News
Beatles (studio) for sale
Rob Hughes Feb 16 2010, 3:45pm
EMI puts world-famous Abbey Road facility on the market to help deal with spiralling debts
Abbey Road has today been offered for sale by beleaguered owner EMI, in an attempt to raise some of the funds necessary to keep the group from buckling under £3.3bn of debt.
It is not clear whether EMI plans to sell the Abbey Road brand name or just the property, but it is assumed that, since the former is likely to prove the more valuable of the two, prospective buyers will want to acquire both. Speculation is rife as to the level of offers that the sale will attract. Most reports are safely assuming ‘tens of millions’ but one industry observer suggested that the figure could reach £100m.
Depending on how quickly – and for how much – the facility is sold, the funds could help EMI avoid breaching covenants on the huge debt with which it was saddled during the highly-leveraged takeover by private equity firm Terra Firma in 2007. To this end, Terra Firma is currently seeking £120m from investors by June to maintain payments on its loans from Citigroup. However, the Financial Times noted that it was unlikely that the proceeds would arrive in time or be large enough to help significantly with that deadline.
Although one of the world’s most iconic record labels with artists such as Robbie Williams and Coldplay on its roster, EMI this month posted a £1.75bn loss for the 2009 financial year.
EMI has declined to comment on the sale of Abbey Road, or confirm that it was part of a wider asset sale, as many observers are likely to presume.
Abbey Road is the most documented studio in the world. The first – and largest – purpose-built recording studio, it was bought by EMI in 1929 for £100,000 and opened in 1931. It quickly attracted stars such as Noel Coward, Fats Waller and Fred Astaire, but its enduring legacy is the music of The Beatles, whose entire repertoire was recorded there. Now a complex offering a multitude of professional services, Abbey Road is still at the zenith of the industry and boasts one of the UK’s few remaining orchestral recording spaces.
