MAMA Plays Mean Fiddler

The ink’s dry on the £6 million deal that has MAMA Group buying Mean Fiddler Holdings from LN-Gaiety, the Live Nation– and MCD Productions-owned company that sold London’s Hammersmith Apollo and The Forum to the group.

Discussions about the just-confirmed deal began at the same time as the one to sell the Apollo and Forum, but LN-Gaiety president Paul Latham was under Competition Commission pressure to get that deal tied up first.

At the time, he was faced with having to hive off both of those rooms – or the city’s Brixton Academy and Shepherds Bush Empire – to overcome U.K. Competition Commission objections to LN-Gaiety acquiring a 56 percent majority stake in the Academy Music Group’s national venue network.

Latham pushed the deal that’s just been confirmed – which puts the original Mean Fiddler venue in Harlesden, The Jazz Café, The Borderline and The Garage into MAMA’s ownership – to the side of his desk and promised to discuss it later.

Seeing the back of these rooms is likely to bother him a lot less than having to sell the Apollo, which he helped run for 12 years and where he still has many close colleagues among the staff.

Live Nation chief Michael Rapino has made it clear that LN-Gaiety’s venue policy is to expand with more mid-sized rooms, while Latham’s likely to be pleased to be relieved of the bother of running them.

"Strategically, if we do accept the offer, it’s about re-drawing our parameters for business – namely concentrating on larger concert venues," Latham told Pollstar a month ago.

In turn, it’s a good fit for MAMA because the venues sit easily alongside the chain that’s owned by its Channelfly subsidiary.

The deal also includes Mean Fiddler’s 75 percent share of Manto Soho Ltd., the company that operates the G-A-Y bar and G-A-Y Late club in London’s West End.

What it doesn’t include – and what sees the Mean Fiddler brand split – is LN-Gaiety’s right to use it for its Carling-sponsored Reading and Leeds festivals or the venue that’s currently trading as Mean Fiddler.

That’s in the same building as The Astoria (also not included), which is the subject of a compulsory purchase order from Westminster Council, pending the redevelopment of Tottenham Court Road tube station.

MAMA’s acquisition strategy looks to have switched to venues after its efforts to expand its management side, which already has Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand, and move further into records and the booking agency businesses fell flat when it failed to get the Sanctuary Music Group board to even talk about doing a deal.

Sanctuary has since been bought by Universal.