One Direction’s Secret Ownership Stake In 5 Seconds Of Summer
When One Direction took Sydney pop band 5 Seconds of Summer out on a 66-date international tour with them, or when they tweeted to their millions of followers that the Aussies had a new single out, it wasn’t just a case of being good buddies. Or because they are both are represented by Richard Griffiths’ London-based Modest Management.
According to Billboard, the partners in London-based company 5SOS LLP are the four members of 5SOS and One Mode Productions. One Mode’s directors include the five members of 1D in addition to Modest’s Griffiths and Will Bloomfield. According to the documents filed at London’s Companies House, the split allots for 120 shares: 1D holds 50%, and the managers hold the other 50%.
Billboard estimated that 5SOS’s sales so far – 788,000 albums and EPs and 2.4 million song downloads – meant that Modest and the five 1Ds would pocket $250,000. That doesn’t include revenue from merchandising.
The publication says that this profit-share model is not unusual. Lil’ Wayne has a share in Nicki Minaj’s career. Executives it spoke to also pointed out that Justin Bieber’s “signing” of Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen to their manager Scooter Braun’s Schoolboy Records, is another case in point. Billboard points out how Braun used Bieber’s 20 million+ Twitter followers to help sell 11 million downloads of Jepsen’sCall Me Maybe.
It makes sense for one time ‘90s boy band rivals New Kids on The Block and Backstreet Boys to tour together in 2011: the tour grossed $40 million.
Back in the 1960s, the two great “rivals”, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones secretly spoke of setting up a record label together, making a movie together, and touring together. Those things never happened. All they did was to share the same New York manager Allen Klein – a decision which both bands regretted.
Article by Christie Eliezer –
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