Lester, whose exisitng CLM Entertainment operation will be merged into Twenty First, replaces Frank Presland, whose contract with the Universal subsidiary expired at the same time as that of it’s most high profile artist, Elton John in March.

“Universal are serious about becoming a major player in management – i wouldn’t have agreed the deal otherwise, ” Lester says of the move. “I’ve got my own ideas about how to achieve that, so it’s a great challenge and one I’m already enjoying.”

Lester’s CLM operation includes long-term client Craig David, while Twenty First looks after platinum-selling stars such as Lily Allen and James Blunt. However, the new CEO is reluctant to talk about the company’s roster, as his review of the business will include making decisions on the future representation of certain artists.

“I’ll be making changes and restructuring Twenty First Artists, but it’s too early to talk about any of that at the moment because it is a complex organisation with lots of deals in place both here and internationally,” says Lester.

But he has definite ideas about the direction he wants to take the business in and reveals that he will be working closely with Universal’s Lucian Grainge and Max Hole to plan the future of the company.

“The business has changed hugely so I want to look at how we can move it forward so that we can assist established artists and help them to build scale, as well as supporting up-and-coming artists and managers,” he continues.

“Unless we move forward with investment it will become increasingly difficult for managers to succeed so I will be looking to offer investment to artists through buying a percentage of their business – excluding publishing, because as an artist manager i respect that the song is the artist’s baby and i don’t want a split of that.”

Among Lester’s immediate priorities are establishing a producer business and setting up a New York office for Twenty First, most likely in Universal’s existing Big Apple premises.

As for his own office, he says he will remain in his exisitng location in the former Virgin Records building at Portobello Dock and Twenty First Artists staff will relocate there following the conclusion of the review.

Whether those employees will include the likes of Lily Allen and James Blunt manager Todd Interland remains to be seen, but Lester comments, “Todd has been very helpful in assisting me to settle in. He’s a great guy and a fantastic manager so we’ll see what he decides is right for his future and of course, best for his acts.”

Music Week – 26th June 2010

Lester is one of the most experienced managers in the industry, having worked with the Arctic Monkeys, Craig David, Travis, and The Brand New Heavies amongst others.

Lester was tapped by Universal Music Group International (UMGI) Chairman and Chief Executive Lucian Grainge and UMGI Executive Vice President Max Hole a few weeks ago.

Lester told A&R Worldwide recently that he would take up the new post immediately, merging his present company, CLM Entertainment, with the Twenty First Artist business. He will work with the artists and managers signed to Twenty First Artistsand at the same time he’ll be reaching out to the next generation of talent to help grow the company. Lester will workout of his Kensal House offices in London.

A&R Worldwide – 26th June 2010

The Stop TB campaign focuses on raising awareness of the deadly disease, killing nearly 2 million people annually. 

David said ” Music is a universal language – I believe that through people’s love of music we can increase knowledge and understanding and support people affected by TB.”

(picture left to right: Colin Lester, Craig David, Dr Marcos A Espinal)

Colin Lester has managed a host of UK and overseas artists that have sold a huge amount of records, Arctic Monkeys, Travis and Remi Nicole amongst the roster however his 10+ year relationship and track record with Craig David is undoubtedly the most successful which Lester states is down to the ‘Honesty’ between the pair. ‘I didn’t expect two years down the line we’d be making records let alone 10 years. The expectation is this business
is very fickle. So at the time as much as I would have hoped to, I remember telling his Mum that I will do everything in my power to make your son successful and I promise as a company we will do our all. And that’s all you can do, promise to give your all. To be honest though, I thought he was an incredibly good artist that would sell records but 10 years down the line, no.’

Colin Lester Management (CLM Entertainment) are still responsible for Craig David up to this date and much of the credit for a career spanning over a decade must go to the artist but widely the management
and the way they have taken care of their artist and his affairs. What is special about Colin Lester’s style of management is that he is a real businessman that has a broad understanding of music, what makes it relevant, what makes it likeable and ultimately what makes it sell. ‘The thing that keeps any artist relevant is the records they make.’
For a man that has been in the music industry for over 30 years, the well spoken Londoner has a knowledge of music that others can only envy. His career has seen him sell an abundance of records over three decades however he is adamant that the Music Industry has not changed as much as others claim. ‘The Music Industry, as much as others would like to tell you has changed actually hasn’t changed at all. And the reasoning behind that is very simple, A+B=C. A is a great song, B is radio, media, TV, press exposure etc and C=sales which is a hit. The only thing that has changed is the sales as the volume and the way people can access and buy Music has changed drastically but the basic equation has never changed. So ultimately you’ll be judged by the records you make, there is no other formula to go by because if your song is being played all over radio and TV then it will turn into a hit.’

The acts that Colin Lester has managed or still manages now have not been the typical one-hit wonder acts, they have all had sustainability and Lester points that this is because of a specific reason. ‘The key to any long term artist is the song, the song is the currency of our business. Therefore if you are a songwriter, it just so happens that you can write your own hits therefore it’s likely you will have a longer career than the artists that are potentially waiting for someone to write their next hit, so for me, song writing is always the number one thing that defines long term careers. Therefore the artists that will be around in ten years will be the ones that have ability to write global hits. And that is the important thing about Craig, he sells records in virtually every country in the world.’ A man of strong opinions, less bothered by smaller hindrances such as X Factor and other reality TV shows affecting his chances of finding talent, he is much more concerned about matters which affect his artists themselves, a credit to his loyalty and desire to constantly achieve the best for them. ‘What makes my job difficult these days is the illegal downloading. Which is strangely called file sharing which I cannot understand, as we are not sharing files, let’s be honest. Sharing is a word we were taught to respect as children so by using words like sharing children do not actually understand that they are stealing. The problem that we have in nurturing new talent, rather than the reality TV programmes causing problems is that the record labels have a lack of funds to invest into new talent due to the amount of money they continuously lose annually from people illegal stealing music. As an artist manager that is a very important issue for me personally. I get so upset and passionate about it as it is a real issue that not only affects my acts but also other artists.’
Lester acts as what is known as a ‘Visiting Fellow’ to Southampton Solent University where he lectures about the Music Industry. ‘It is interesting speaking to some of the students whom are on the managementcourse, as they find it difficult to see how one can make money due to this downloading issue. You have to be much more dynamic as an artist and as a manager in the industry nowadays to actually make money.

In terms of the other acts under CLM Entertainment, Remi Nicole is working on a new album, signed to Island Records, ‘She’s a great young artist and you’ll hear a lot more from her. She has a new single that will be out soon that is produced by Bless Beats which is a great record. You will also be hearing
from a new act I recently signed called The Alfonz, a band from Swindon, 18 year old guys who write great songs and recently done the Glastonbury BBC Radio 1 Introducing Stage.’
The motto for CLM Entertainment is ‘We will be defined by what artists we sign.’ Lester added, ‘I look for acts that write their own songs and can articulate their music in a positive manner.’ One thing that is certain from speaking to Mr Lester is his passion for music and also his passion to succeed and put his all into making his acts the best they can possibly be. In an era where glitz and glamour is favoured over long and hard grafts it is refreshing to see someone who has had a successful career that still promises to flourish, nurture and develop some of the finest talent the UK and International Music Scene has had the pleasure of being witness to.

Musicology Magazine – April 2010

Pink Floyd and Queen, bands that have been with EMI Music for about four decades, may head for the door, according to two people familiar with their talks, as concern mounts about the U.K. record label’s finances.

Pink Floyd, whose catalog includes such albums as ”Dark Side Of The Moon” and “The Wall,” and Queen, with its best- selling single “Bohemian Rhapsody,” have met with other major record labels about leaving, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.

Guy Hands, whose Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd. bought EMI for 4 billion pounds ($6 billion) at the height of the buyout boom in 2007, has until June to convince the firm’s investors to inject new capital to keep EMI afloat. Without that funding, EMI may end up in the hands of creditor Citigroup Inc. and may merge with a rival, analysts said.

“This is how a company implodes,” said Claire Enders, a former EMI executive and the head of Enders Analysis Ltd., a London-based music and entertainment research firm. EMI rivals Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group are likely courting the label’s top artists such as Lily Allen and Katy Perry, she said.

Adding to the turmoil, Hands is suing Citigroup, saying the bank tricked Terra Firma into buying EMI in 2007. In a letter to Hands, part of court documents filed Feb. 4 in New York, EMI Music Chief Executive Officer Elio Leoni-Sceti wrote that morale at the company has reached a low and that artists are questioning whether to stay.

Under Pressure

EMI is in talks with artists, “all of whom are questioning to some degree whether it is wise to continue a relationship with EMI,” Leoni-Sceti wrote in the Oct. 2 letter, saying their concerns were sparked by a Citigroup report on EMI’s prospects. Leoni-Sceti was named to the top job by Hands in July 2008 with no music industry experience.

Neil Bennett, a spokesman for London-based EMI, the world’s fourth-largest record company, declined to comment for this story.

Mark Fenwick, the manager for Pink Floyd, declined to discuss the contract with EMI. The group, which first signed with the label in 1967, last year sued EMI and Terra Firma for what it said were miscalculated royalty payments.

Jim Beach, the manager of Queen, declined to comment on plans for its EMI contract. Queen signed with EMI in 1972.

EMI’s management style since Hands took over sparked outbursts from several top artists, including Lily Allen and Joss Stone. Industry executives have accused Hands of running the label like a hedge fund rather than a creative shop.

Artistic Differences

Terra Firma’s acquisition of EMI Group Ltd. just weeks before the credit markets collapsed in 2007 was the firm’s largest. Hands started the firm in 2002 raising 2.1 billion euros ($2.9 billion) for investments such as the German rest- stop chain Autobahn Tank & Rast Holding GmbH.

Radiohead and the Rolling Stones abandoned EMI when Hands took over, and as contracts with Pink Floyd, Queen and Robbie WIlliams come up for renewal, EMI faces the prospect of one or all leaving.

EMI Grammy Award winner Joss Stone last month asked on her Web page, “What manager will want their band signed to a company which might not exist in its current form in a year’s time?”

“The mistake Hands made is basically coming into a business he didn’t fully understand,” said Colin Lester, who signed the Arctic Monkeys and Travis and manages Grammy Award- nominated Craig David. “It’s important to have relationships with artists and it’s not based on the same matrix as other businesses.”

Back to Warner?

EMI, home to the Beatles, last month posted a 1.5 billion- pound annual loss and said its liabilities exceeded assets by 408 million pounds as of March 31, 2009. Terra Firma has asked EMI for a new business plan and needs the approval of 75 percent of investors to put more capital in by end-June.

Speculation that Warner Music Group will bid for the U.K. music company has also heated up. Should EMI breach debt covenants, Citigroup could take control of the company and sell it to Warner Music. New York-based Warner Music made way for Hands to buy EMI after abandoning a takeover in July 2007. On Feb. 9, Warner Music Chief Executive Officer Edgar Bronfman JR. said regulatory hurdles shouldn’t prevent his company, the world’s third-largest record label, from buying EMI.

“The current expectation is that EMI will cease to be owned by Terra Firma and Citigroup will take it over and sell it Warner,” Enders said. Amanda Collins, a spokeswoman for Warner Music, declined to comment.

Lily Allen, Robbie Williams

To cut debt, EMI considered selling Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles recorded most of their songs, only to withdraw the plan last month after a public outcry led to the site being put on a protected list by English Heritage.

“They could have a yard sale and sell the gold records off the wall, but I don’t think that’s going to solve the problem,” said Ted Cohen, a former senior vice president of EMI’s global digital operation.

For artists renegotiating contracts, the lure of a financially sound company such as Universal Music or Sony is obvious, said Jonathon Shalit, who manages Myleene Klass and Jamelia. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you’d sign with a solid company.”

Lily Allen early last year told The Word magazine she “hated” Terra Firma. “They don’t know how to run a creative business. They are killing us, frankly.”

Robbie Williams’s manager, Tim Clark, who two years ago said Hands behaved like a “plantation owner,” has changed his tune, telling Music Week magazine in February that EMI “really got a grip with things” on its operational side. Clark didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

‘Period of Flux’

EMI has had some victories. Lady Antebellum, a country band signed to EMI, was this year’s first to sell a million albums in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan. It was the fastest to cross the million-mark since 2005, SoundScan said. EMI has also had 200 new signings globally in the last 18 months, including Cypress Hill and American Voodoo.

Still, Scott Booker, manager of the Flaming Lips, said the cloud over Terra Firma and EMI does influence whether he would advise one of his acts to sign with the label.

“Would I sign to EMI right now? No,” said Booker, who also heads of the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma. “I’d wait to see where the dust settles; there is going to be a period of flux over there. Why get in the middle of that? They just can’t afford to promote and market the same way they used to.”

Changing Hands

EMI’s challenges come against the backdrop of the music industry grappling with declining CD sales amid piracy and a shift in consumer preference for digital downloads. U.S. compact disc sales fell 65 percent from 2000 to 2009, according to SoundScan. Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record label, reported revenue fell 6.2 percent last year to 4.36 billion euros.

EMI’s Leoni-Sceti has said the company’s revenue will rise in the current year, after gaining 4.6 percent in the 12 months ended in March 2009. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization more than tripled to 163 million pounds. EMI has said it sees earnings by that measure rising to 200 million pounds this year.

After buying EMI, Hands changed the management team. Former CEO Eric Nicoli left shortly after Hands bought the company. He was replaced by cleaning-products executive Leoni-Sceti, the former head of Europe for Reckitt Benckiser Plc.

‘EMI’s Heritage’

“Hands came with a clear statement of intent to do things differently,” said Mark Mulligan, a music industry analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in London. “Hands and Terra Firma’s principles are very sound and he made some very shrewd moves, but at the same time he reacted just as strongly on what he saw as excesses.”

Terra Firma in November offered to inject 1 billion pounds into EMI in return for a similar cut in the music company’s 2.5 billion-pound debt held by Citigroup, people with knowledge of the talks said then. Citigroup spurned the offer, saying it would have forced the bank to write off debt without getting equity in EMI.

“My hope is that EMI either gains strength by being able to borrow what it needs or merge with another label,” said Lester, the manager who signed Arctic Monkeys. “The heritage of EMI is important to the music industry.”

……The Duty Of Care Panel, for example, witnessed an epic clash between Colin Lester and, well, everyone else over the question of artist care. While panellists such as Squeeze’s Chris Difford argued passionately for the creation of a music industry fund to help artists afford rehab, Lester was having none of it. “Artists look at me to secure their career comercially. I am not a nanny,” he blasted, adding later. ” I don’t give a shit about being fired. I have a contract and a good lawyer.”

Smith, who took part in a popular closing panel yesterday alongside Mark Ronson and author John Harris, was asked about his role in A&Ring Ronson’s Versions album after he moved to Columbia from EMI Publishing.

His reply touched on the importance of packing albums with hits, now that consumers can cherry pick single tracks.

“These days you have got to have three or four big songs on a record,” he said. “That is a change that is really forcing A&R men to be A&R men. You can’t just put out a song for your fanbase. That isn’t enough to have hit singles.”

Ronson them proclaimed himself to be a “fan of” the album, leading Harris to question whether they were saddened by the “inevitable slide” into a track-based model.

Smith replied, “I feel that music is potentially getting better because you have to make better albums. I am not convinced there will be a track-based market. I think musicians want to put out a body of work.”

Earlier in the day former Island md Marc Marot and former Island A&R David Gilmour locked horns with CLM’s Colin Lester over the possibility of creating a music industry fund to help out struggling musicians with addiction problems.

Gilmour and Marot argued in favour of a scheme – the likes of which already exists in the US – but Lester argued the move was akin to starting a charity. Lester said, “That is what you are talking about. I would be happy to pay for a charity. But if you are asking the industry to back it, I would rather the industry backs education about copyright.”

The oft-ignored question of how to try and keep artists on the straight and narrow will form the basis for one of the panels at this year’s In The City conference.

With the circumstances around Michael Jackson’s death still front-page news some three months after the event and Amy Winehouse’s every move under tabloid scrutiny, the panel is set to be a cornerstone of the conference, which takes place in Manchester between October 18-20.

Panellists will include Island Records co-president Darcus Beese, who signed Winehouse to the label, Squeeze’s Chris Difford, who is now also a musical therapist, CLM Entertainment  CEO Colin Lester  and addiction specialist and director of Recover Now David Gilmour.

The panel will try to address how those working with artists fulfil a duty of care and ask why stardom becomes too much for some artists. Gilmour explains that he is keen to hear what other people on the panel have to say about an issue that is all too readily swept under the carpet.

“A lot of the time people bury their heads in the sand,” he says. “I am sure at the end of the day they [the music industry] always want what is best for their artists and for the artists to be in as good a health as possible. But the music industry has a reputation that it can consume people. If you are someone with an addictive personality you can find yourself in lots of trouble.”

Also announced today (Monday) is an author panel, in which celebrated music authors such as Kill Your Friends writer John Niven and Andrew Collins will tackle the question of how to write about rock and roll.

He was also took issue with the FAC’s claim that it didn’t want to see music fans “criminalised”, arguing that the current government proposals involving net suspension were not about criminalising fans at all, and that the artist body’s use of such words was deliberately emotive. Such was his disagreement with the FAC’s original statement, the artists he represents – most notably Craig David and Remi Nicole - resigned from the Coalition.

In his letter to Team Mandelson, he writes: “I and the artists I represent agree that this issue is the key challenge facing our industry and that the longer we dither about the rights and wrongs of taking punitive action against those who steal our livelihoods the worse the situation will get. Whilst the vast majority of those involved in music agree that illegal file-sharing is wrong there remains an ongoing debate as to how to tackle it”.

He continues: “The recent argument put forward by the Featured Artists’ Coalition that ‘the stick is now in danger of being way out of proportion to the carrot’ fails to recognise the fact that ‘carrot’ approach has failed miserably! There has also been a point of view advanced that illegal file-sharing is good for the marketing and promotion of music. There is some truth in that but the benefits of any positive promotion gained through illegal distribution are, in my opinion, far outweighed by the damage caused to the future income of the creators of and investors in that music. Let us not forget that artists and copyright owners still retain the right to give away their music if they choose to, but it should be remembered that is their right to give it away not the consumer’s right to steal it”.

He concludes: “The music consumer, as with any other citizen of this country, cannot simply choose which laws to obey and which to ignore. Without enforcement and punishment of those who break the law any legislation is pointless. We must advocate and support a zero tolerance policy against illegal file-sharing and to take a united stance against this issue before we don’t have an industry left to defend”.

I think its fair to say the management community is split on this issue, with many seeing both sides of the argument. While the Music Managers’ Forum didn’t formally back the Featured Artists Coalition’s original critical statement of the government’s proposals, some of its key members have been quietly supporting it. Others, like Lester, have no sympathy with music fans who continue to access music illegally. Whether the FAC’s attempts at a compromise last night will satisfy any differences of opinion in the management community I’m not sure.