Kwatinetz Leaves Firm?

Hollywood insider Nikki Finke is reporting that Jeff Kwatinetz, CEO of high-profile management company The Firm, has left the company he founded.

A source told Finke Kwatinetz has followed the lead of Firm partner Rick Yorn, who took day-to-day clients like Martin Scorsese, Justin Timberlake and Leonardo DiCaprio, and Firm President/COO Dave Baram, who exited Oct. 21, taking magician Criss Angel with him.

“He’s expected to start his own music, film and television management firm and film and TV production company,” the insider told Deadline Hollywood Daily. “But it’s unclear who takes over running The Firm assuming that people do.”

Sources told Finke that Kwatinetz intended to exit the company when the brain trust left but was under some “legal obligation” to stay.

The company may have hit an iceberg if Kwatinetz took clients with him. The attorney built a career from managing a band from Bakersfield, Calif., called Korn, then opened a management company that included Limp Bizkit manager Peter Katsis, Dixie Chicks manager Simon Renshaw, Spivak / Sobol Entertainment’s Arthur Spivak and Stuart Sobol, and hard rock manager Andy Gould. The Firm, among its many achievements, took over the management roster of CAA founder Michael Ovitz.

Gould is no longer with the company, Renshaw is now strategically aligned with Front Line Management and Sobol died in July.