Rolling In The Money

XL Recordings, Adele’s record company, has seen its profits surge tenfold to £41.7 million ($70 million).

The singer’s 21 album topped the charts in several territories and spent more than a year and a half in the U.S. Top 10.

 
“Rolling In The Deep,” her bestselling single, has been played more than 2 million times on American radio, apparently the equivalent of it being performed continuously for more than 12 years.
 
Richard Russell, XL’s co-owner, received an £8.5 million dividend. Partner Martin Mills, a vociferous critic of the Universal-EMI merger, received a similar amount through his Beggars Group.
 
The two labels, which have also put out material from Jack White, The Prodigy, Radiohead, The xx, and Dizzee Rascal, between them release no more than two dozen albums per year.
 
XL was launched as an offshoot of Beggars in 1989.
 
Even after the big payouts to the men at the top, the Sunday Times reckons XL still has $35.3 million in the bank. A year ago it had $4.8 million.