Mean Fiddler In Play

Clear Channel Entertainment and Irish promoter Denis Desmond have a month to come up with a 60p per share offer if they’re to buy Vince Power’s 35 percent stake in Mean Fiddler Music Group.

A March 12 article in The Times, coming two weeks after Pollstar suggested the U.S. conglomerate is the most likely mystery bidder, said Power will accept any offer that matches the £12.9 million he wants for his shareholding.

It’s believed that Desmond, who already has over a quarter of the company, will form a new joint venture business with CCE and come up with the requisite cash by April 8.

Rumours of the deal had been circulating around the corridors of London’s Kensington Gardens Hotel, where the International Live Music Conference was in full flow, along with others suggesting Sanctuary Music Group is about to hive off its record business to Warner Music Group.

Several U.K. papers quoted a Sanctuary Music Group spokesman as saying the company has been in discussion with several companies, which may well bring Universal and Sony-BMG into the frame.

It wasn’t possible to reach either Clear Channel, Desmond’s Irish-based MCD group or Mean Fiddler at press time.