The company has teased burned investors with an "indication of interest" from an unnamed bidder. Robert FX Sillerman (born 1949) is an American businessman and media entrepreneur. Fullers company doesnt get a direct share of ad revenues from Fox; rather, it receives a $1.2 million fee per episode. Robert F.X. Its sad how things ended because he really was a bright guy, but in the end he carried a lot of pain. [9] Hes been known to sneak up on people and scare them. After that big deal, as with so many American business stories in 2000, things began to sour. Maglan Capital, an owner of roughly 1.5% of SFX Entertainment's outstanding stock, called Sillerman's $4.75 a share go private offer "a way low-ball bid." Bob went out and taught salespeople; I taught the on-air staff. Entertainment mogul Robert Sillerman is facing foreclosure on his $16 million Upper East Side town house for defaulting on a $12.5 million loan since 2015, a new lawsuit claims. And there are a couple of Sillerman stories that involve nudity. Elvis sighting: Owner, icon, and fan in downtown Manhattan. Almost immediately after Sillerman closed on the Elvis deal, he opened his wallet again and purchased 19 Entertainment, a business with even more moving parts than Elvis. Bob is like a Clint Eastwood character in an old Western movie, says Dennis Arfa, a business associate of Sillerman. But the company had no serious strategy, a former employee told Billboard at the time, and Sillermans frequent misrepresentations angered investors, including a plan to take the company private in May 2015 that collapsed when it became clear that Sillerman didnt have the $700 million needed to finance the deal. 19 also manages the career of soccer superstar David Beckham and his wife, Victoria (a.k.a. S&P Index data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. He was also starting to run afoul of the SEC an audit by the firm BDO of his company Function(x)found that Sillerman allegedly broke the law when he transferred $6.1 million into his own personal account and withdrew $500,000 in cash with no explanation and no supporting documentation. Sillerman settled the case with the SEC in June, agreeing to a $179,000 fine and a ban from holding an officer or director role at any public company. Sillerman, the entertainment entrepreneur who helped. Sillerman, the entertainment. Robert Sillerman stepped down as CEO of SFX Entertainment in February, but the story between them continues. Over half a million tourists from all over the world stream into the shrine called Graceland each year. Sillerman, an investor and media executive who built and sold radio empires, controlled the Elvis Presley estate and consolidated the American concert industry, died on Sunday. On Friday, the stock closed at 91 cents a share. It was a smash right off the bat. Robert Sillerman, born April 12, 1948 in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, early on had a strong entrepreneurial bent starting a greeting card in high school and a youth marketing company while at Brandeis University. At that time it was very exciting, but the mergers didnt work in the U.S. in the way we thought they would, Finkel said. This company owned "American Idol" and the licensing rights to Elvis Presley and his Graceland estate. In 1989 he sold a group of radio stations to Westinghouse (now Viacom) for $389 million. He doesnt want to mess with anything. Robert F.X. Moreno claims that Sillerman was mainly brought in to help organize financing for the business and that he had presented his plan to others, like billionaire Ron Burkle, before choosing Sillerman. After selling SFX Entertainment, Mr. Sillerman pursued various entertainment projects. He made billions of dollars in two huge sales, but died in bankruptcy, pursued by the government and suffering the painful complications of a decade of throat cancer, eating out of a feeding tube and findingit increasingly difficult tobreathe. Robert F.X. I thought he was asleep. Estopinal says he last saw Sillerman at a deposition, but he remembers sending Sillerman a note after the bankruptcy, acknowledging the failures of SFX while also thanking him for the opportunity to be part of the company. What about a world champion Idol drawn from all the different nations? The show venue may be moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to save money (and perhaps to fill a certain 2,000-seat theater). He often named his companies using some combination of those initials. Only Mike Darnell [at Fox] got it straight away., Man in the middle: Simon Fuller (in back) with Idol stars Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, and Fantasia Barrino.Ray Mickshaw WireImage/Getty Images. Over a few years in the late 1990s, Mr. Sillerman and his new company, SFX Entertainment, spent more than $2 billion acquiring dozens of promoters and venues, creating the concert worlds first truly national force. He was never really at 100%.. I meet the people whose places we're buying. Try A Different OS, Get Vaccinated? SFX Entertainment is likely well-managed on the festivals and business unit level and the companys shortcomings, in our view, appear to be with holding company management and its board of directors, which have arguably destroyed shareholder value, said analyst Richard Tullo of Albert Fried. [21], In 2012, Sillerman rebooted SFX Entertainment, this time with a focus on the electronic dance music industry. Earlier this month in Los Angeles county, two female attendees of Live Nation-run event HARD Summer died of apparent drug overdoses. I also thought she was shrewd and perceptive. Investor Robert Sillerman is combining the King, American Idol, and other entertainment assets to build his next media conglomerate. And dont even think about asking him what his middle initials, F.X., stand for. (A hip-hop-style remix of A Little Less Conversation was a No. The prior owner, ex-HBO CEO Richard Plepler now founder and CEO of Eden Productions had once listed it for $18.5 million in 2008 after buying it for $2.33 million in 2002. Despite this, the 67-year-old CEO said that he is the right man to run the troubled business and that he still wants to own the company even though he reneged on a plan to take it private earlier this month. Now when we dont need it, were flooded with it, Sillerman says. He replied with an email that said, Can I borrow a dollar? Estopinal said. . The CK stands for content is king, while the X is a reference to one of his middle initials (they are F.X., and he wont tell anyone what they stand for). Even so, Sillermans 47% stake is worth some $400 million. What we wanted to do was to take this to another level. Lisa says that she, her mother, and Soden had spoken for years about bringing in outside investors and/or management, but nothing clicked. 19 did some $92 million in revenues last yearwith about a third coming from the Idol showsand earned $12.6 million. American Idol is much more like a game show than a reality show, says Fuller. Well, its a little early to ask that question. Really? Investor Robert Sillerman, who bought Elvis Presley Enterprises, photographed with Elvis impersonators, 2005. Later, the private equity firm Apollo Global Management acquired CKX in 2011. Sillerman was looking to become the single big fish in this business so that when acts like Eric Clapton went on tour, his manager would deal with SFX and SFX only when booking venues. We took on more debt than I felt comfortable with, she says. While he survived that battle, Sillerman is now in a fight to salvage SFX Entertainment, which went public at $13 a share and was valued at more than $1 billion in Oct. 2013. Robert F.X. Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. The company that emerged would become Clear Channel, which is now known as iHeartRadio. ", "Mobile app Viggle sets terms for $50 million NASDAQ listing", "GetGlue Sale to Sillerman's Viggle Cancelled", "GetGlue Acquired by Viggle for $25M, 48.3M Shares of Stock", "Viggle Buys Dijit Media, in Another Second-Screen TV Mashup", "Viggle Acquires Dijit, Will Connect Its Rewards Program To Dijit's TV Discovery App", "With Over 9.5 Million Registered Users, Viggle Expects Fiscal 2015 Revenue to Increase More Than 40% Year-Over-Year to $25.6 Million", "SFX Beefing Up Digital Capabilities, Plans to Buy Tunezy, Fame House and Arc90", "Mogul to Increase Bets on Electronic Dance Music", "SFX Enters Ticketing Business with $16.2 Million Acquisition of Europe's Paylogic", "Electronic music promoter SFX files for $175-million IPO", "Robert F.X Sillerman on SFX's IPO, Stock Prices, Future Acquisitions, Afrojack", "SFX's Bumpy Ride Continues With $20 Million in New Financing", "SFX Entertainment Emerges From Bankruptcy With New Name: LiveStyle", "SFX Emerges From Bankruptcy with a New Name, LiveStyle, and New Leader in Randy Phillips", "Former SFX CEO Robert Sillerman Speaks Out for the First Time About His Company's Implosion: 'I Don't Begrudge the Employees' Anger', "Choosing honorary degree recipient an often-painstaking process", "Sillerman Family Makes $10 Million Gift to Heller to Begin New Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy", "Steven Spielberg and George Soros Stock Senate Democratic Super-PAC", "Music Managers Allege Deceit by SFX Founder", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_F._X._Sillerman&oldid=1135076047, American entertainment industry businesspeople, American telecommunications industry businesspeople, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 22 January 2023, at 14:00. Some $124 million was in cash upfront and $31 million in stock, with the balance to be paid in cash or stock after Fullers company reports its year-end numbers. SFX CEO Entertainment Robert F.X. Read the original story on The New York . He refounded SFX Entertainment in 2012 as a promoter of electronic music festivals; that company is now known as LiveStyle. They acquired additional radio and TV stations, including WALL and WKGL (Middletown, New York); WJJB; (Hyde Park, New York); WHMP (Northampton, Massachusetts); WLOM (Orleans, Massachusetts); WRAN (Randolph, New Jersey); WPLR (New Haven, Connecticut) and the television station WATL (Atlanta). While attending Brandeis University, he founded Youth Market Consultants, which sold magazine subscriptions to students and in turn advised companies on how to reach that market. The studio of course had a glass wall. [2][3], Sillerman was born to a Jewish family in New York City, and was raised in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, the son of Estelle (Levande) and Michael McKinley Sillerman. Some people loved Bob and some people hated him, there was no middle ground, said James Disco Donnie Estopinal, a New Orleansdance promoter now living in Puerto Ricowho served as Sillermans deal maker and helped bring in the dance promoters that would come to form the new SFX Entertainment. Elvis, a poor boy from Tupelo, Miss., comes up to Memphis, manages to get himself into Sun Records, and lays down the track to Thats All Right (Mama). A local radio station airs it, the calls come streaming in, and Elvis is on the way to glory. At first, advertisers and investors flocked to the new SFX. His timing seemed impeccable. When Mr. Sillerman tried to corner the fractious world of dance music festivals in the early 2010s, for example, he played the part of a devil-may-care rebel to a sometimes puzzling extent. Now that Sillerman's deal is dead, SFX is in a mad dash to find a new buyer. No question we could build a convention-sized hotel here, says Soden. Sillerman paid $196 million to buy 19 Entertainment. At the time, Sillerman said he expected to deliver equity and debt financing on the billion-dollar deal when a 60-day sale process was completed. The founder of SFX Entertainment rarely spoke about the impact of his daughter's death but his friends say it weighed on him and changed his outlook. CKX already carries a load of goodwill, $14 million from the Presley deal, and $111 million from the 19 transaction. This year, there are 88 festivals that we anticipate doing, said Sillerman. Sillerman took the job on two conditions: that the college scrap ill-defined programs and focus on marine science and creative writing and that he be allowed to handle publicity. If we can, this will dwarf the first SFX. Elviss legendary manager, Colonel Tom Parker (a.k.a. Its easy to say that in hindsight, Sillerman told Billboard in a June 9, 2016article. In 19, Sillerman saw a small but dynamic media company with one of the hottest TV shows on the planet. Says a top Wall Street banker: Hes a very smart guy, but I dont think you want to be sitting on the other side of the negotiating table from him.. It was a very good, good combination, says Morrow. The truth is, for all of Elviss transcendent mystique, EPE has never been much of a business. When SFX went public in Oct. 2013, businesses the company owned or was in the process of acquiring earned $14.6 million in adjusted EBITDA on combined revenue of $239 million. Today, that blueprint to take over the electronic dance music (EDM) world is in shambles, the result of poor management, suspect financial planning and a certain hubris that Sillerman, who corporatized the live music industry in the 1990s, could do it all over again. When things were going bad, he was looking for ways to try and make it work, Finkel said. Brucie and Bob bought more stations and worked their magic on operations. We've received your submission. AI Is Creeping Into the Functional Music Market What HappensNext? In May 2009, Credit Suisse filed a request for summary judgement in New York State Supreme Court, alleging Sillerman had failed to pay the . Anthony Effinger and Daniel Taub, "American Idol Sillerman Dealt Elvis Default Heartbreak in Vegas," Bloomberg.com, June 1, 2009. Offers may be subject to change without notice. Thats not the way I view the entertainment businessI view it as an art not as a science.". You and I buy a couple loaves of bread, Bob buys the bakery, Morrow told Budnick and Baron of Sillermans sales abilities, which by 1988, netted nearly $1 billion value in broadcast assets. Correction: In The Man Who Bought Elvis (Dec. 12), we wrote that SFX Entertainment once owned New York Citys Roseland Ballroom. Anyone can read what you share. 19 is currently renegotiating the fee for next season, and some think the ante could be upped to $2 million per episode (though a reported flap over American Idol judge Simon Cowells compensation could be complicating matters). Pei through the hallowed halls. Striking a deal shouldnt be that difficult. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google. Bob had his own way of doing things and it wasnt good in the end.. [37], In May 2012, Sillerman was accused of sexual harassment by an employee of Function X. This isnt the first time Sillerman has failed to live up to his word when trying to buy back a company he listed on the public markets. around. As for Sillermans take on Lisa: I was impressed with how real and grounded she was. Though the Elvis business isnt that big yet, it gives us a window into how Sillerman operates. In characteristic form, Sillerman wont give investors any firm commitments. Sillerman stood stone-faced on the cover of Billboard magazine. Sillerman's net worth , money, salary, income, and . For its money, CKX got a 90-year lease on Graceland, stipulating, among other things, that the premises may not be used as a massage parlor, a mortuary, or [for] the manufacture, sale, or distribution of feminine hygiene products. (Gives you an idea of how much attention Lisa and Soden pay to protecting Elviss image.) Sillerman graduated from Brandeis University in 1969, avoided the Vietnam War draft due to an injury and eventually went on to buy 92.7 WALL-FM in Middletown, New York, with famed DJ Bruce Cousin Brucie Morrow, according to Ticket Masters. On Jun 7, 2012, Function (X), Inc. was renamed Viggle, which changed the company stock listing to VGGL. Function (x) Founder Education Robert FX Sillerman studied at Brandeis University. Few suggest the genre is decliningnot yet, anywaybut theres evidence that points to a plateau. Im also confident that we will create a better experience for the fans, Mr. Sillerman said in an interview with The New York Times. [33] In 2000, Sillerman donated a $15 million gift through the Tomorrow Foundation to extend the library and for marine science scholarships. In the years following that tragic 2012 event, he was often treated as a cartoon villain in the media, trying for a third, fourth and even fifth act in business, and some say the death of his daughter hardened him to any criticism. In fact, theres a hit TV show in the business of finding them. ), Sillerman, who had extensive exposure to the rock & roll business as a radio executive and concert promoter, realized that owning the rights to a rock act could be a great business. Once Morrow had a beef with the late-night deejay at their Middletown station. Elviss 37-year-old daughter and heir, Lisa Marie, has been unhappy that the business has been going nowhere: We were doing good, but you cant stay the same, she says. Its main app NextGuide and Digit Reminder Button was integrated into Viggle software. Fuller is signed up to head 19 Entertainment in a five-year contract.
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