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Rough Trade label sold off
This is mildly interesting, as well as badly written:
http://media.guardian.co.uk/city/story/0,,2133422,00.html
The music group Sanctuary is selling its stake in Rough Trade Records, the label that first signed the Smiths - famed for their 1980s miserablist hits - to the long-established independent Beggars Group.
Sanctuary is set to announce the sale of its 49% interest in the loss-making label for a cash sum of £800,000.
The disposal of Rough Trade, which counts Pulp's frontman Jarvis Cocker and Pete Doherty's Babyshambles among its acts, comes as Sanctuary is about to be taken over by the world's largest music company, Universal.
Universal is thought to be mainly interested in Sanctuary's merchandising arm and its artist management business, whose roster includes Elton John.
Sanctuary's shareholders have until Thursday to accept Universal's 20p-a-share offer.
Beggars Group, which was founded by the key independent music labels figure Martin Mills, will be able to incorporate the stake in Rough Trade into a business whose catalogue of artists includes The Fall and John Cale.
Rough Trade, founded by Geoff Travis, was born from the successful independent record store in 1978. Sanctuary joined forces with Rough Trade in 2001 with the intention of helping the label expand in the UK and abroad. Although Rough Trade has worked with high-profile acts such as The Strokes, it has recently failed to make any money for Sanctuary.
That has compounded problems for the music group, which early last year pushed out its co-founder Andy Taylor. The other founder, Rod Smallwood, left in November, taking the management contract for its prime act, Iron Maiden. However, Sanctuary retained the more profitable merchandising agreement for the band that gave the company its name.
Sanctuary said in April that it would not achieve profitability until at least 2008 and that its struggling recorded product division would miss expectations for this financial year.