Avex Group

Avex Group
Avex Group Holdings Inc.
Type Public KK
conglomerate
keiretsu
Traded as TYO: 7860
FWB: AX8
MUN:AX8
Industry Music and Entertainment
Genre Music Record Label
Founded April 11, 1988*
Founder(s) Masato "Max" Matsuura
Tom Yoda
Ken Suzuki (now on S2S Pte Ltd)
Headquarters 1-30 Minami-Aoyama 3-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan 107-8525*
Area served Asia
Key people see Current officials
Products CDs, DVDs
Revenue 4,229.6 million yen
Operating income 5,566 million yen
Net income 30,266 million yen
Owner(s) Max Matsuura (4.88%)
Toshio Kobayashi (4.88%)
The Master Trust Bank of Japan (4.69%)[1]
Employees 1,438 (as of the end of September, 2010)
Subsidiaries see Subsidiaries
Website Avex Group Official Website
References: *The company was registered June 1, 1973. When it was founded in 1988, its original name is Avex DD Incorporated (エイベックス・ディー・ディー株式会社 Eibekkusu Di Di Kabushiki Gaisha?).[1]
* The company's headquarters was originally located in Machida, Tokyo.[1]

Avex Group Holdings Inc. (エイベックス・グループ・ホールディングス株式会社 Eibekkusu Gurūpu Hōrudingusu Kabushiki-gaisha?), listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange as 7860 and abbreviated as AGHD, is the holding company for a group of entertainment-related subsidiaries based in Japan. The word Avex is actually an acronym of the English words Audio Visual Expert.

With leading producer's Tetsuya Komuro's assistance, Avex became Japan's leading dance record company during the nineties, and continues producing and recording some of Japan's most famous pop singers such as Japan's highest selling solo musician, Ayumi Hamasaki. The company also provides theme music soundtracks to many anime and a few video games through its subsidiary Avex Mode.

Avex Group is mainly known in Japan because of its flagship music imprint, Avex Trax, which was founded in 1990. It is one of the top three record labels in Japan since the Komuro period[2], and is currently the second biggest, behind Sony Music Japan.

Contents

History

Avex Group Headquarters (a.k.a. Avex Building), finished in 2002 and funded by Sumitomo Life. Located in Minami-Aoyama, Tokyo.

1988-1999: The Early Years

The company was established in 1988 as "Avex D.D., Inc", a CD wholesaler based in Machida, Tokyo.

They opened a recording studio and created Avex Trax as a music label in September 1990. In the same year, they created "Musique Folio Inc.", a music publishing company, which later became "Prime Direction Inc."

In 1993, they transferred to Aoyama, Tokyo and created a U.S. branch, called "AV Experience America Inc." The year also marked the first of Avex's yearly events. It was held in Tokyo Dome under the name "avex rave '93" and attracted 50,000 attendees. This also marked the foundation of the Cutting Edge label.

In 1994, they formed two UK subsidiaries, "Rhythm Republic Limited" and "Avex U.K. Limited". Later that year, they opened a disco, claimed on their website to be "the world's largest scale disco", named as Velfarre.[3]

In 1997, they opened a series of concert halls called "Zepp" along with Sony Music Entertainment Japan.

In early 1999, they signed an agreement with Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records to handle both companies' Japanese CD releases. Later that year "Avex Mode", an animation company, was established. In December, still of the same year, the company was listed on the 1st section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol 7860.[4]

2000-2009: In Times of Unity and Divisiveness

In 2001, Avex opened "avex artists academy", a music school.[5]

In 2002, they released the "CCCD", a type of copy-protected CD, and built their building in Aoyama {Sumitomo Life answered the expenses, worth 205 billion yen.}.

In 2003, they opened a classical music business (named as Avex Classics).[6]

In 2004, they began selling Japanese music CDs in South Korea. At the same date, Avex President Max Matsuura "spotted" former-idol Ami Suzuki performing live at the annual festival of their school, Nihon University. He subsequently signed her to the Avex label.[7]

In 2005, Avex acquired distribution rights for Aozora Records' catalogue including all future Hitomi Yaida releases.[8]

In early 2008, Avex has partnered with Victor JVC to officially create the label D-topia Entertainment as a business partnership between the two labels and its founder, Terukado Onishi, with the sales promotion handled by Victor while the area promotion handled by Avex. Later that year, as part of the Avex Group's 20th anniversary celebration, the big project is occurring with avex trax's ever "produced by avex trax" artists, the band Girl Next Door formed and debuted in September 2008.

2004: Matsuura versus Yoda

In August 2004, a feud between Max Matsuura and co-founder Tom Yoda almost ruined the group.[9] It started because of Yoda's ambition to expand Avex into other entertainment-related ventures, especially producing movies.[10]In addition, he accused Ryuhei Chiba, the company's executive director and also the president of Axev Inc. (now Avex Planning and Development), of pursuing personal profit from a few big artists.[9]

July 30 - On a board meeting, Yoda introduced a resolution calling on Chiba to resign because of an alleged conflict of interest. A source says the disagreement arose because Chiba had signed to Axev an artist managed by a member of his family. The board backed Yoda's resolution in a 6-1 vote. However, Matsuura—described by insiders as a close ally of Chiba's—then introduced a second resolution demanding that Yoda step down due to "a difference of opinion in management principles." Matsuura's motion was defeated 5-2. He and Chiba resigned the next day.[11]

August 2 - Matsuura and Chiba announced resignation from their respective positions on a meeting with employees of Avex. On the meet, Chiba tearfully denied committing any fault, while Matsuura complained that Avex had lost its love of music and said he wanted to start over.They have the support of many staff who also said they would quit. More significantly, the label's top star, Ayumi Hamasaki, also said she's off with the company.[9] As a result, Avex's stocks in the TSE fell by 16 percent that day.[12]

August 3 - Due to pressure by employees and artists and to save the company from going bankrupt (since the company's stocks plunged),Yoda resigned and was replaced by Toshio Kobayashi.[1][9]

2010-Present: What's More for Avex Group?

On November 24, 2010, Avex Entertainment, as well as SM Entertainment Japan, released a statement about the renewal of contracts of SM artists BoA, Tohoshinki, J-Min, Super Junior, and SHINee, which are signed to Avex.[13]

AGHD is also currently listed at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Börse München of Germany under the ticker symbol AX8.[14]

More K-pop artists from other agencies than SM Entertainment continued to signed with Avex such as YG Entertainment's 2NE1 (2010), KeyEast Entertainment's former SS501 member Kim Hyung Jun (2011), Pledis Entertainment's After School (2011), NH Media's U-KISS (2011)[15] and Yejeon Media's Shu-I (2011).[16]

On July 21, 2011, it was announced that Avex paired with Korean management label YG Entertainment to form YGEX Entertainment.[17]

Changes in corporate name

Since its foundation, its corporate name was Avex D.D., Incorporated, and ten years later it was changed to Avex, Incorporated.

The current name, Avex Group Holdings, Incorporated, was adopted in 2004 as part of reconstruction process after Tom Yoda's resignation. Avex Group Holdings, Incorporated was used for the main subsidiaries, while the old name (Avex, Incorporated) was for entertainment components of the Group.

In 2005, Avex, Incorporated became Avex Entertainment, Incorporated, and stayed on as part of the Group.


IFPI Membership

The Group is a member of the IFPI for Hong Kong and Japan.[18]

A-Nation

Each year since 2002, Avex has hosted a summer concert tour around Japan, "a-nation", featuring the company's most successful acts.

It is held every weekends of August.

Top Avex acts like Ayumi Hamasaki, Kumi Koda, AAA, Ai Otsuka, BoA, Do As Infinity, Hitomi, TRF, Every Little Thing and TVXQ have performed to major crowds each year. In 2008, Namie Amuro made her first appearance at a-nation and performed on all dates that year.[19][20]

Sponsors include Joe Weider and his Weider fitness products, Seven & I Holdings Co., NTT DoCoMo, Mizuno Corp., Nissay (through its You May Dream! Project), and others.

Ruling the Japanese pop world

According to CNN, Sony Music Entertainment Japan ceded the entire tanned skin cultural world to Avex as competition increases.[21]

Subsidiaries

In April 2010 - the Avex Group corporation was re-structured to establish Avex Music Publishing Inc. as a consolidated subsidiary, in a corporate spin-off of music publishing division of Avex Group Holdings Inc. Thus the Avex Group became a pure holding company, with a corporate structure as follows:[22]

Domestic consolidated subsidiaries

  • Avex Entertainment Inc
  • Avex Broadcasting & Communications Inc
  • Binyl Records Inc[23]
  • Avex Management Inc[24]
  • Avex Marketing Inc
  • Hatch Entertainment Inc[25]
  • Muzie Co. Ltd.[26]
  • Para TV Inc[27]
  • Avex Live Creative Inc[28]
  • Avex Planning & Development Inc[29]
  • Avex Music Publishing Inc

Foreign consolidated subsidiaries

  • Avex International Holdings Ltd - Management and supervision of Avex Hong Kong, Avex Taiwan and Avex China
  • Avex Hong Kong Limited (formerly known as Avex Asia - Est. Sept 1996)[22] - renamed in Nov 2008[30]
  • Avex Taiwan Inc. - Est. July 1998[22][31]
  • Avex China Co Ltd - Est. Nov 2006[32]
  • Avex Hawaii Inc[33]

Companies affiliated with Avex

Music labels

  • Avex Casa (house music and electronica)
  • Avex Classics (classical music)
  • Avex Club (compilation albums)
  • Avex Globe (globe's label)
  • Avex Ideak
  • Avex International (international releases)
  • Avex IO[38]
  • Avex Trance (trance music)
  • Avex Trax (first record label of the Group (1990.09))
  • Avex Tune (dance music)
  • Bareknuckle
  • Binyl Records (rock music)
  • Blowgrow[42]
  • Commmons (joint venture with Ryuichi Sakamoto)
  • Cross-A
  • Cutting Edge (second record label of the Group (1993.12))
  • D-Force
  • Disc du Soleil
  • Dois Irmaos (Lisa Ono)
  • Dwango Music Entertainment (sister company of dwango.jp)
  • Espionage Records (joint venture with Verbal)
  • Five-D Plus
  • Foxtrot (joint venture with Rams Incorporated)[43][44]
  • Hach Entertainment (joint venture with NTT SmartConnect)
  • Hi-BPM Studio
  • HPQ (Visual kei)
  • Idol Street (for idol performers, launched October 2, 2010 by Tatsuo Higuchi[45])[46]
  • J-Friends Project
  • J-More[47]
  • Junk Museum
  • Locomusic (Love-chan's label)
  • Love Life Records (hitomi's label)
  • Mad Pray Records (Anna Tsuchiya's label)
  • Maximum 10
  • Mode '99
  • Motorod Records
  • nakedrecords
  • Oorong Records (joint venture with Oorong-sha Group)
  • Rhythm Republic
  • Rhythm Zone (third record label of the Group (1999))
    • Fluctus
    • Riddim Zone
    • Starz by Rhythm Zone
  • Rising Records
  • Sonic Groove
  • Superb Trax
  • Tachytelic Records (joint venture with Taku Takahashi)
  • Tearbridge Production[48]
  • True Song Music (Dai Nagao's label)
  • Velfarre Records
  • YGEX (joint label with YG Entertainment)
  • Zoom Flicker

Entertainment ventures

  • Animation
    • Avex Mode
  • Television
    • Avex and East (joint venture with East Company)
  • Movies
    • Domestic
      • Avex Entertainment
    • Foreign
  • Artist Management
    • Agape
    • Avex Management
    • Platinum Productions
  • Advertising
    • M!dea Incorporated
  • Digital
    • Avex Broadcasting and Communications (joint venture with NTT docomo)
    • Avex Marketing (digital marketing and website hosting)
    • dwango.jp (20% Ownership)
    • mu-mo.net (Japanese)(own music store of the Group)
    • Prismix
  • Live Shows
  • Magazines
  • Lounges

Labels Distributed

Promotional Projects

  • A-Nation
  • Channel A (syndicated TV program from 1998–2009)

Chief executives

As of June 2010:[54]

International Partners

Locations

  • Japan : Avex Building, 1-30 Minami-Aoyama 3-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-8525
  • China : Room 302, Tianhai Business Building, Block B, 107 North Street, Dongxi, Beijing 100007
  • Hong Kong : Suite 03, 11th Floor, Exchange Tower, 33 Wang Chiu Road, Kowloon Bay, Kowloon

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d ja:エイベックス Avex Group's article on the Japanese Wikipedia.
  2. ^ a b http://books.google.com/books?id=Eg8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q&f=false
  3. ^ http://www.avex.co.jp/e_site/index.html
  4. ^ http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=7860:JP
  5. ^ http://aaa.avex.jp/index.html
  6. ^ http://www.avexnet.or.jp/classics/index.html
  7. ^ Microsoft Word - PooleMT.doc
  8. ^ Start of Commission Sales of the Aozora Records Catalogue, an Avex Group Holdings Inc. press release (September 15, 2005)
  9. ^ a b c d http://www.japan-zone.com/news/2004/08/index.shtml
  10. ^ http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-retail-stores-not/4371079-1.html
  11. ^ http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-retail-stores-not/4649125-1.html
  12. ^ http://www.pacificmediaexpo.com/2005/Yomiuri_20041223.pdf
  13. ^ http://www.avex.co.jp/html/upload_file/top_01/7860_2010112416081903_P01_.pdf
  14. ^ http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=AX8:GR
  15. ^ http://community.livejournal.com/omonatheydidnt/5977874.html
  16. ^ http://shu-i.jp/index.html
  17. ^ http://www.allkpop.com/2011/07/yg-entertainment-and-avex-announce-the-creation-of-ygx
  18. ^ http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_links/member_sites.html
  19. ^ http://a-nation.net/index.html
  20. ^ http://twitter.com/anation_navi
  21. ^ http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/none/kana-nishino-gyarus-favorite-new-singer-444774
  22. ^ a b c http://www.avex.co.jp/e_site/group/history.html
  23. ^ http://bri.binylrecords.com/
  24. ^ http://avex-management.jp/
  25. ^ http://www.hatch-ent.co.jp/
  26. ^ http://www.muzie.ne.jp/
  27. ^ http://paratv.co.jp/
  28. ^ http://www.avexlive.jp/index.html
  29. ^ http://avex-pd.co.jp/
  30. ^ Avex Asia
  31. ^ Avex Taiwan
  32. ^ Avex China
  33. ^ Avex Group Holdings Inc. to Sell Avex Hawaii's Shares to Avex Asia Holdings Ltd. (Reuters)
  34. ^ http://info.dwango.co.jp/english/corp/history.html
  35. ^ http://www.labelgate.com/profile/index.html
  36. ^ http://www.ldh.co.jp/about/index.html
  37. ^ http://recochoku.jp/corporate/company/index.html
  38. ^ http://avex-io.com/
  39. ^ http://www.binylrecords.com/diveindisc/
  40. ^ http://binylrecords.com/martyp/
  41. ^ http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=147884
  42. ^ http://www.blowgrow.co.jp/
  43. ^ http://foxtrot-music.com/link.html
  44. ^ http://twitter.com/FOXTROT_FOXTROT
  45. ^ Tatsuo Higuchi on Facebook
  46. ^ http://idolstreet.jp/index.html
  47. ^ http://j-more.avex.jp/
  48. ^ http://tearbridge.com/index.html
  49. ^ http://www.elephant-picture.jp/index.html
  50. ^ http://avex-pix.co.jp/
  51. ^ http://www.beatfreak.jp/
  52. ^ http://www.alux.jp/
  53. ^ Yamaha Music Communications Inc.
  54. ^ http://www.avex.co.jp/e_site/group/officers.html
  55. ^ http://www.morganrichonline.com/SERVICE.html
  56. ^ http://gmminter.gmember.com/
  57. ^ http://www.ecrsc.com/

External links

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