MAMA Buys An Angel

MAMA is in the process of buying 70 percent of Angel Music Group Limited, the owner of several dance music club brands, including U.K. market leader Godskitchen.

The live venue and artist management company, which has a raft of London’s old Mean Fiddler venues and the Barfly chain, is paying £2 million ($3.96 million) in cash and £625,000 ($1.24 million) worth of MAMA shares.

It continues what’s been a year-long spending spree for the Leeds-based company, including the purchase of several London venues from LN-Gaiety for about £9 million and a stake in Canada’s multi-faceted Nettwerk Companies for a down-payment of £3.03 million ($6 million).

In October 2006 it had a bid for Sanctuary Music Group knocked back because it wasn’t high enough, although it was thought to have valued the company at £40 million ($79.2 million).

The Angel deal may yet cost MAMA up to £1.25 million, provided the Birmingham-based dance music business – which has its HQ in the city’s Air nightclub – reaches certain mid-year profit figures.

Apart from the Godskitchen events, which it presents on a weekly basis in the U.K., AMG shares the rights for the U.K.’s Global Gathering Festival and leading Welsh dance music festival Escape Into The Park with LN Gaiety.

MAMA’s festival portfolio already includes investments in the Lovebox Weekender and Surfstock festivals, based in London and Cornwall respectively, and Brighton’s The Great Escape.