Business news
FaZe Clan Goes Public After Completing SPAC Merger
FaZe Clan, the esports collective and youth culture brand that’s received investment from an array of heavy hitters in the music business, went public on the Nasdaq exchange Wednesday (July 20). The listing follows the completion of FaZe Clan’s special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger with 150 Merger Corp., an affiliate of B. Riley Financial. The combined company has been renamed FaZe Holding and will trade under the ticker symbol FAZE. On its first day, the stock finished down more than 24% to $9.88 after debuting with a share price of $13.07. It’s rebounded slightly to $10.19 in after-hours trading. With a fan network of roughly 500 million across social platforms, according to the company, FaZe Clan has drawn a number of high-profile investors from the music industry, including...
UTA Nabs Private Equity Investment From EQT to Fuel Expansion
A fund operated by the private equity firm EQT Partners has made a strategic investment in talent agency UTA, in a deal the agency says “will help fuel the next phase of investments in talent, innovation and international expansion.” EQT will become the largest outside shareholder in UTA in the acquisition, which will also see the firm acquiring stakes from some of UTA’s existing investors, including Investcorp and PSP Investments. UTA partnership and leadership will remain the controlling shareholders of the agency. Specific terms of the deal, including valuation, were not disclosed. However, everyone at UTA is expected to benefit financially from the investment. UTA has been on something of an acquisition spree in recent months, acquiring the strategic advisory firm MediaLink, the U.K. l...
Anitta Takes a Stand on Brazil’s Presidential Election – And Her Influence Could Help Sway Voters
With fewer than three months to go before the next presidential elections in her country, megastar Anitta has officially declared her support for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a left-wing former Brazilian president who is leading in the polls against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. Anitta stated her position on Twitter on Monday (July 11), two days after a leftist official supporting da Silva, the Workers’ Party candidate who is better known as Lula, was brutally murdered at his own birthday party by a Bolsonaro supporter in the state of Paraná in the country’s south. “If there had been no murder involved … I’d say that the stupidity of these people is almost funny. But it’s not. It’s frightening,” Anitta tweeted, referencing Bolsonaro supporters. “I’m not a Worker’s Party supporter, and ...
Twitter Sues Elon Musk to Force Him to Complete $44B Acquisition
Twitter sued Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday, trying to force him to complete his $44 billion takeover of the social media company by accusing him of “outlandish” and “bad faith” actions that have caused the platform irreparable harm and “wreaked havoc” on its stock price. Back in April, Musk pledged to pay $54.20 a share for Twitter, which agreed to those terms after reversing its initial opposition to the deal. But the two sides have been bracing for a legal fight since the billionaire said Friday that he was backing away from his agreement to buy the company. Twitter’s lawsuit opens with a sharply-worded accusation: “Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.” “Having mounted a public spectacle...
Steve Smith, Legendary Radio Programmer Who Helped Launch the Hip-Hop Format, Dies at 62
The radio world is mourning the loss of revered programmer and consultant Steve Smith, who died suddenly last Thursday (July 7). He was 62. Tim Richards, Smith’s partner in Smith Richards Collective who first met Smith in 1992 at the MTV Awards in Los Angeles during a Westwood One broadcast, wrote on his Facebook page, “Steve was (that’s so hard to type) an incredible man. He was a radio innovator and one of the kindest and most creative programmers I’ve ever learned from.” Smith’s family confirmed his death in a statement to radio trade All Access, writing, “Steve unexpectedly passed away peacefully at home, in his sleep on July 7…Steve’s highly successful career spanned 40 years and has broken countless records, won countless awards, and has irrevocably changed the landscape of American ...
Steve Smith, Legendary Radio Programmer Who Helped Launch the Hip-Hop Format, Dies at 62
The radio world is mourning the loss of revered programmer and consultant Steve Smith, who died suddenly last Thursday (July 7). He was 62. Tim Richards, Smith’s partner in Smith Richards Collective who first met Smith in 1992 at the MTV Awards in Los Angeles during a Westwood One broadcast, wrote on his Facebook page, “Steve was (that’s so hard to type) an incredible man. He was a radio innovator and one of the kindest and most creative programmers I’ve ever learned from.” Smith’s family confirmed his death in a statement to radio trade All Access, writing, “Steve unexpectedly passed away peacefully at home, in his sleep on July 7…Steve’s highly successful career spanned 40 years and has broken countless records, won countless awards, and has irrevocably changed the landscape of American ...
How Brazil Is Stepping Up to Tackle Digital Piracy and Eying Metaverse Infringement
RIO DE JANEIRO – Authorities in Brazil are finding that fraudsters are using illegal download apps and websites to lure in music fans eager for a stronger connection to specific artists – and then profiting from reams of personal data they are mining from them. London-based IFPI and its recorded-music affiliate, Pró-Música Brasil, have been cooperating with a cybercrime unit of Brazil’s Ministry of Justice for over a year, working to root out services illegally peddling MP3 singles and albums from some of Brazil’s most popular artists, including Alok, Bruno & Marrone, Luccas Neto and Barōes da Pisadinha. Last month authorities shut down 461 illegal download apps and 11 websites — a record haul for a single anti-music piracy operation in Brazil. The apps generated more than 10.2 million...
SXSW Expands Into Australia
Austin’s famed South by Southwest conference and festival is headed to Australia. The Texas-born event bring its famed celebration of the technology, film and music industries to Sydney, Australia across seven days and nights from Oct. 15-22, 2023. SXSW Sydney will bring together the industries of music, gaming, film, television, technology and innovation much like the American version that launched in 1987. “Every day of the year we connect people to each other, developing events and content that celebrate the inter-relatedness of current and emerging topics. We continue to push our own boundaries by evolving and expanding as we strive to deliver an experience of unexpected discovery and inspiration,” said SXSW CEO Roland Swenson in a release. “We believe that Sydney’s similar future-focu...
Sony Music to Offer Financial Support for College Students With New Initiative
Sony Music Group will offer financial and other support to students studying music and music business-related fields via a new program announced Tuesday. Funding for the program is being provided by Sony’s $100 million social justice fund, unveiled by the company in June 2020. The Sony Music Group Global Scholars Program will provide scholarships to up to 50 students from diverse backgrounds who are enrolled at accredited colleges and universities across the globe. Students accepted into the program will receive annual financial support for the period of the degree program or upon completion, whichever is sooner, depending on a student’s financial need and the region where they’re based. For students in countries where colleges and universities are publicly funded or subsidized, applicants...
One of Music’s Biggest Wholesalers Is Going Public
Alliance Entertainment, the giant music, video and gaming wholesaler, will be going public and trade on the New York Stock exchange, the company announced Thursday (June 23). The public listing will be done through a reverse merger with Adara Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The deal is subject to the approval of the shareholders of Adara Acquisition Corp., which trades on NYSE under the symbol ADARA. If the deal closes — as expected in the fall — Alliance Entertainment will trade under the symbol AENT. The deal has assigned Alliance Entertainment a pre-deal valuation of $480 million. Alliance Entertainment serves as a one-stop for all titles to brick-and-mortar and online retailers. In the first nine-months of its fiscal year ended March 31, the compan...
Vinyl Prices Might Seem High Today, But They Were Worse in 1978
As far as albums go, 1978 was one for the record books. The Saturday Night Fever and Grease soundtracks topped the Billboard 200 album chart for a combined 36 weeks. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, released in 1977, was the No. 1 album in the U.S. the first two weeks of the year. Billy Joel’s 52nd Street topped the chart for the final seven weeks of the year. The Rolling Stone’s Some Girls and Boston’s Don’t Look Back each topped the chart for two weeks. It was also a notable year for another reason: In 1978, vinyl records were more expensive than any other time since the RIAA began tracking sales in 1973. That year, the average retail sale price of a vinyl EP/LP was $7.32 – equal to $30.18 in today’s dollars when adjusted for inflation. That was the second-highest vinyl sales year in U.S. histor...
BTS Accounts for Nearly 1/3 of All U.S. K-Pop Sales & Streams: Their Domination, By the Numbers
BTS members’ decision to take time off for solo projects is bound to shake up K-pop music consumption in the U.S. because of the group’s dominance in the genre. And the band’s label, Big Hit Music — a division of HYBE, which Universal Music Group’s Geffen Records has distributed in the U.S. since last year — will have a tough time filling the hole. Since the beginning of 2021, BTS has accounted for 29.4% of sales and on-demand streams of K-pop music in the U.S., according to a Billboard analysis of Luminate data. Over that time, BTS did not release a new studio album but put out two “best of” collections — BTS, the Best in June 2021 and Proof on June 10, 2022. BTS also released multiple variations of the tracks “Butter” (including a remix with Megan Thee Stallion), “My Universe” and “Permi...
