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Business News Labels & Publishers
Adele helps XL to another bumper year
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 15 October 2013
XL Recordings, the independent record company jointly owned by top man Richard Russell and the Beggars Group, had a turnover of £78.6 million in 2012 and pre-tax profits of £25.4 million, according to company accounts seen by the Daily Telegraph. The broadsheet says a “hefty dividend” was paid in April to Russell and the Beggars business (£12 million each).
A lot of the money generated by the label – and indeed most of the media interest in its company accounts – is the result of just one artist, Adele, whose 2011 album ’21’ was still accounting for a “significant proportion” of the indie’s 2012 turnover. The same record, of course, assured XL record turnover of £111.7 million the previous year.
With Adele not expected to release another record until at least mid-2014, the label reported that it was looking to secure more hits to assure future profitability, while also noting that the wider record industry seems to have turned a corner after years of decline.
