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Business News Live Business
MSG company sells Live Nation shares
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 13 March 2013
Not much of a surprise, but The Madison Square Garden Company has confirmed it has sold all of its shares in Live Nation Entertainment, following the recent resignation from the board of the live giant of James Dolan, aka Executive Chairman of MSG and CEO of its parent company Cablevision.
As previously reported, Dolan’s departure from the Live Nation board last month, while pretty sudden, was in many ways a logical conclusion of the exiting of Irving Azoff in the final hours of 2012 from his role at the top of the live entertainment, management and ticketing group.
Dolan was a long-term friend and ally of Azoff, with MSG coming to own nearly 2% of Live Nation Entertainment through an original investment into Azoff’s Front Line company, which was subsequently acquired by Ticketmaster and then merged with Live Nation.
With MSG, as the owner of some major US venues, working with many of Live Nation’s rivals in both the tour promoter and ticketing domain, Dolan’s position on the live giant’s board and MSG’s shareholding was always an interesting quirk, the down-sides of which presumably became more noticeable once the alliance ceased to be about a partnership with Azoff.
Dolan’s departure and the share offload has passed with relatively little drama though, and of course MSG will continue to work with Live Nation’s promoters, managers and ticketing division Ticketmaster on other ventures and projects.
Live Nation’s share price is pretty good at the moment following a positive response to the firm’s most recent financial update, which is possibly why now was a good time for MSG to sell its stake.
