Key Brand Entertainment Fights Back, Files Lawsuit Against Live Nation for Ambassador Theatre Group Theatre Sale

As previously reported, the Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) confirmed on Tuesday that it had completed the purchase of Live Nation's UK Theatres (excluding their one third share of The Dominion Theatre). The acquisition is the most significant development in ATG's 17 year history.

Now, Key Brand Entertainment, the failed bidder, is filing a lawsuit in the United States to block the sale.  According to a report in Britain's The Stage, Key Brand is claiming that Live Nation is in breech of their contract with Key Brand (who bought Live Nation's U.S. theaters in 2008) by selling the venues to a competitor company.  Britain's The Stage reveals that the lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angels, states:

"Since July of 2008, Key Brand has, at great expense and effort, made multiple bona fide offers, supported by committed financing, to purchase Live Nation's UK theatres, all in the context of, and in compliance with, a bidding rights agreement it negotiated with Live Nation in January 2008...After encouraging Key Brand for well over a year to submit increasingly higher offers to buy its UK theatres and, after contractually obligating itself to provide Key Brand with full and most favourable bidding and matching offer rights, Live Nations - in the final hours or possibly after the closure of the bidding - unilaterally disclose information about Key Brand's bid to another bidder to make sure Key Brand's final bid would not be the winning bid."

To read the full report in The Stage, click here.

The cost of the ATG acquisition is £90 million and the deal creates a combined business valued at some £150 million.

Co-founded by Howard Panter and Rosemary Squire in 1992, ATG, with the acquisition of Live Nation Theatres, will have a total of 39 venues. When the new theatre in Aylesbury opens, this total will stand at 40. Former BBC Director General Greg Dyke will be joining the company in the new role of Executive Chairman. Sir Eddie Kulukundis OBE will remain as Life President.

ATG was advised by Deloitte's Corporate Finance. Live Nation was advised by Goldman Sachs.
Howard Panter, ATG's Joint CEO and Creative Director said: "Live Nation Theatres is a very successful company, with first class staff and significant customer loyalty. It is also blessed with some of the world's best producers and productions. Our aim is to help maintain the shows and theatres as vibrant successes. It will be a privilege to operate this additional group of historic venues."

Live Nation Theatres is currently home to two of London's most successful shows; The Lion King (at The Lyceum) and Wicked (at the Apollo Victoria).

The Live Nation theatres being acquired are the Edinburgh Playhouse; The Auditorium, Grimsby; Liverpool Empire; Bristol Hippodrome; The Palace Theatre and The Opera House, Manchester; Southport Theatre; Sunderland Empire; Grand Opera House, York; Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham; Leas Cliff Hall, Folkestone; The New Theatre and The Old Fire Station, Oxford; the Princess Theatre, Torquay and The Lyceum and Apollo Victoria Theatre, London.

ATG's existing portfolio of West End theatres includes the Comedy, Donmar Warehouse, Duke of York's, Fortune, Phoenix, Piccadilly, Playhouse, Savoy (both co-ownership and management of), Trafalgar Studio 1 and Trafalgar Studio 2.

ATG's current regional UK theatres include The Ambassadors Woking encompassing the New Victoria and Rhoda McGaw Theatres and the award-winning 6 screen cinema complex, Ambassador Cinemas; Theatre Royal Brighton; The Regent Theatre and The Victoria Hall, Stoke-on-Trent; Milton Keynes Theatre; Churchill Theatre Bromley; Richmond Theatre, Surrey; The King's Theatre and The Theatre Royal, Glasgow; New Wimbledon Theatre and the New Wimbledon Studio. ATG has also recently won a tender to operate the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre, which is due to open in 2010.

ATG is also one of the country's foremost theatre producers and has been behind some of the most successful and innovative productions in Britain and internationally.
Current and recent ATG co-productions in London and internationally include the hugely successful and critically acclaimed award-winning musicAl West Side Story, at Sadler's Wells and on tour in the UK; Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard; the hit comedy Fat Pig by Neil LaBute; Harold Pinter's The Lover/The Collection; Elling starring John Simm; The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess directed by Trevor Nunn; Guys and Dolls starring Ewan McGregor; Sondheim's Sweeney Todd and the Tony Award winning Company, both on Broadway and The Rocky Horror Show. ATG's new production of Molière's The Misanthrope starring Damian Lewis, TAra Fitzgerald, Keira Knightley, Dominic Rowan and Tim McMullan is set to open in the West End in December 2009.
ATG is also mounting productions around the world. ATG's recent productions in Australia include The Rocky Horror Show and Guys and Dolls, with West Side Story scheduled for 2010. Recent ATG productions on Broadway include Geoffrey Rush and Susan SaranDon Starring in Exit the King, with a new production of Elling planned on Broadway for 2010.

ATG also has a wholly owned subsidiary company Sonia Friedman Productions (SFP), led by producer Sonia Friedman, whose current and recent co-productions include Othello starring Lenny Henry; La Cage Aux Folles starring John Barrowman; Arcadia starring Neil Pearson and Samantha Bond and Under the Blue Sky starring Catherine Tate, Francesca Annis and Chris O'Dowd. SFP's production of Legally Blonde is set to open in the West End in December 2009. Other stars that have appeared in ATG/Sonia Friedman Productions include Madonna, Ewan McGregor, Gillian Anderson, Sienna Miller, Sean Bean, Denise Van Outen, Graham Norton, Matthew Perry, Jude Law, Kim Cattrall and Michael Gambon. 

ATG will now also have sole ownership of First Family Entertainment. FFE is producing 12 pantomimes for the Christmas 2009/2010 season featuring a star-studded line up including Pamela Anderson, Paul O'Grady, Sheila Ferguson, Chris Fountain, JoAnna Page, Henry Winkler, Mickey Rooney, John Challis, Les Dennis, Bobby Davro, Kara Tointon, Joe Swash, Anthea Turner, GRay O'Brien, Brian Blessed, Ruby Wax, Michael Aspel, Ben Adams, Jonathan Wilkes, Jane Asher and Claire Sweeney.