Michael Jackson said near deal to avert bankruptcy By Claudia Parsons
1 hour, 38 minutes ago



NEW YORK (Reuters) - Michael Jackson is close to a deal that would help him to avert bankruptcy by refinancing his debts and possibly selling part of his interest in scores of hits by The Beatles, The New York Times said on Thursday.


The paper, citing people briefed on the plan, said the ongoing negotiations to refinance hundreds of millions of dollars of loans would require him at some point in the future to offer Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). part of his interest in a song catalog that includes many of The Beatles best-known songs.

Jackson, who was cleared last June of criminal charges of sexually abusing a young boy at his Neverland Valley Ranch, has spent much of his time since the trial in Bahrain.

Prosecutors asserted during Jackson's child molestation trial the pop singer was in precarious financial shape due to mounting debts.

He narrowly escaped legal action by the state of California earlier this year for failing to pay employees at his ranch. California's labor commissioner had fined Jackson $100,000 and threatened to sue the 47-year-old entertainer unless he made good on at least $306,000 in back wages dating to December. He paid the salaries last month.

The former child star who became one of the biggest pop stars in the world, selling an estimated 300 million albums, had been increasingly under scrutiny even before the trial as media attention turned to his eccentric lifestyle and dramatic changes in his physical appearance.

The trial was an international media circus with Jackson facing nearly two decades in prison if convicted of 10 counts of lewd acts with a child, giving a minor alcohol and conspiring to commit child abduction, extortion and false imprisonment. He was cleared on all counts.

SONY DEAL

Jackson bought the ATV catalog, which included more than 200 songs written by members of The Beatles, for $48 million in 1985. He caused some controversy when he subsequently licensed their 1968 song "Revolution" to a Nike commercial.

In 1995, Sony and Jackson formed a joint venture combining Sony Music Publishing and the ATV Music Publishing catalog, which also includes thousands more songs by the likes of Little Richard, Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley.

Music publishing is one of the most lucrative areas in the music industry and involves the exploitation of song copyrights. A copyright owner receives royalties each time a song is broadcast or performed. Fees also accrue if the song is recorded or licensed, say, for an advertisement.

According to The New York Times, under the plan being discussed, Jackson would agree to provide Sony with an option to buy about 25 percent of the catalog, or half of his stake, at a set price.
The paper said Jackson had used his stake in the catalog as collateral for about $270 million in loans that were sold last year to a New York-based investment company. The paper said the entire catalog is valued at about $1 billion.

It said Sony had an interest in keeping Jackson solvent because if he is forced into bankruptcy, the stake in the publishing company could go up for auction, opening it up to another company to bid for it.

A Sony spokeswoman said she could not say when or if there would be any announcement. Jackson's representatives did not immediately return calls for comment.

(Additional reporting by Yinka Adegoke, Ransdell Pierson, Tiffany Wu)
[Edited 4/13/06 15:57pm]

asg said:

this is something i never even thought of! if this is accurate, it's very smart of sony's.

this business consistently fascinates me!

This guy is a fool. He wastes millions of dollars a year on B.S. I know it's his money to waste but damn.....

in the mid 90s he got 100$mil from sony to combine the atv with sony

then in 98 he started gettin loans now totallig around 270$mill

on top of that his earning int he last 10yrs!!! in 1995 he has a big european tour!!


how can he spend 370$ + his earnings since 1995 spends more then 40million /yr



imagine he hadnt bought atv he would be totally broke
[Edited 4/14/06 12:25pm]

asg said:

I usta hear stories of how MJ would take a bunch of children to toy stores and buy them whatever they wanted.

Prospect said:

MJ seems to have no concept of $$. He will be broke someday. I'd bet $$ on it.

The real shame is if he looses any portion of that Beatles catalogue, for which he destroyed a friendship with Paul McCartney to obtain.

My personal view is that the catalogue should never have been up for auction in the first place. Those songs should've belonged to the creators, which are the 4 members of The Beatles. I don't care about legalese about what went down with the publishing. It all just boils down to artist not having enough protection concerning what they create. But since he went through the trouble of outbidding Paul to obtain them, the LEAST he could do is hold on to them. To lose them to a record company would be a real shame.

CynicKill said:

Beattles owned the rights all along they werent duped!!

They sold the rites long time back for some tax purposes so it wasnt the record company screwing them!!

But paul wanted to buy them back in 1985 and he told MJ about it and MJ rushed and bought the rites b4 paul could act on it!!!


David bowie also sold his rites for like 100mil some time back!!

muhhammed ALi sold part of the rites to his name too!!

i think he wants to use the money while he is still alive.

Graycap23 said:

He will never be Broke not financially anyways.

legendofnothing said:

Seems like his spirit of being a MAN is already broken.

One of a millon places MJ went wrong was, when he sold in 1995 SONY half the catalog for $95 Million?? Back in 1995 he wasn't dieing for money! Why the hell would you sell HALF for only $95 Million?

well it is all Karma with MJ, he did all this to himself, ego & just trying to prend something your not. I just never thought in MJ's lifetime he would feel the wrath of all his disgusting behavior to others.

Karma is a bitch

The Michael Jackson involvement in the Northern Songs saga isn't very straight-forward. Yoko Ono and Paul Mc.Cartney never "owned" all the rights to the songs to begin with, so there was never anything to "steal".

When the Beatles' publishing company, Northern Songs was created, it was owned by The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, music publisher Dick James and the four Beatles.

In 1965, the Beatles were making so much money that they were getting taxed nearly as much as they earned. They were advised to sell some of their share in their publishing company. Lennon and Mc.Cartney each retained 15% of Northern Songs whilst Harrison and Starr kept hold of 1.6% between them.

The common misconception is that only the publishing company makes money from licensing songs - this isn't true. The publishing company receives 50% but the songwriter still receives 50% - regardless of whom owns the songs.

The new chairmen of Northern Songs Publishing, Dick James and Charles Silver, later sold their share of the company to the Associated Television Company in 1969. Both Lennon and Mc.Cartney had tried to buy this share of the company at that time, but were again dissuaded from doing so, for tax reasons. The head of ATV was Sir Lew Grade who later went on to produce The Muppet Show in the late seventies.

After The Beatles split and were formally dissolved in court in 1970, neither Lennon or Mc.Cartney wanted to publish through Northern Songs any longer. The original contract with the company stated that they had to supply the company with a specific number of new songs until 1973. The only way to get out of this contract was if the company no longer existed - so they each sold their shares in the company to ATV. Ironically, both George Harrison and Ringo Starr kept hold of their 1.6% though each had their own publishing companies for their own work: Harrisongs and Starrtling Music.

When ATV sold their (majority) share of Northern Songs to Jackson, he paid $47,000,000. Speculation persists that Mc.Cartney and Ono failed to bid because Mc.Cartney wanted to retrospectively change the songwriting credits (giving him a bigger share of royalties, as he wrote more of the songs) and Ono wouldn't comply. Lennon and Mc.Cartney had an unsigned agreement that whenever a song of theirs was published by Northern Songs, that the song would be credited simply to "Lennon & Mc.Cartney" regardless of how much input the other had - even solo compositions like Mc.Cartney's "Yesterday" or the Lennon/Ono collaboration "Because". Whatever the reasons, both Mc.Cartney and Ono failed to purchase the controlling share of Northern Songs. The ATV sale not only included Northern Songs but around 4,000 other non-Beatles songs which Sir Lew Grade had acquired over the years.

Jackson later loaned exactly half the ATV music catalogue to Sony to raise (a reported) $100,000,000 in 1991. In 1995, a new agreement was formed, creating Sony/ATV Music Publishing which let Jackson keep his half and let Sony keep the other. Sony Publishing paid Jackson $95,000,000 to retain the share which they'd already given Jackson around $100,000,000 to "loan", four years earlier.

To further confuse the matter, the original agreements were under a 28 year copyright protection... If the songwriter dies during this 28 year period (like Lennon did), the rights immediately revert back to the songwriter's heirs after 28 years; regardless of whom owns them at the time. Thus, Yoko Ono now receives 100% of royalties from Lennon's share of the songs whilst Mc.Cartney still only receives 50% as a songwriter).

And if you really want to know the punchline to the story, whomever owns Mc.Cartney's share of the catalogue will start to lose the royalties soon anyway. Mc.Cartney doesn't need to buy them back. His share of the rights will revert back to him, starting in 2012 - 50 years after the first songs were published in 1962. Every year after that, more of the catalogue's royalties will revert 100% back to him on an annual basis.

http://www.contactmusic.c...e%20rights

http://www.sonyatv.com/

I guess that $90,000 Chess Set he bought in Vegas on that Bashir Interview wasn't a great investment huh

Justin1972UK said:

That's really where the story is, I wonder what happened?

ElectricBlue said:

everything bought in the Bashir interview was returned.

self destruction

Sdldawn said:

payng off your debt and getting a couple of million in cash is self destruction?

WTF is my 3,000 Credit Card bill?

lilgish said:

No.. his entire career.

Sdldawn said:

pretty much

Justin1972UK said:

As clear as mud.....I get it but how convoluted can u get?

ElectricBlue said:

Exactly! I don't why he sold half of his goldmine to Sony,and for the low price of $95 million?? Dumb move on his part.

DavidEye said:

Like I said before, this guy has no real concept of money. He will eventually be broke.....I believe that. Once the scammers realized you can be had, u will be had.

asg said:

Sounds like Prince in the 1990s.

Graycap23 said:

exactly.