GUARDIAN Sun, 18 Dec 2011 20:30:01 GMT
The new chief executive of Sony Music UK ponders the fate of his former colleagues at EMI, wants to tackle online piracy – and predicts the Christmas No 1
Nick Gatfield, the recently installed chief executive of Sony Music UK, is reflecting on his brief stint at EMI, where he was a senior executive for two and a half years before heading for the exit in January, just as acts including the Rolling Stones and Radiohead had done before him.
"It was an interesting experience but not one I'd want to repeat," he smiles. The acquisition of EMI by Terra Firma, the private equity group founded by Guy Hands, has already become the stuff of legend, principally because it was one of Hands's few botched deals, but also because of the culture clash it prompted between straight-laced bankers and creative music industry types. "You had a private equity group and on top of that, people with 'fast moving consumer goods' type backgrounds trying to manage the business as if it was a production line of inanimate products," Gatfield says. "Taking someone out of Procter & Gamble and putting them in a music company – it's just an uncomfortable fit." Consciously or otherwise, Gatfield is echoing the words of the EMI acts who grew impatient with the "suits" who had bought the company. Radiohead's Thom Yorke said EMI was like "a confused bull in a china shop", although there were also disputes over money.
"Your 'product' is human beings who have opinions," Gatfield says, leaning forward on the sofa in his spacious corner office at the west London HQ of Sony UK, the company which appointed him chief executive in July. He gives an example. "I remember someone at Terra Firma asking why the [release date for the] Gorillaz album had slipped. I said 'well, you know, Damon [Albarn]'s not ready,' and he said 'But it's on the release schedule'". The art of managing talent, Gatfield says, is to "reduce that slippage" as far as possible, but it's impossible to treat artists as commodities and reduce the art of making music to a box-ticking exercise. "Terra Firma didn't like the dark arts of A&R," he says. "A lot of it is done by gut instinct."
He adds: "I will give Guy a huge amount of credit because I think some of his instincts were fairly sound [but] the business to him was far more complex than he thought it would be. You're dealing with the psychology of running a creative business."
Not all of Terra Firma's ideas were bad ones, but the manner in which they were implemented was clumsy, he suggests. "There were plenty of 'foot in mouth' moments'," he recalls, adding that the attitude of many of the firm's executives was that "everyone in the company [EMI] is an idiot". In fact, "the music industry is populated by very passionate and highly intelligent people. It's not like everyone's been asleep at the wheel."
Like the rest of the industry – Sony included – EMI had been on a long journey, battling structural problems that aren't easily resolved. Piracy has robbed record companies of revenue. The government's determination to crack down on persistent offenders by introducing a "three strikes and you're out" rule in the Digital Economy Act, though welcome, doesn't go far enough, according to Gatfield. "Broadband businesses are being built on the back of illegal filesharing", he says. "As high-speed broadband becomes ubiquitous the problem is going to get bigger and bigger. We need site-blocking, and its an incredibly spurious argument for the ISPs to say that they can't do it because they can do it and they do do it."
Gatfield complains the letters that will warn ISP customers who download illegal content to desist or have their connection slowed, or even cut off, will not start landing on doormats until 2013. "It's too slow. It's onerous, and the lion's share of the cost … is picked up by the recorded music industry."
He is relieved that the film and video game industries, along with other content owners, have joined the lobbying effort, however.....
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GUARDIAN Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:06:03 GMT
What was Rebekah Brooks talking about when she alerted News International staff that 'worse revelations' were yet to come?
Fragments from phone hacking and other hearings: when James Murdoch invokes what lawyers now call the BlackBerry defence – ie, I was told something vital on my mobile one busy Saturday and replied to it, but didn't really absorb it then, or indeed at a subsequent meeting when I signed away £350,000 of my dad's hard-earned money to keep something I couldn't be bothered to read about quiet – there's another way of characterising this uniquely inventive digital argument. Call it the Raspberry defence.
When Lord Justice Leveson tells Neville Thurlbeck that Nev was an important person – "you weren't just a reporter, you were a chief reporter who had been news editor" – he betrays a complete misunderstanding of journalism's non-hierarchical (ie, often chaotic) structure. Maybe barristers go on to be QCs then judges – but news editor to chief reporter is code for a giant bump down. What does a chief reporter do except report, like other reporters, and do what editors tell him?
When Rebekah Brooks, as Wapping chief executive, told an angry journalists' meeting five months ago that "worse revelations" beyond hacking were to come, and that in a year's time they would understand why the News of the World had to be closed, what was she talking about? Not the possibility, lately revealed, that her boys might not have deleted Milly Dowler's messages, to be sure. Then what?
Phone hacking
Newspapers & magazines
National newspapers
Newspapers
Press intrusion
News of the World
James Murdoch
Rebekah Brooks
Peter Preston
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GUARDIAN Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:06:05 GMT
Cameron, Osborne and their ilk have little clue about the needs of the majority of our people
May I add two structural points to the analyses by Will Hutton and your editorial ("It is an act of crass stupidity to be on the margins of Europe", and "The political and personal failings of Cameron")? After 1945 Britain failed to implement a coherent industrial strategy of the kind adopted by France, Germany and others. The ensuing mess of industrial relations led to Thatcherism and the British economy's collapse into the seductive arms of the financial sector. Behind this lies a pseudo-aristocratic ethos among the elite, sponsored by the unreformed and socially unintegrated (non-)public schools. This ethos undervalues technical training and productive work, whether in the boardroom or at the workbench. It is clear that Cameron, Osborne and the Eurosceptics have little clue about the needs of British industry, or of the majority of our people, and about how these can be met in a global economy. We need to reach out, collaborate and integrate with other nations, not hide in the cosy mindset of a British – or more often English – national identity which is long past its sell-by date.
Antony Black
Politics programme, University of Dundee
While your commentators lamented that Cameron sidelined the UK in Europe, not one pointed out that he actually did the right thing, but for the wrong reasons. His real reason for rejecting a new EU treaty had nothing to do with "repatriating powers" or asserting the democratic right of the British people to decide on spending for growth and resistance to austerity, but was to protect investment banks and hedge funds from having a financial transaction tax imposed on them. Ironically, in doing so he inadvertently obstructed the EU's programme to subvert and replace popular democracy, as demonstrated in Greece and Italy where imperfect but elected governments were replaced by pliant servants of the bond markets. In Britain, our unelected government – for no one voted for a coalition devoted to destroying the public sector –voluntarily gets on its knees.
John Medhurst
Hove, East Sussex
Mr Hutton's magnificent rant against the Tory party surely misses the point. The purpose of the summit and proposed treaty is to "save the euro". The summit has set in motion a period of negotiation of an agreement on fiscal conservatism that lacks an enormous amount of detail at this point. The urgency is great as the markets will not wait very long before renewing pressures that the eurozone will find it increasingly difficult to resist. There are two points that need to be analysed with rather more objectivity.
First, will the proposals as agreed with or without the involvement of the UK be sufficient to save the euro, and if so, what will be the effect on Europe of a saved euro? The jury will be out on this point for months.
Second, it would seem self-evident that the likelihood of reaching an agreement quickly is much more likely if the UK is not part of the discussions. The UK "veto" is perhaps the most constructive contribution to the summit objectives that it could have made.
The rational conclusion must therefore be that all the 26 countries will be much better off in the coming months without the constant nay-saying of the UK.
Martin Gillie
Medstead, Hampshire
At long last I find a prominent commentator pointing out the very selective approach of the Conservative party to loss of control and autonomy.
While fulminating against the surrender of powers to "Europe", the Tories rejoice in the greatest loss of national sovereignty in modern times – the big bang liberalisation of the international financial markets under Thatcher and Reagan in 1986. Why? Because that has enabled their friends and backers in the banks and other big multinational firms to rule the world, plunder the profits of their companies and indulge in tax avoidance and evasion.
Nigel de Gruchy
Orpington, Kent
Eurozone......
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FORBES Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:04:43 GMT
In this series, we look through the most recent Dividend Channel ''DividendRank'' report, and then we cherry pick only those companies that have experienced insider buying within the past six months. The officers and directors of a company tend to have a unique insider's view of the business, and presumably the only reason an insider would choose to take their hard-earned cash and use it to buy stock in the open market, is that they expect to make money — maybe they find the stock very undervalued, or maybe they see exciting progress within the company, or maybe both. So when stocks turn up that see insider buying, and are also top ranked, investors are wise to take notice. One such company is Annaly Capital Management Inc (NYSE: NLY), which saw buying by Chief Strategy Officer Kevin Keyes.
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GUARDIAN Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:41:21 GMT
Mark Zuckerberg's company had operating revenues of $2.5bn and assets of $5.6bn, according to figures leaked to Gawker
Facebook is sitting on a $3.5bn cash hoard, according leaked figures, and is making far more money than had previously been estimated.
According to internal figures leaked to Gawker, Mark Zuckerberg's social network had operating revenues of $2.5bn between January and September this year. The company has assets of $5.6bn, including $3.5bn in cash, and made a net profit of $714m.
If true, the figures suggest Facebook will far surpass the estimated $70bn valuation the firm is expected to attract when it sells shares in an initial public offering (IPO) next year. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the firm was hoping for a valuation closer to $100bn. At that value, Zuckerberg's 24% stake in the firm would be worth $24bn.
The company is believed to be planning an IPO that could come as early as April next year and would be the largest tech IPO since Google joined the stock market in 2004. The money would allow Facebook to go on a spending spree as it faces increased competition from Google, now developing its own social network, Google+.
The report follows earlier leaks about the privately held firm's finances. In September, Reuters reported that Facebook's revenues had doubled to $1.6bn in the first six months of 2011. If the latest figures are correct, it suggests Facebook is still growing revenues rapidly despite some recent controversies over privacy and increased competition.
Facebook earned $355m in net income in the first nine months of 2010 on revenue of $1.2bn, Reuters said, citing documents that Goldman Sachs provided to clients. Gawker's latest figures suggest that Facebook made more than twice that in the first nine months of 2011.
The company said it would not comment on its financials.
The numbers come as Zynga, the social gaming firm, prepares an IPO on Friday. The Farmville and Words With Friends company is hoping to raise at least $1bn.
Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg
IPOs
United States
Dominic Rushe
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FORBES Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:38:09 GMT
Looking at the universe of stocks we cover at Dividend Channel, in trading on Wednesday, shares of Simon Property Group, Inc. (NYSE: SPG) were yielding above the 3% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $3.60), with the stock changing hands as low as $119.63 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) back on 12/31/1998 — you would have paid $123.31 per share. Fast forward to 12/31/2010 and each share was worth $125.75 on that date, a mere $2.44 or 2% increase over all those years. But now consider that you collected a whopping $20.53 per share in dividends over the same period, increasing your return to 18.6%. Even with dividends reinvested, that only amounts to an average annual total return of about 1.4%; so by comparison collecting a yield above 3% would appear considerably attractive if that yield is sustainable. Simon Property Group, Inc. (NYSE: SPG) is an S&P 500 company, giving it special status as one of the large-cap companies making up the S&P 500 Index.
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