on here.
There are some misapprehensions in the piece about IMG’s connections to some of its breakaway boutiques but on the whole it is a solid and valuable piece of reporting. If Shustorovich takes total control of the agency, this could point to a happier future.
Meanwhile Wissman has found himself a new niche as Executive and co-Artistic Director of Italy’s Taormina Film Festival.
Fascinating as that Billboard article is, it is hardly an account of “recent” events as it is 2 years old and therefore at least some is out of date. Much of the content is also already in the public domain. It would be interesting, though, to know how IMG Artists’ fortunes have improved or otherwise following the pandemic years.
As for Wissman’s idea for developing Festivals, it may well have been “brilliant” as described by Elizabeth Sobol in the article, but it is wrong for the writer to suggest they only in 2021 appeared “defunct”. They all died pretty quickly. I think Singapore lasted just 2 annual Festivals Yet IMG Artists continued to list them on its website for years afterwards. Indeed, the website still states unequivocally that IMG Artists was the first to create the idea of lifestyle Festivals and its “Festival work now reaches across the globe!” Really? Which ones I wonder ? How much their demise was due to bad overall management and how much this had specifically to do with Wissman’s wife being Artistic Director, is another question which begs an answer!
I had a front row seat at the inception of those festivals. They were developed for the sole purpose of nurturing financial relationships for Wissman when he was involved with hedge funds, etc. Not a good outcome there of course. I’m not saying some of them didn’t have compelling content but the way they were managed was less than optimum. His abuse of staff and other people’s money was abhorrent.
‘If Shustorovich takes total control of the agency, this could point to a happier future.’
Don’t be fooled: Shustorovich is the reason for IMGA’s decline. He and his lieutenants do not care about the artists and their artistry, and do not understand client—manager nor manager—presenter relationships (and this industry is all about carefully cultivating and nurturing these relationships).
Early on, Shustorovich failed to understand that if a manager walked out, their clients would follow. He quickly alienated key managers and was then surprised that he couldn’t simply reassign their artists to another manager. His lieutenants’ attempts to quantify and analyze the ‘value’ of the individual artists resulted in some truly bizarre assertions, insisting that some of the roster’s marquee names were costing the company too much because of the amount of time their management and booking teams dedicated to these artists.
I am no apologist for Wissman, whose flaws and shady dealings are well-documented, but at least he understood the artists and was capable of staying out of the managers’ way so they could get on with their work. Shustorovich thinks he’s always the smartest person in the room and has to be the decision-maker for all things, no matter how mundane. I’m surprised an alleged billionaire has time to decide who gets which desk.
Are Shustorovich and Wissman still Trump supporters? I always thought the huge bucks they gave to the Trump inauguration committee came from or at the direction of Russian government – one way or another. Wissman seems to be slithering around Italy in search of things to do. Nothing is happening in Montana despite their efforts to get something artistic going up there for years. Does he fund these things with his own money?