EMI to keep Abbey Road

[Glen Livingstone]

EMI to sell iconic Abbey Road studios

By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Salamander Davoudi

February 16, 2010 -- Updated 1115 GMT

London, England (FT) -- Abbey Road, the London recording studios immortalized by the Beatles album of the same name, has been put on the market by EMI as the music group looks to extricate itself from the debt burden of Terra Firma's 2007 leveraged buy-out.

EMI would not comment but five people familiar with the situation told the Financial Times it had been courting bidders for the property in St John's Wood. A sale could raise tens of millions of pounds.

It was not immediately clear whether EMI would sell the Abbey Road brand name along with the property, but one media lawyer said: "The brand is worth more than the building... anybody who wants the studios will want the brand."

EMI bought the house at number 3 Abbey Road for £100,000 ($160,000) in 1929 and transformed it into the world's first custom-built recording studios.

In 1931, Sir Edward Elgar used studio one to record Land of Hope and Glory with the London Symphony Orchestra and by World War II Abbey Road was used for propaganda recordings for the British government and BBC radio broadcasts.

The Beatles put the studios on the map, using it for 90 percent of their recordings between 1962 and 1969 and naming their final album Abbey Road. EMI used the studios for last year's release of remastered Beatles albums.

Pink Floyd recorded Dark Side of the Moon at the studios, which have also been used by Radiohead, the Manic Street Preachers, Travis and Blur.

However, the studios have faced cheaper competition from recording facilities in other countries, and technological advances allowing artists to record using only a laptop computer have made it harder for labels to justify owning expensive recording infrastructure.

"What you have is a very, very expensive piece of heritage. If an artist goes to a label and asks to record at Abbey Road they will be met with maniacal laughter," the media lawyer said.

Abbey Road is still prized as one of the few venues able to accommodate entire orchestras, which has allowed producers to record scores there for films such as Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

EMI has worked to exploit the Abbey Road brand name in recent years, launching a service called Abbey Road Live last November that offers fans the chance to buy instant concert recordings at venues.

Depending on the level of offers it attracts, a sale could bolster EMI's finances at a time when Terra Firma is seeking £120M ($188M) from investors by June to avoid breaching covenants on £3.3B ($5.17B) of loans from Citigroup. However, it is unlikely that the proceeds would arrive in time or be large enough to help significantly with that deadline.

2009 ~ The Financial Times

[groundskeeper willy]

What an awkward time to try to sell a recording studio, especially when you consider how many historic facilities in London, NYC, LA & Nashville have been forced to close over the past few years because they're become so economically unfeasible to run. No longer do you need an acoustically treated room, quality gear and trained engineers -- nope, all you need is a ProTools box and a few plugins in order to create something the kids will love to listen to on their earbuds -- quality be damned.

Perhaps the only thing that'll save Abbey Road from being turned into condos will be the National Trust (http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/), but even that's iffy, considering how the British Government has its own financial issues to deal with. Maybe Paul McCartney will step up and plunk down a few of his millions??

[freqfreak2]

Let's say us Radiowesters put in a bid to save the studio. From what I'm reading, we could probably pick it up for a song.

I'll pony up the first $5.

[hagopian]

Pauly could put this on his Black American Express Card.

Criminal how things change, ain't it?

The MacBook Pro can do more than I ever dreamed possible and here it is - on my desktop.

What would I have given for a pro tools in oh, I'll ask Michael W. Morgan ( * GREAT TO SEE HIS SMILING TYPE FACE - one of my all-time favourite talents....)

CFUN, CKGM, LG. Agency neighbours of CFUN for many years.

[Glen Livingstone]

EMI reverses, wants to hold on to Abbey Road

Won’t sell, but will talk to other parties about revitalizing famed studio site



updated 1:33 p.m. PT, Sun., Feb. 21, 2010


LONDON - Music company EMI wants to retain ownership of the Abbey Road recording studios, immortalized by the Beatles album of the same name, though it is talking to other parties about revitalizing the site, EMI said on Sunday.

A source familiar with the situation told Reuters last week that loss-making EMI had put the studios up for sale and was talking to a few interested firms, although no deal was imminent.

"EMI confirms that it is holding preliminary discussions for the revitalization of Abbey Road with interested and appropriate third parties," the company said in a statement, without elaborating on what exactly the talks were about.

EMI said it had been in discussions since November 2009 to find ways to regenerate the studios, which have been losing money for years, but had rejected an offer worth 30 million pounds ($46 million).

"We believe that Abbey Road should remain in EMI's ownership," the company said.

Millions of Beatles fans around the world are sentimentally attached to the studios, which are also popular with tourists who pose for souvenir snaps on the nearby pedestrian crossing where the Beatles are pictured on the album cover.



EMI said it welcomed reports that the architectural preservation body English Heritage planned to list Abbey Road, a step that would make it very hard for any developer to do anything radical to the site.

Such a listing could potentially lower the price EMI could get for Abbey Road if it did end up selling it.

The firm, owned by private equity group Terra Firma, said any plan it agreed for Abbey Road would involve "a substantial injection of new capital."

"When Terra Firma acquired EMI in 2007, it made the preservation of Abbey Road a priority," EMI said.

Last week's reports the studios were up for sale attracted a lot of interest, including from ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, who said the studios should be saved, and musical theater maestro Andrew Lloyd Webber, who signaled he was a potential buyer.

Lloyd Webber, the man behind blockbuster musicals "Cats," "Phantom of the Opera" and "Jesus Christ Superstar," has recorded some of his works at Abbey Road.

The 4-billion-pound acquisition of EMI has come to symbolize the difficulties caused by expensive buyout deals struck at the height of a private equity bubble. EMI's high debt and poor performance have become a burden for Terra Firma.

The private equity firm recently launched a lawsuit against Citigroup, claiming the U.S. bank had inflated the price of EMI during the sale process by failing to reveal that another bidder had withdrawn. Citigroup denies the allegation.



2010 ~ Reuters