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Lloyd Webber loses out in Broadway deal
21.04.09
The hills are alive with the sound of dollars. Broadway's biggest collection of musicals and show songs, including The Sound of Music, Oklahoma! and White Christmas, have been sold for about $200 million (£138 million).
The Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein catalogue and a host of tunes by composers such as Irving Berlin have been bought by Imagem Music, an offshoot of the Dutch state pension scheme that paid £126 million for British classical music publisher Boosey & Hawkes a year ago. Rodgers and Hammerstein's daughters put the business up for sale last September and drew bids for a catalogue comprising 12,000 songs, 900 concert pieces and 100 musicals.
The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organisation said that it was in “constructive discussions” with Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group about continuing to represent his musicals, including Cats and Evita, in North America.
Lloyd Webber is believed to have put in his own bid for the Rodgers & Hammerstein business.
