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EMI posts loss, draws Prof Green wrath

By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 8 August 2012

EMI has reported a pre-tax loss of £349 million for the year ending 31 Mar 2012, according to The Guardian, which is obviously why so many people wanted to buy it; everyone loves a £349 million loss.

Though, to be fair, much of that loss was as a direct result of the sale of the two constituent parts of the British major, recordings and publishing, to Universal Music and a Sony-led consortium respectively. The two deals struck last year between current owners Citigroup and the major’s buyers required the music firm to write down the value of its catalogues and reputation by £372 million. Add to that the £37 million in redundancy pay outs, and that’s what took an otherwise profitable EMI into the red.

Removing the anomalies, underlying earnings were £290 million, and operating profit was up to £133 million. According to The Guardian, EMI boss Roger Faxon told staff that the figures represented an “incredibly strong performance… set against the backdrop of a challenging state of the music market and wider economic conditions”.

He added: “These results are a demonstration of the success of how our strategy has really helped us to enhance the way we connect our artists and writers with a worldwide audience. This isn’t a success story that you’re seeing at other music companies. It’s our job to make sure that these businesses are ideally positioned for the next stage of their storied histories under new ownership”.

So, well done Team EMI. Though Professor Green likely won’t join in with the commendations, having taken to Twitter yesterday to accuse staff at the major of bungling the marketing of a recent single and missing deadlines on having pop promo videos ready. He posed the question: “Why would your own record label hinder you? How would you feel if a company taking 25% of your earnings weren’t doing their jobs properly?”

When a Twitter follower suggested that the rapper must be loaded despite the alleged fuck ups by EMI, Green responded that much of the money he generates goes elsewhere – in doing so revealing a little about his 360 degree style deal with the record label which, if the Prof’s tweets are to be believed, gives the record company a 25% cut of live income. He wrote: “A live gig = 10% to agent, costs and expenses, 20% management commission then 25% to a label who hardly even come to gigs let alone help”.

Noting Universal’s attempts to buy EMI, and the expected job cuts that will follow the acquisition, Green concluded: “If everyone at EMI is quaking in their shoes about their jobs because of the Universal situ, why not do your jobs properly? Simple solution?” Harsh.