Outgoing Sony/ATV Chief Martin Bandier
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Outgoing Sony/ATV Chief Martin Bandier
Are there any deals that got away that are particularly vivid?
How about buying the ATV catalog? Of course, Sony now controls it, but [in the early 1980s] my partner and I went to London and struck a deal with an Australian guy named Robert Holmes a Court. I guess you would call him a business raider — he had acquired ATV, which of course included Northern Songs, the Beatles’ [Lennon-McCartney] catalog — through an acquisition of some other company. We struck a deal to buy ATV from him, but when we went to close that transaction, we were told he was selling it to Michael Jackson instead! Michael had agreed to do a concert in Perth [Australia], where Robert Holmes came from. I looked at my partner and said, “I know you can’t do a Moonwalk, so I think this knocks us out of the game.” (Laughter.)
