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Business News Digital Live Business
Beatport officially no longer for sale
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 14 July 2016
Dance music download store Beatport is officially off the market, with owner SFX submitting paperwork with the US bankruptcy courts to that effect this week.
As previously reported, when flagging EDM firm SFX went into bankruptcy, Beatport was one of the first assets put up for sale in a bid to raise some cash to shore up the company. But the deadline for bidding for the digital firm was at first extended and then suspended, though at the time SFX said it would continue considering offers.
SFX bought Beatport in 2013. In an iTunes-dominated download market, Beatport had enjoyed some success by specialising in the dance music genre, and with SFX buying up anything vaguely EDM at the time, it wasn’t a surprise acquisition, despite the parent company’s core business being live events.
On SFX’s watch Beatport tried to expand, partly into a media platform that could support the wider company’s festivals and other activities, and also into the streaming domain, presumably as it became clear that the wider download market had peaked. But setting up a streaming service is expensive, and with SFX’s finances already wobbling, that looked like an ambitious diversification.
On announcing that the Beatport sale had been suspended in May, the digital platform basically shut down all but the original elements of the business, withdrawing back into the safe domain of selling downloads, though that’s a domain that is now in significant decline.
With the sale of Beatport now officially off the agenda as a possible short-term cash generator, it’s not clear what’s next for SFX, which last month terminated the restructuring support agreement that was announced when the firm originally applied for bankruptcy protection back in February.
It has successfully offloaded two assets though, selling digital marketing agency FameHouse to Universal Music, and ticketing firm Flavorus to Universal parent company Vivendi.
