Billionaires Of The Music Business 2012

Billionaires Of The Music Business 2012 Guy Laliberte is the wealthiest fire-breather in the world, and he's getting even richer. Though Branson is now more focused on other industries—space exploration, for example—he's one of the few billionaires who actually got his start in the music. Judging by the combined sale price of EMI's recorded music and publishing divisions for $4. 1 billion months later, he's already gotten a solid return on his investment. 1 billion and should see his fortune surge even higher after Facebook goes public this spring. Then there's Sean Parker, who's looking to fix the very music industry he nearly destroyed with Napster in 1999 as investor and board member or Spotify. Parker and most of the other names on this list made the bulk of their fortunes outside of music, but a whole new crop of music moguls may one day join them as billionaires. For example: Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who launched a music service earlier this year; they're now competing with a similar product from billionaire Jeff Bezos' Amazon. Russian-American industrialist Len Blavatnik bought his way into the business, snagging Warner Music for $3. "Live music is going great, radio stations will always continue to do well," said Richard Branson, whose V Festival is among Europe's biggest music events, in an interview with me last fall. , London's O2 and Shanghai's Mercedes-Benz Arena. 7% more than last year. The increase in Laliberte's fortune can be partially traced to music—more specifically, the success of Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour, a joint venture with the Jackson estate. He fills his halls with his own in-house entertainment, including Usher, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and the Black Eyed Peas. On the live music side, Philip Anschutz owns AEG, the second-largest live music company in the world. Laliberte isn't part of the music business in the traditional sense—he doesn't own a record label or a publishing company—but he's one of a handful of moguls on our recently-released Billionaires list benefiting from the increasing the importance of music. Billionaires Of The Music Business 2012 Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 10/03/2012