Rock and Roll PING! email Weegee to get on/off this list (or grab it yourself to PING the rest)
Posted on 12/16/2004 10:37:47 PM PST by mysto
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - Lisa Marie Presley is keeping Graceland but selling the bulk of the Elvis estate, including rights to her father's name and image, in a deal worth approximately $100 million.
Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. announced an agreement Thursday to sell 85 percent of its assets to businessman Robert F.X. Sillerman, founder of music and sports promoter SFX Entertainment.
The Presley estate brought in almost $45 million last year. Sillerman said more aggressive marketing, supported by capital raised through a new publicly traded company, can make Elvis an even bigger earner.
Presley occupies a unique place in American pop culture, and "I don't think there's much likelihood his influence is going to wane anytime in my lifetime," Sillerman said by telephone from New York, where he runs the Sillerman Companies.
As Presley's only child, Lisa Marie is the sole heir to the estate, most of which is now to become part of a publicly traded company that will be called CKX Inc.
The agreement will pay her $53 million in cash and absolve her of $25 million in debts owed by the estate. She also is to get shares in the new company expected to be worth more than $20 million.
Lisa Marie will retain possession of her father's home, its more than 13 acres of land and many of her father's "personal effects," an announcement on the agreement said.
"For the past few years, I've been looking for someone to join forces with to expand the many facets of (Elvis Presley Enterprises), to take it to new levels internationally and to make it an even greater force in the entertainment industry," Ms. Presley, also a singer, said in a statement.
Tours of Graceland, which gets 650,000 visitors a year, will continue unchanged. The throngs of fans drawn to Memphis each August on the anniversary of Presley's 1977 death will notice little different, Sillerman said.
Although Elvis already ranks No. 1 on the Forbes magazine list of top-earning dead celebrities, Sillerman said new markets and business opportunities may be available, including abroad.
"Does it make sense to invest in Elvis Presley enterprises in Japan? Does it make sense in Germany? Are there things that can be done in other jurisdictions in the United States?" he said. "The answer to some of the questions is obviously yes, we just don't know which ones."
Sillerman said the staff at Graceland will remain in place.
Elvis Presley Enterprises was created in 1980 by Priscilla Presley, the singer's ex-wife and mother of Lisa Marie, who was still a child then. She is to remain as a consultant to the new owners.
Sillerman founded SFX Entertainment in 1977 and ran the company until it was bought by Clear Channel Communications in 2000. He said he expected the sale to wrap up within two months, pending standard regulatory approval.
Her mother took nothing and made a ton of money with Elvis.
I don't know why she is in such debt now?
As far as selling for $100,000,000, that is cheap. Elvis's name would earn the owner billions over 20 years more than likely.
"You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes."
I have long forgotten the article, but the subject was on the Beatles' inventory, songs, and such versus Elvis' inventory, songs, and such. The writer said that the Beatles management agency paid close attention to marketing whereas Elvis and his later estate jumped the shark long ago. The writer said Elvis' estate should be worth more than the Beatles' holdings, if it wasn't for the Colonel and the Presley family making his memory like so much velvet paintings of dogs playing poker at a roadside bazaar.
Lisa Marie has taken one more step down the road to Elvis oblivion for a few duckets in the present.
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes."
You owe the Carl Perkins Estate for that
Scientology is an expensive hobby.
Rock and Roll PING! email Weegee to get on/off this list (or grab it yourself to PING the rest)
Alimony payments to Michael Jackson?
Should have offered his publishing and "likeness rights" (there is no such thing, it is a recent construct that means nothing after you die) on the stock exchange as other musicians have done.
I would guess she just has better things to do than deal with managing her daddy's name.
Is that a music album, a fashionwear company, or an ad for an Infinity car?
She should have shopped around. Chuy's would have ponied up $5,000 plus free Elvis Memorial Combo enchilada platters for life.
Yeah, I would have offered her a free place to live for life.
"...I'm a grown man!
Chubba chubba chubba chubba chubba chubbie
I don't have any lines to go right here so, chubba teletubbie!
Fella's (WHAT?!) Fella's (WHAT?!)
Grab you left nut, make right one jealous (what?)..."--Just Lose It
Eminem's Mickael Jackson smack down
How can the estate be in debt $25 million? Is this thru her mishandling?
The biggest name in music histry, selling more records today than when he was dead, and Elvis' estate is in debt?
Astounding.
In Michael's dreams, you bet.
Maybe in 18 months of marriage, she might have been stuck with half the cosmetic surgery bill... OUCH.
God forbid she really got stuck with half the debt of her 18 month marriage to Michael, that is possible.
I figure that he has been pulling huge negatives for years.
look for the "Elvis" line of clothing...etc.
LOL
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