AEG Live veteran Randy Phillips has been tapped to lead SFX Entertainment, the electronic dance music concert giant, when it emerges from bankruptcy on Sept. 5, according to sources close to the situation.
Phillips, who during his 13 years as AEG Live’s CEO expanded his division to include Coachella and Stagecoach, initially led an executive search for an SFX boss.
During that process, though, Phillips grew close to the EDM company’s leading investors — Andrew Axelrod of Axar Capital Management and Doug Forsyth of Allianz — while failing to find a successor to founder and former CEO Bob Sillerman, sources said.
Sillerman led SFX into bankruptcy in February after a rash of acquisitions proved unmanageable. He had taken the company public in October 2013 at $13 a share, but the stock drifted steadily lower — despite several unfulfilled take-private overtures by Sillerman. It closed trading at 6.9 cents a share the day it declared bankruptcy.
Sillerman used his IPO war chest to buy such major EDM events as New York’s Electric Zoo and Belgium’s Tomorrowland — assets that Delaware bankruptcy court decided to protect by approving a $15 million lifeline to cover artist booking fees for the summer festival season.
SFX announced in June it might be abandoning a pre-Chapter 11 agreement that would force the company to sell off its assets in bankruptcy.
Hiring Phillips all but confirms a going-concern scenario. If that route is blocked, a source said, Phillips may look to sell SFX to AEG.
AEG could not immediately be reached for comment.