The Board SFX Entertainment has told its founder and CEO Robert Sillerman that he has two weeks to confirm his financing for the proposed bid to take the firm back into private ownership. Sillerman wants to buy back all the shares he no longer controls at $5.25 per share in cash. There are no other offers for the EDM group. Payments to labels from the company's Beatport download platfform are seemingly delayed because the "going private process" has "trapped certain earned label payments".
A lawsuit against Sillerman and the SFX's strategy man Sheldon Finkel, filed by three men who claim to be co-founders of the company, has been allowed to move forward after a judge in California refused Seillerman's request for a summary judgement in his favour. Paolo Moreno, Lawrence Vavra and Gabriel Moreno claim that Sillerman approached them in early 2012 to discuss his plans for a dance music-focussed company and used the three men's expertise to identify and purchase seven of the firm's early acquisitions but that they were defrauded out of shares which would now be worth $100 milllion.
Vince Power's listed company Music Festivals plc has called in administrators as of September 23rd. Previously the company had said that it has unable to secure new funding, and that it was had asked the Alternative Investment Market to suspend trading in its shares. The company owns the UK's Hop Farm festival and Spain's Benicassim, The Feis Festival in Finsbury Park, London and a new festival called Costa de Fuego, also in Spain. The company suffered particularly from poor ticket sales at the Hop Farm, although the 2012 edition of Benicassim was also not sold out, prompting Power to lend the company £750,000. In a statement yesterday the firm said: "The board of Music Festivals has resolved to appoint an administrator and once that appointment has been agreed a further announcement will be made in due course". Power owns 23.29% of the shares and his family another near 20% stake. COO / Finance Director Jon Hale owns 5%.
