Major Sale Of TEG To US Company Promises 'More & More Local Tours'

8 October 2019 | 4:11 pm | Lauren Baxter

"Business as usual for our touring businesses."

Following the announcement on Friday that US investment company Silver Lake had acquired leading live entertainment and ticketing company TEG, CEO Geoff Jones has promised the acquisition will mean "more and more" tours in Australia. 

"Both TEG Dainty and TEG Live will continue to promote even more than they currently do in Australia and New Zealand," he told The Music today. 

"They'll do more and more local tours and hopefully do an increasing amount regionally and across the globe."

The new ownership structure will see Jones remain head of the senior management team at TEG which was previously owned by Affinity Equity Partners and its affiliates. 

"We're delighted to have Silver Lake as our new owner. I think they're very aligned to our thinking; they're very much into our industry both from a technology and a content side, and they have an exceptionally good reputation," he said. 

"We're very thankful for Affinity Equity Partners for the last period they've owned [and] been custodians of the business. They've done exactly what they said they'd do, which was to allow us to invest in the business both through acquisition and organic growth outside of Australia and New Zealand, which we are firmly entrenched in now. I suppose from management's point of view in the business, we're looking forward to the next stage of our growth under the stewardship of Silver Lake."

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TEG now has its eyes on the UK and Europe market following success in Asia. 

"We have a really good model that we have developed in Australia and New Zealand being what we call the 'TEG Integrated Model'. We are evolving that really well in Asia, which we've done for the last few years, and the natural next step for us is to take that model into the UK and Europe as our next field we want to play in and continue to grow what we do. 

"We want to be a good content business company, we think we already are but we can certainly continue to grow that. We've got a very strong, globally well-known ticketing brand in Ticketek, which we want to expand into different territories and we'll do the same thing. And we've got a strong digital and data analytics capability that we think is also something that we can easily transport into new territories."

Growth in external markets aside, Jones confirmed in both Australia and New Zealand things would remain "business as usual".

"Both of our current promoting businesses will continue to expand into the region and globally where they can with touring," he said. 

"We've created a new content business called TEG Experiences, where we take our family businesses and our exhibitions and put them under new leadership internally. Because, you know, we like to be a company that plays in every spectre of the live content sphere. So business as usual for our touring businesses."

As for whether the acquisition would see the company investing in more arenas and venues locally, Jones confirmed it was not a priority at this stage.

"In Australia and New Zealand, other than... Qudos Bank Arena, it's not an area we've played in too much. We play most elements of the live space but venue management is something we haven't thought much about because there's already very good venue operators... But never say never."

Silver Lake's current portfolio of investments reportedly generates more than $210 billion of revenue annually and includes the likes of The Madison Square Garden Company and UFC. 

"We'll get to know those companies, but synergies? No," Jones stated. 

"They operate as their own entities and we'll just become another portfolio company of Silver Lake. But there's certainly some great brands that are in the Silver Lake portfolio and I'm sure they're brands we'll get to know better."

TEG's recent Australian tours have included the likes of Eminem, Phil Collins, Bon Jovi, Hugh Jackman, Jessica Mauboy and more.