Financial Crisis at Sanctuary
THE world's biggest independent record label today warned that its profits had collapsed after a series of disastrous delays to record releases.Sanctuary, home to artists ranging from Elton John and Morrissey to Destiny's Child and Beyoncé, faces serious concerns about its future and businesses may be sold off to deal with the crisis.
Sanctuary is buckling under nearly £118m of borrowings, higher than the company forecasts and more than it is 'comfortable with going forward,' the company said in a statement accompanying annual figures today.
The music group, based in Hammermith, West London, may even be sold off in its entirety to a larger rival such as EMI.
Sanctuary was founded in the Seventies by Cambridge undergraduates Andy Taylor and Rod Smallwood, who hit the big time when they discovered heavy metal band Iron Maiden in a pub in 1979. The band went on to worldwide success.
But today Mr Taylor, executive chairman, confirmed that £9.3m had been wiped from Sanctuary's expected turnover in the first half of trading to the end of March after 'slippage from releases' caused a shortfall of 1.3m unit sales.
Sanctuary slumped to losses of £2.18m compared with £3.8m of pre-tax profits this time last year, and the label said it was embarking on a cost savings plan of 'at least £7m to £8m.'
Mr Taylor said: 'I am clearly disappointed that set-backs within the recorded product releases have resulted in a lack of growth in the business.'
Source: This is London.co.uk
6 Comments
i don't get the point!
i need to pay more attention during my economyclass
ouch - I can see some re-re-re-re-re-rereleases coming up to the horizon...
I don't believe Rod will sell it. He's a smart guy and some big bands of Sanctuary are going to release their album at the end of 2005. Plus some bands remasters that are going to be released.
Well, I'd say the T-shirt prices at the concerts seem to corroberate this. I was most annoyed to see them going for 35 and 40 Euros (depending on the print), which is close to the price for the entry ticket of the festival (54 Euros). 
I had really wanted to buy an official shirt, as they are very nice, but doing some quick math on what the concert had already cost me, I came to the following sum:
-3 tickets: 162 Euros
-Gasoline: 60 Euros
-Food: 35 Euros
-Total: 257 Euros. Oops! 
Soooo, I thought adding in another 35-40 Euros would just be too much.
In stead, I ended up buying a very nice "original" (ahum!) shirt upon leaving the terrain, for only 10 Euros. 
Cheerz!
Olafo
CELTIC FROST frontman Tom Gabriel Fischer has posted the following message on his official blog:
"Persistent gossip in the industry about the state of affairs within the Sanctuary Music Group empire and the signals emitted by SMG's recent modus operandi have caused an enhanced degree of entertainment here. The joy felt about Sanctuary's alleged current tribulations knows no boundaries. What unreservedly marvelous news."
In a February 2003 posting to the band's official web site, Fischer elaborated on his deep dislike for all things Sanctuary:
"Rod Smallwood [one of Sanctuary's head honchos] has absolutely nothing to do with the new FROST project. He had a number of meetings with me about CF when APOLLYON SUN [Fischer's post-CELTIC FROST project] were still signed to Sanctuary in early 2000, and I know he was eager to get CF. However, after what in our opinion was an unprecedented botching up of any and all AS affairs and after the intense personal betrayal we all felt, there was no way in hell I was ever going to give the new CF album to him.
"I have not commented on Rod's job with IRON MAIDEN in my post, and I know and would never dispute that Rod was a cutting-edge manager when he discovered IRON MAIDEN 649 years ago. Why do you think we signed to Rod and his company in the first place? The signing was preceded by a number of very thorough and extensive meetings within AS.
"Nobody outside AS will ever truly know what took place in the period between 1998 and 2000, and if they did they would never believe it. It's too outrageous and too far-fetched to seem possible. It made us wish we were back on Karl Walterbach's 1980s-era Noise Records, enjoying what out of the blue seemed like the good-hearted charity and kind artistic understanding Noise Records extended to CF in 1987.
"Rod, on the other hand, signed AS explicitly because he wanted a state-of-the-art, cutting edge group for Sanctuary, to modernize and rejuvenate their roster. At least that's what we were told in 1997.
"I have not commented on Rod and IRON MAIDEN in my post, and perhaps any comment on us and Rod should be reserved to those who were there and saw what took place. I for one could write an album full of songs with titles such as the one that generated this discussion, and so could everyone else in AS.
"By the way, the only person from IRON MAIDEN who ever even acknowledged our presence at Sanctuary was Bruce Dickinson.
"I have only the best things to say about Bruce Dickinson. And I understand that some of his own, unreleased, music resembled AS's."
Source: Blabbermouth