Robert Francis Xavier Sillerman was born on April 12, 1948, in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale in a very typical, liberal, educated Jewish household, according to the 2011 book Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalpedby Dean Budnick and Josh Baron, which secured an interview with Sillerman. Robert Sillerman stepped down as CEO of SFX Entertainment in February, but the story between them continues. 2023 Billboard Media, LLC. On the subject of corporate partnerships, Sillerman said he underestimated the time it would take to sign up sponsors for SFXs events. This is a long-term perspective, [but] a 10% return on equity from our perspective would be insufficient.. Well, its a little early to ask that question. Really? CKX raised $251 million at its IPO earlier this year, which it used to pay back $150 million in loans from Bear Stearnsthe rest it paid directly to 19 Entertainment or kept as capital. I meet the people whose places we're buying. Young Sillerman graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis in 1969 after becoming immersed in counterculture politics and rock & roll. [38] The dispute was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. David Lieberman, "'American Idol' Owner CKX Sells To Financial Firm, Ending Robert F.X. The app will also display the social media activity for other shows at the same time, along with what rewards are available for changing the channel to competing programs. We had to do something right away to make money, and that something was to open up Graceland for tours., On the first day Soden and Elviss ex-wife, Priscilla, opened up the Memphis mansion, 3,024 fans filed in, paying $5 each. As a teenager he started his own greeting card company, buying cards in bulk and enlisting youngsters to sell them. 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. 19 also manages the career of soccer superstar David Beckham and his wife, Victoria (a.k.a. Down the road EPE may construct more Graceland-like properties in places such as Dubai and Macau, and perhaps develop a concept similar to the Hard Rock Cafs in Europe. Just months before he died, he was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly diverting investor proceeds for his own use. Then there are concert tours and merchandising. Lawsuits increasingly became a common part of his life, including a suit from a luxury real estate firm for breach of contract after he allegedly cut the firm out of a $114 million real estate deal withoutpaying their commissions. American Idol is much more like a game show than a reality show, says Fuller. The company also acquired 80% in Muhammad Ali Enterprises. He. In 2001, Britains ITV put Fullers baby, Pop Idol, on the air. Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, The Price Is Rightthese shows go on for decades. This past season American Idol ratings averaged over 27 million viewers per episode, up 5% from last season. And get this zinger from Reids report: CKX apparently has the right to shut down impersonator shows. (Say it aint so!) There is little profit to invest in potentially lucrative assets like the Heartbreak Hotel, across the street from Graceland. Terms & Conditions. 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. Sillerman told Estopinal he had $1billion to spend on the rollup on an S-1 form announcing the IPO of SFX, Sillerman listed holdings that included online marketplace Beatport, the American-arm of Dutch company ID&T that produced festivals Tomorrowland and Sensation, Electric Zoo founders Made Events, German promoteri-Motion and Australias Stereosonic festival producer Totem Onelove Group. Hes been known to sneak up on people and scare them. 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. It was a smash right off the bat. The New York entrepreneur is most notably known for consolidating a number of U.S.. It declared bankruptcy in 2016, and many of the assets it had amassed were sold off. Beyond the lawsuit, questions have also been raised about the fundamentals of a business that some analysts said relied on what they deemed a cultural fad. In other words, distribution companies are falling all over each other to reach customers through new, competing outlets. and attractions such as Memphis' Graceland to Robert Sillerman, . Mr. Sillerman called it an inside joke. (The balance is transaction costs.). 1 hit in more than two dozen countries, including the U.S.) And Elvis impersonators are still fixtures in everything from movies to corporate events. CKX has the rights to the Elvis name, image, likeness, and trademark, which are currently used in 100 or so merchandising and licensing deals. Im not very knowledgeable about real estate, he reportedly told the New York Post at the time. Maybe, but maybe not. That suit, led by dance promoter Paolo Moreno, alleges that Sillerman, who was completely unfamiliar with dance music, took the idea to acquire and combine global EDM companies from him and his associates after they had agreed to work with the businessman and Finkel. In 1985 Sillerman entered into a partnership with radio/television industry executive Carl E. Hirsch (known as Legacy Broadcasting) to acquire KJOI-FM, Los Angeles for a then record-setting $44 million, as well as other stations in Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, Washington D.C., Houston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York City. The guy didnt have any energy, says Morrow. The duos tactics could be unorthodox. In 2010, he re-emerged with a second strings-attached take-private bid, but CKXs board chose to sell the company to Apollo Global for $5.50 a share, a bruising result for investors. Obviously the market had spoken loud and clear that it believed the five-and-a-quarter deal was never coming, said Sillerman in one of his first interviews since announcing the privatization plan. The third and fourth floors boast a bedroom with 20-foot ceilings, a woodburning fireplace, two bathrooms one of which has another woodburning fireplace and two dressing rooms. Those companies promised two things. Clear Channel, which had already purchased many of Sillermans radio stations from Hicks Muse, agreed to buy SFX Entertainment for a reported $3 billion. You know if you make cars or washing machines or something like that, I guess you have to focus on margins. In that spirit, he named Kermit the Frog as the 1996 commencement speaker: 31 newspapers picked up the story, a free marketing bonanza that raised the college's profile and drew hundreds of new admissions. Sillerman, Concert Industry Consolidator, Dies at 71 Roy Trakin November 26, 2019, 6:02 PM Click here to read the full article. Posh Spice). Sillerman was born on April 12, 1948 in Manhattan, New York, USA. She also criticized the investors and analysts watching the company, saying they spent much of 2015 ignoring all indications that the Company was in a poor financial state and ignored key developments like a decision by Moodys to downgrade SFXs credit rating a development that under normal circumstances would be a significant red flag for investors. Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. . Clear Channel would later spin off its concert holdings into Live Nation in 2005 with CEO Michael Rapino at the helm, which grewinto the most dominate company in music, with $15 billion in revenue reported in 2019. The stock cratered. We dont have enough time on this call to talk about the mistakes I made, said Sillerman during a 30-minute phone conversation from his New York City home, his voice gravelly and occasionally interrupted by a breathing apparatus due to a past bout with tongue cancer. That show is American Idol, and as with Elvis, Sillerman is convinced he can make it an even bigger deal than it already is. around. As for Sillermans take on Lisa: I was impressed with how real and grounded she was. [7] The company was merged at the end of 1989 with a unit of Westinghouse Broadcasting in a then record-setting transaction worth $727 million. Mr. Sillerman had recently been living in Hinsdale, N.H. For decades, Mr. Sillerman was a regular in the headlines of the financial press, buying and selling numerous media and entertainment businesses, often at a huge profit, and presenting a brash public persona that sometimes rivaled those of the celebrities he dealt with. They said music doesnt work on TV in America. By then Sillerman was already toiling away on his next project, SFX Entertainment, a company that would own concert venues and other media properties. I suppose there are all kinds of gratifying lines of work, he says. He often named his companies using some combination of those initials. 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. Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk), sold the rights to RCAnow part of Sony BMGdecades ago. [29] In December, the company went private and was renamed LiveStyle, with Sillerman exiting the company in favor of former AEG Live executive Randy Phillips as CEO. [32], From 1993 Sillerman served as the Chancellor of the Southampton College of Long Island University, replacing Angier Biddle Duke. In a July 2009 interview with the New York Post Sillerman admitted failure, stating with reference to the Flag project: "I'm not very knowledgeable about real estate. Connecting the show to phones, through the Internet, through merchandising, and ways I cant talk about yet.. Robert FX Sillerman (born 1949) is an American businessman and media entrepreneur. Sillerman had no intention of consolidating the EDM industry before he met Paolo Moreno in January 2012, said Steven Feldman, a Hueston Hennigan LLP attorney representing Moreno and two other plaintiffs. This company owned "American Idol" and the licensing rights to Elvis Presley and his Graceland estate. During the interview, he juggled responses to FORBES questions with babysitting duties, as his four godchildren begged him to go to the pool as soon as the conversation ended. Brucie and Bob bought more stations and worked their magic on operations. Brandeis University Recent News and Activity Funding Round Sep 16, 2014 Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Cirque du Soleil; Douglas Elliman, 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Inside the Hamptons trailer park thats become a playground for millionaires, Kevin Loves model wife goes house-hunting after Heat deal, See Ashton Kutchers Your Place or Mine building in NYC, Mark Wahlberg finally sells mansion after massive $32M price cut. But when the so-called "go shop" ended, Sillerman didnt have the financing to cover his bid. Offers may be subject to change without notice. The suit alleges that Sillerman in emails promised a joint partnership in which the plaintiffs would receive 2.5 million "founders shares" of SFX, which never materialized. Sillerman, the founder of SFX Entertainment, has died at the age of 71 due to respiratory illness. He was an executive. (A hip-hop-style remix of A Little Less Conversation was a No. The company acquired various promoters and electronic music festivals, as well as related companies in digital (including Beatportan electronic music store, online ticketing provider Paylogic, and web development agency Fame House). [14] Hes obviously smart, and he doesnt b.s. But when I took it to America, almost everyone rejected it, Fuller recalls. Now that Im a part of CKX, I have the resources to do three or four. Sillerman hopes thats a positive, not a negative. Over half a million tourists from all over the world stream into the shrine called Graceland each year. Starting in the late 1970s, Mr. Sillerman built a portfolio of radio and television stations worth nearly $1 billion. But then to discount the price the way that it did was a self-fulfilling prophecy in that discouraged other bidders, which was unfortunate and had an implication on me and my financing., Established SFX festival events like Tomorrowland in Belgium attract thousands every year, but it's [+] unclear if newer events will have the same kind of draw. In 2017, he almost lost the home after defaulting on a $12.5 million. Elvis's 37-year-old daughter and heir, Lisa Marie, has . That seemed to sum everything up., A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry. How Trust In Institutions Determines COVID Vaccination Rates In The EU, Clubhouses Future Depends On Data - How To Build A TikTok Like Algorithm. All these ballet dancers from Russia were huge Elvis fans, and [their handlers] were asking for our help to get them out of here and back to rehearsal. As his radio empire grew, Sillerman increasingly came up against Federal Communications Commission regulations restricting his ability to own multiple public broadcast stations, until 1996 and the passage of the Telecommunications Act, which lifted the restriction on owning multiple radio and television stations in a single market, paving the way for Sillermans firm to merge with Command Communicationsand become SFX Broadcasting. He also carried heavy personal pain after the suicide of his 18-year-old daughter Mackinley in 2012, losing his only child in the home he shared with his wife Laura Baudo Sillerman. When SFX began bursting at the seams, in no small part because of his mismanagement, Sillerman again reneged. SFX CEO Entertainment Robert F.X. There are so many ways to exploit that level of awareness. At first, advertisers and investors flocked to the new SFX. Sillerman, 57, a Wall Street operator with a long history of minting money in the . Attracting funds, at least at this point, wont be a limitation. 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. He declined to comment for this story via email. Inspite of the distractions, he explained that he is 100% committed to do a deal to take SFX private and is in robust conversation with several people that want to participate with him. He bankrolled Mel BrooksBroadway production of The Producers and was golf partners with NBA legend Michael Jordan. 19 did some $92 million in revenues last yearwith about a third coming from the Idol showsand earned $12.6 million. He passed away in his sleep on Sunday at the age of 71. A serial media-industry entrepreneur, Sillerman was best-known at the time for buying up concert promoters under the rubric of SFX Entertainment and, in 2000, selling them to the radio giant. Its sad how things ended because he really was a bright guy, but in the end he carried a lot of pain. The 66-Year-Old Rave King of Wall Street In the past few years, Bob Sillerman has become notorious in the dance music industry for buying up a string of once-independent rave promoters in order. But instead of a billion-dollar acquistion, Sillerman wiped out hundreds of millions in investor money and eventually had to file for bankruptcy. As his business world collapses around him, Sillerman seemed relatively relaxed over the phone. Improved top-line growth did little to stave off a panic from investors, who were troubled to see the company once again fall short of the profits it had promised. 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