Thorn Emi North America Inc history

SBK is a private partnership formed in 1986 when Stephen C. Swid, Martin N. Bandier and Charles A. Koppelman bought CBS Songs, the music publishing division of CBS Records, for $125 million.

In 1987, Warner Communications bought Chappell-Intersong Music, whose catalogue of 400,000 songs made it the largest music publisher, for more than $250 million.

In July 1988 Southgate became CEO of the company upon Wilkins retirement.

In 1990 alone, HMV outlets appeared for the first time in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and the United States.

The blockbuster acquisition, however, was that of Virgin Music Group Ltd., bought for £510 million (US$957 million) in 1992, a deal that included both record labels and publishing catalogs.

During this time, an article in the September 22, 1993 Wall Street Journal accused the Rent-A-Center chain of a variety of improprieties, most notably claims of questionable sales practices and of strong-arm tactics used to deal with customers who were late in making rental payments.

In February 1994 the investigation issued a report that largely cleared the Rent-A-Center name.

In 1995 a U.K. bookstore chain called Dillons was acquired and was added to the HMV division.

In October 1996 the debut album by the prefabricated Spice Girls posted huge sales; more than 17.5 million copies had been sold in the 12 months following its October 1996 release.

At home the rental business was experiencing a sharp downturn, leading to the February 1997 announcement that 90 Radio Rentals shops would be closed.

Then, after the 1998 results were announced, Thorn in late May 1998 put up for sale all of its non-U.K. businesses: Thorn Americas (Rent-A-Center and the other United States chains), Thorn Nordic, Thorn Asia Pacific, and a business-to-business rental operation in Europe.

Utada Hikaru's First Love, released in 1999, became the best-selling album in Japanese history.

Glitter, the first Carey album released by Virgin under this deal, initially flopped commercially (at least in comparison to Carey's previous albums), selling little more than 500,000 copies in the first few months after its September 2001 release.

Restructuring charges and charges related to the Carey debacle contributed to a pretax loss of £152.8 million for the fiscal year ending in March 2002.

A merger was back on the agenda in late 2003, when the newly named Time Warner Inc. placed Warner Music Group on the block.

The resulting Sony BMG Music Entertainment, created in 2004 after regulators proffered their provisional approval, jumped into second place in the industry, behind Universal Music Group.