Gores In Hunt For CKX

Private equity firm Gores Group, headed up by Hollywood financier Alec Gores, is the latest in the hunt to purchase “American Idol” owner CKX, having reportedly made an unsolicited offer for the company.

Others have tried and failed in the last four years, but the Wall Street Journal reports that the Gores offer represented a “significant premium” over CKX’s $4 per share price as of the March 23 offer date.

CKX came close to being reacquired in March 2010 by Robert F.X. Sillerman, who was CEO of the company in 2007 when he and Simon Fuller of subsidiary 19 Entertainment planned to take the company private using their own cash. That attempt failed as the credit crunch and recession took hold.

Sillerman left CKX after the attempt, in partnership with One Equity Partners, imploded. Fuller then left to start a new company, but remains a consultant to CKX.

Alec Gores is one of three well-heeled brothers with Hollywood connections. Tom Gores is chief exec of private equity group Platinum Equity LLC while Sam Gores is chairman of Paradigm.

Alec and Sam Gores last year joined forces in an attempt to purchase Miramax from Walt Disney Co. and have since explored other media acquisitions, according to the WSJ.