| flameboy54 | 02-11-2009 11:19 AM |
Live Nation, Ticketmaster to merge
Wykydtron called it in the "Ticketmaster faces Canadian class-action lawsuit" thread. Ticketmaster is merging with Live Nation... Quote:
Live Nation and Ticketmaster have agreed to merge in a deal that would create a dominant force in concert ticketing.
The combined company will be called Live Nation Entertainment. Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Live Nation is already the country's largest concert promoter. It owns 140 venues in the U.S., Canada and Europe, including the Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa.
There has been concern over the power of the combined company. West Hollywood, Calif.-based Ticketmaster owns the world’s largest ticket-selling network and the biggest artist-management firm. Live Nation is the largest concert promoter, owns the most venues and has exclusive deals with Madonna, U2 and Jay-Z.
The merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which was approved by both companies' boards of directors, won't involve an exchange of cash. The companies said they will be combined in a tax-free, all-stock merger with a combined enterprise value of about $2.5 billion.
Under the agreement, Ticketmaster shareholders will receive 1.384 shares of Live Nation common stock for each share of Ticketmaster they own, subject to certain adjustments defined within the agreement. Live Nation and Ticketmaster shareholders will each own about 50 percent of the combined company.
The new company anticipates generating about $40 million in operating synergies through the combination of their ticketing, marketing, data centers and back-office functions.
The combined company will be led by Barry Diller as chairman, Michael Rapino as chief executive officer and president of Live Nation Entertainment, and Irving Azoff as executive chairman of Live Nation Entertainment and chief executive officer of Front Line.
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But on a more interesting note, the Justice Department will be probing into this antitrust issue... Quote:
Live music behemoths Live Nation and Ticketmaster will face intense antitrust scrutiny by the federal government before their proposed merger can proceed, as expected. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department confirmed to Billboard on Wednesday that the Justice Department plans to conduct a thorough investigation of the deal.
Neither company is likely to be pleased that the Justice Department, and not the Federal Trade Commission, has chosen to look into this. Christine Varney, President Obama's (as-yet unconfirmed) appointee for antitrust assistant attorney general, apparently does not take kindly to mergers between companies in adjacent areas of the market.
Varney "was very interested in cases where she thought vertical mergers could have an anti-competitive effect" when she worked at the FTC in the '90s, according to former assistant director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition Marc Schildkraut. In this case, Live Nation's concert promotion business connects directly to Ticketmaster's ticket sales business, making this a vertical merger as well as a horizontal one (because Live Nation also runs its own fledgling ticketing service).
The agency had up to 30 days to decide whether to pursue an investigation. That its decision to investigate only took a single day cannot be good news for either board. Schildkraut expects the Justice Department investigation to last up to six months.
For a full explanation of why the Justice Department is so interested in this merger, see our earlier coverage.
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Should be interesting to see how things will play out. | 