SFX Entertainment comes roaring back to life

By Richard Morgan

December 6, 2016 | 11:29pm

SFX Entertainment, the electronic dance-music company that went bust in February, is back with a new name, a new CEO and a spanking- new balance sheet.

The company, which went public in October 2013 as an ambitious roll-up by founder and former boss Bob Sillerman, has changed its name to LiveStyle Inc. and made AEG veteran Randy Phillips its new chief executive.

Its balance sheet, thanks to its quick spin through Chapter 11, doesn’t have a dollar of debt.

“A lot of rock ‘n’ roll these days sounds like electronic dance music — but it’s really just electronic music,” Phillips said, trying to distance his company and the niches from EDM and move them closer to simply EM.

While the corporate moniker was changed to separate the company from its previous, bankrupt operation, the name of its festivals — like Electric Zoo, Spring Awakening and Mysteryland — will stay the same, Phillips said. The company’s headquarters moved to LA from New York.

It’s a clean break from Sillerman — who had great success earlier in his career by amassing, then selling, radio stations and music venues.

But his collection of EDM companies and festivals foundered 27 months after the 2013 initial public offering raised $260 million.

Phillips — who during his 13 years as AEG Live’s chief executive expanded his division to include Coachella and Stagecoach — initially led an executive search for Sillerman’s successor as SFX CEO.

But as he grew close to the EDM company’s leading investors — especially to 70-percent owners Andrew Axelrod of Axar Capital Management, Douglas Forsyth of Allianz Global Investors and former Tribune Broadcasting CEO Nils Larsen — the search circled back to himself.

http://nypost.com/2016/12/06/sfx-entertainment-comes-roaring-back-to-life/