THE ROLLING Stones yesterday abandoned EMI, the British recording label that has been its home for most of the past 30 years, for American rival Universal Music, in a sharp blow to the private equity operators who bought the UK label last year, writes Ben Fenton.
Guy Hands, the London-based financier whose Terra Firma firm bought EMI for £4 billion (€5.07 billion), had personally tried to prevent the Stones' defection, which comes after a number of other artists openly criticised the label's new owners.
Singer Robbie Williams's manager likened Hands to a "plantation manager", while the manager of Coldplay, the label's biggest act, said he was "saddened and confused" by the firing of Tony Wadsworth, EMI's UK chairman.
The Stones' move means Mick Jagger, who celebrates his 65th birthday today, collects both his pension and a handsome new recording contract with Universal Music.
Terms of the deal were not announced, but it will see several new albums by the sexagenarian rockers and the lucrative transfer of the Stones' post-1971 catalogue, which includes albums such as Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street.
The back catalogue sold 300,000 albums worldwide last year, mostly on the back of the band's "Bigger Bang" tour, which brought in the majority of its estimated $88 million (€56.08 million) 2006-20007 earnings.
The defection of the band, which earned more than any other musical act last year, is more troubling for EMI's image than its pocket, according to people close to the company.
"They do make a lot of money, but mostly for themselves through touring: they don't actually sell a lot of records," said one.
He said if EMI had outbid Universal, it would have been paying significantly more than it could have hoped to recoup.
"That's why EMI got into the state it was when Guy bought it. They had a history of doing unnecessarily large deals to hold on to artists. That was the business Guy inherited."
But this person did not disagree that it was a blow to the music industry's perception of EMI and its new owner.
The band had already signalled a willingness to move after deciding to release its soundtrack album Shine A Light on Universal in January.
This came as Terra Firma began a major shake-up of EMI, firing as many as 2,000 of its 6,000 employees and leaving many artists cautious about doing business with the label.
One major act, Radiohead, left EMI last year. - (Financial Times service)
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