Sly Dunbar joins board of C2W as Gassan Azan leaves
AN entertainment industry insider and a music icon have joined the board of Caribbean music company C2W as directors of the company.
Sly Dunbar of the Sly and Robbie music duo and Clyde McKenzie were appointed independent directors effective February 1. As Dunbar and McKenzie join the board of C2W, Gassan Azan — CEO of MegaMart — quits it.
In a notice posted on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE), the intellectual property company advised that Neysha Sooden had resigned as director and member of the audit and compensation committees.
“Mr Azan and Mrs Sooden have no disagreements with the Board, the accounts, audit or any other matters relating to their resignation,” C2W said.
The song publisher made $2.1 million in revenue from royalty payments from Barbados during its fourth quarter in 2013.
“These earnings have come out of the exploitation of copyrights and more specifically have been earned through the ‘Performing Right’ collections of radio broadcast,” said the company in a release to the JSE in January. “The amount received thus far totalled US$20,643.37 ($2.1 million).”
Up to its third quarter last year, the company recorded just over US$8,000 ($800,000) in sales since commencing operations in mid-2012.
C2W accumulated losses of US$1.1 million up to September 30, 2013, even while other income (mostly sponsorship) of US$108,000 failed to cover the huge cost of operations.
The board had projected that it would earn US$1.32 million from royalties in 2012, with the expectations that income would grow to US$6.4 million by 2016.
C2W said that it continues to work closely with all Caribbean performing rights societies to create proper integration of its systems, which will show an accurate collection of royalties from the region.
“Other than our own music catalogue, we sub-publish two of the world’s largest music publishers, BMG Chrysalis and Warner Chappell,” said C2W. “We are hopeful that our collective efforts would be recognised by the second quarter of 2014 and onwards, resulting in more royalty collections.”
