This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Live Business
Live Nation and Ticketmaster shareholders back merger proposals
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 11 January 2010
Given both companies have gone to considerable and, presumably, costly efforts to get their proposed merger through the regulatory process I think we all assumed it was a given that the majority of Live Nation and Ticketmaster Entertainment’s shareholders backed the proposed deal. But just in case there was any doubt a vote on the matter was taken by both firms last week, and that confirmed that, should the deal get regulator approval, it’s not going to be blocked by either company’s investors.
Live Nation told reporters on Friday that the owners of over 99% of the company’s stock were in favour of the merger with Ticketmaster, while the owners of 98% of their shares are seemingly pro the deal. This is despite reports shortly after the two companies’ boards agreed a deal early last year to the effect that some key Live Nation shareholders were concerned about the power Ticketmaster chairman Barry Diller would have over the merged enterprise.
As much previously reported, while the UK’s Competition Commission has already OK-ed the merger, their US counterparts are still reviewing the proposals. Despite reports last week that US approval was imminent, some sources close to the regulatory review have told reporters that actually the US’s Department Of Justice is looking for more concessions from the two merging companies before giving the deal the green light. If said concessions are not forthcoming, insiders say anti-trust chiefs are willing to fight the merger in the US courts.
Among the concessions already rumoured to have been offered to the US regulator by Ticketmaster is a commitment to licence its ticketing software to Live Nation rivals AEG allowing them to handle their ticketing in-house (AEG are concerned about doing business with Ticketmaster if it merges with their main rival), the all out sale of some of their ticketing contracts and software to a firm backed by US cable giant Comcast, and the sale of its US-based secondary ticketing service Tickets Now, which has caused all sorts of PR problems for the ticketing giant since it acquired it in 2008.
