SPV ready to continue business
Hannover, Germany-based record company SPV is planning new releases up from august 2009. SPV submitted an application to commence insolvency proceedings on May 25 and in response to this, on May 27, the District Court of Hannover appointed the attorney Manuel Sack as the provisional insolvency administrator. According to SPV managing partner Manfred Schütz, together with Manuel Sack, the management of SPV GmbH is is continuing working in the areas of production and distribution in the usual way while talking to potential new investors. “We keep on doing business across all segments of our portfolio,” Schütz tells German trade magazine MusikWoche.
Though not all details of the new company structure are finalized yet, news is spread that SPV will still exist in the future under its company name. „We definitely see potential for ongoing business of the company“, attorney Manuel Sack of lawyers office Brinkmann & Partner confirms: „Currently we´re still in the state of applying for insolvency proceedings“.
He´s convinced, that SPV will be part of the record business beyond august 1st. The first aim is to find a solution via external investors: „We are currently in negotiations with a huge number of potential partners“, says Sack. Based on the interest of competitors, he´s confident, „to work out a medium- or long-term solution scenario“.
Prior to the commencement of insolvency proceedings, several companies had expressed interest in taking over SPV, including Edel, Warner Music, the Groove-Attack-companies and intermediately by Universal. Sack and Schuetz don´t want to name the current interest holders, or confirm any of them at this stage. „All our activities are focussed on the aim, to do ongoing business with SPV after the process of insolvency and to keep and ensure the essential and basic assets of the company“, Schuetz emphasizes. This includes the know-how and competence of the company in the fields of Rock and Metal since 25 years.
An ongoing international artist relationship and export business is planned, though in a restructured and cost-optimized way, as the fixed costs of the former setup have been over the top to be handled by a middle enterprise like SPV. Another reason why SPV also shut down both offices in the USA, but have now decided to work together with former product manager Maria Ouellette to secure ongoing US business. Furthermore digital distribution and marketing and the audio book market are “important focal points”. “Of the formerly 124 employees, there are currently around 80 people working at SPV”, says Schuetz. Head of Sales Germany/Austria, Joerg Peter just left the company, stated as “big loss” by Schuetz. Following up is former JTV- and TMI-employee Sven Gerke. All sales representatives and the export department team are fully being kept in place. Martin Ruder, former Head of Labelmanagement, is about to leave the company.
“Of course we had to face a certain level of restraint in the daily business relationship with some of the most important retail partners like MediaMarkt and amazon”, Sack admits. After having cleared the various legalities, we now proceed with doing “noteworthy business”. „We notice a stabilization of the overall situation and we´re able to offer the full power of our company portfolio to all artists and labels”. Schuetz agrees: “We are aware of having caused uncertainties at our business partner side, but in fact we also received an overwhelming feedback of believe, trust and positive stimulation to move onwards from various parties.” Schuetz also concedes „homemade mistakes“ in the past. A reason why there won´t be any more artist deals with unrealistic advances at SPV in the future. „We are mainly looking for mid-size releases that keep us on a financially safe and reliable level,” says Schuetz.
The SPV team is currently putting together a completely reworked release schedule starting august 2009. For the 25th anniversary of SPV there will be a sampler available plus new releases from Annihilator, The Mission and Iced Earth in September – Helloween, Skinny Puppy, Welle:Erdball and a new Max Raabe DVD in October – Die Krupps, The Answer and a new studio album by Klaus Schulze in December. All releases will be supported by substantial promo/marketing campaigns.
