City Updated On Urban Developments

A couple of statements within the space of four days confirmed Sanctuary Group has wrapped its disastrous relationship with Mathew Knowles’ Music World Entertainment (MWE).

The beleaguered U.K. company is selling the urban music division back to Knowles at a loss of about £3.5 million and dropping its legal action against former MWE directors Troy Carter, Julius Erving III and Tony Davis.

The capital loss on MWE, which Sanctuary bought for £6.1 million in 2003, is negligible compared to what it cost during that two and one-half year period. New chief exec Frank Presland seems happy to draw a line under the whole business.

“This is another important step in reorganising the [Sanctuary] Group and putting it on a sustainable footing with proper standards of corporate governance and financial transparency.

“Having been chief executive for just over a month, I repeat that this is a business that can prosper if it faces up to the new realities and management remains committed to focusing on driving the business forward to deliver appropriate levels of performance,” he said in a July 6th note to the media and the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

As a result of the sale, Knowles – father of Beyoncé Knowles – will regain ownership of MWE and control over certain urban acts including his daughter and Destiny’s Child.

In a July 10th release to the stock market, Sanctuary said the legal actions against Carter, Erving and Davis, which were for material breach of their employment agreements and also material breach of certain stock purchase agreements relating to the sale of their businesses to the group, are being dropped because the litigation is likely to be drawn-out and expensive, which further underlines that the U.K. company intends to put up with its losses and move on.

– John Gammon