As if more job cuts and the proposed selling of Abbey Road studios (now retracted! yay!) weren’t enough, it appears that Guy Hands, EMI private-equity boss, proposed splitting EMI
into two separate entities.
What Hands wanted to do, according to court documents filed in regards to the legal dispute between Hands’ Terra Firma group and Citibank, was split EMI into two different money-making entities to maximize the profitability of one and minimize the losses of the other. He wanted one company for publishing (the part that makes money) and a separate one for new recorded music (the part that doesn’t make money). However, even though it appears that both sides see the positives of the split, Citigroup said “No, way Jose.” Or, more like, “Not at the current time, Jose.”
Using standard “big-word-business-talk,” Hands described the situation as follows: “We believe that we are in agreement in relation to a number of the key components of an acceptable solution including the need to separate the two businesses.” Translation: “We know we got a pile of shit on our hands and we know a couple of ideas how to fix it, but… we can’t agree on who’s gonna lose the most money.”
