The Stage

Cowell and Green team up for global entertainment company

Published Thursday 25 June 2009 at 10:40 by Michael Quinn

Pop guru Simon Cowell and Topshop owner Sir Philip Green – the UK’s ninth richest man with a fortune of more than £4 billion – are to join forces to create an entertainment production company.

The partnership will create a holding company for Cowell’s television and recording interests – which include The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent – and is also expected to develop new programmes and formats for the international market. One source says the company will be called Greenwell Entertainment.

The unlikely alliance is the product of a decade’s friendship between the two men who have been holding a series of meetings recently in Los Angeles to finalise the deal.

One of the first projects likely to be managed by the new company is Cowell’s new contract with 19 Entertainment for the American Idol talent show. According to a report in The Financial Times, the move will make Cowell the highest paid star on American television. His current contract is worth £20 million. In the UK, ITV paid him a similar amount for a three-year production and presenting agreement.

Cowell is said to be “keen to agree new deals” with his existing television and music contracts. His Syco-branded television, recording and film divisions – which look after The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, Pride of Britain and their US-based versions, as well as singing stars Leona Lewis, Westlife and Paul Potts ¬– have lucrative deals with broadcasters, recording companies and sponsors. A crucial contract with Sony Records will be due for renewal next year.

Publicist Max Clifford told Billboard.biz that while an official announcement about the partnership was “a few weeks away” Cowell and Green were exploring “a lot of areas that were mutually beneficial”.

The benefits for Philip Green’s BHS and Arcadia Group of high-street retail names are thought to lie in exploiting programmes and artists through merchandising tie-ins.