9 minute read
Change, Growth and Innovation
TEG’s Geoff Jones and (below) Hugh Jackman. Courtesy of TEG.
Geoff Jones, Chief Executive of entertainment and ticketing leader, TEG, explains the business’ future growth plans
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Among significant changes in the region’s entertainment industry, the acquisition of leading live entertainment and ticketing platform TEG by multinational technology investment firm Silver Lake Partners has been one of the most significant.
With TEG’s former owner, pan-Asian private equity firm Affinity Equity Partners, having long been rumoured to be looking to sell the ticketing and live entertainment business, which includes the Ticketek ticketing agency, the acquisition by Silver Lake Partners - a major name in global private equity with an emphasis on technology having more than $US43 billion in assets under management - gives the US-fund its first presence in Australia and a significant toehold in Asia.
With over 40 years of experience in ticketing and live entertainment, TEG operates as the exclusive ticketing provider for over 135 venue and promoter clients and delivers 30 million tickets annually for over 30,000 events spanning live sports, concerts, theatre, festivals, and exhibitions across more than 13 countries.
Its integrated live entertainment platform combines ticketing and event promotion, venue management, data analytics and marketing services while TEG promotes over 100 diverse events annually.
Its TEG Live and TEG Dainty divisions have promoted some of the world’s biggest names in live sports and entertainment including Hugh Jackman, Guns N’ Roses, Eminem, Katy Perry, Cirque du Soleil, Jerry Seinfeld, the Brazil national football team, and the breakthrough Australian debut of Intel Extreme Masters esports.
Silver Lake Partners’ interests in sport and entertainment include stakes in China’s Alibaba; Learfield-IMG (the leading US collegiate sports rights marketing group); Fanatics (an online sports team merchandising platform); AMC (the largest global cinema chain); Endeavor (which provides athlete representation); and Oak View Group (the venue operator and North American arena alliance).
It also has stakes in New York’s Madison Square Garden and UFC.
The announcement of Silver Lake Partners’ acquisition, believed to be for around $1.3 billion, also noted that TEG’s senior management team, led by Chief Executive Geoff Jones, will continue to lead the company and remain meaningful equity partners in the new ownership structure.
Ticketek technology for the Apple Watch allows entry to Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium (above) with the iPhone version being used by former NRL star Matt Gillett (below).
Explaining TEG’s attractiveness to its new owner, Jones advises that it is based on “constant growth and profitability with our continuing to develop an integrated model with great content across every vertical - concerts, sport, exhibitions, family events, musical theatre and circus - and our having made really good strategic acquisitions that have added value to our business while our core businesses continue to develop really well.”
Speaking about the acquisition, Jones stated “the team at Affinity have been great partners for us over the last four years and have helped us to continue to scale our business.
“We are confident that Silver Lake is the right partner for the next stage of the company’s growth. Silver Lake brings us deep technology expertise as well as important global entertainment content and live events expertise and relationships which will help us to accelerate the growth of our platform globally.”
Stephen Evans, Managing Director at Silver Lake, added “high quality live sports and entertainment content is more sought after now than ever and represents a massive global addressable market for the company.
“We believe TEG’s innovative and integrated ticketing, content, digital marketing and analytics platform is well positioned to
continue to benefit from increasing consumer demand worldwide.
“We’ve been impressed by TEG’s long-term track record of growth under Geoff Jones, most recently in partnership with the Affinity team, both organically and through strategic acquisitions. We’re excited to partner with Geoff and the entire TEG team and invest further to leverage TEG’s platform and accelerate the company’s growth, both in Asia Pacific and globally.”
Further outlining TEG’s plans that will be driven by its new owner’s funding and technology network, Jones has advised that its Ticketek platform will open in the UK in early 2020.
He states “Ticketek is currently in Australia and New Zealand (and) we’re now operating in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, where we own the businesses in all those places.”
Speaking of the UK, he advised “it’s an interesting market. It’s what we call an allocations market, there are lower barriers to entry.
“We will take a careful approach, we’ll go in there cautiously and build a solid base.”
This, Jones notes is based on having “already sold a couple of million tickets in the UK from our exhibition and family content.”
Having acquired UK-based event promoter and venue operator The MJR Group in August, Jones said TEG’s focus would more likely be away from the stadia and large-scale arena.
He noted “we’re open to venue opportunities but not at the stadium or arena scale. We like the size and the mix of the MJR venues (and) we’re also used to working with different types of content - family shows, esports, conferences - not just live music.
“The MJR Group is a great fit for TEG. It has strong management talent and a clever live entertainment model to which TEG can add ticketing, analytics and digital capability. The MJR Group also brings significant additions to our venue portfolio.”
While Jones sees that the new ownership will make the business more agile in making future acquisitions, he plays down the linking of business activities across Silver Lake Partners’ portfolio, commenting “we will grow our own way … tread our own path.”
Beyond entering the UK market he also advises that an expansion into mainland Europe is likely to follow. The group will also look at more acquisitions across Australia and New Zealand as well as in Asia, and Jones notes “maybe, down the track in the USA.”
However, here he advises that growth won’t be dramatic, despite “a wide range of opportunities being presented to us since being acquired by Silver Lake”, noting “but we won’t go in all guns blazing, we’ll grow incrementally.”
The global expansion will work around TEG’s “integrated model” which has proven to work well in Australia and New Zealand, pointing to TEG Live’s recent promotion of varied content such as Lego Brickman and Real Madrid touring exhibitions as well as a series of matches by the Brazilian national football team in Singapore and, next in, Abu Dhabi.
Looking to Asia, where TEG’s operations are controlled from Singapore, Jones is excited about the potential of the region, commenting “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.”
Jones emphasises the need to understanding the diversity and differences across Asian markets, while pointing out that promotions even work in reverse. Here he cites how TEG is increasingly working with Asian promoters to bring their Cantopop (Cantonese pop music) and K-pop to new markets across the region as well as bringing these acts into Australia, pointing out that they “work particularly well in Melbourne and Sydney.”
Commenting on the challenges in the region, he responds “like all businesses, the challenge is too many things to do and not enough means and time to do it.
“We’re pretty proud of the way we’ve been in the Asian market.
“Each Asian territory is a distinct market, with distinct culture and what the market likes. We explored the market broadly and we’re really pleased with what we’ve done so far. We definitely want to do more there.”
In Australia, it’s ‘business as usual’ for TEG Dainty and TEG Live and even though the company owns Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, further expansion into venue management is not a priority.
It is also worth noting that at the time of the acquisition, Jones commented: “Silver Lake brings us deep technology expertise as well as important global entertainment content and live events expertise and relationships which will help us to accelerate the growth of our platform globally.”
Looking forward, Jones concludes “we are a growth asset with a strong brand with real growth potential with a good model that is sustainable and transferrable to other territories which we intend to do.
“We have a strong team with a lot of consistency and experience and the ability to generate things that will keep our business going strong.
“Above all, in this digital and data driven world that we now live in, you can’t replicate the live entertainment experience easily which is why businesses around the world in this sector are doing well.”
TEG’s reported sale price of $1.3 billion compares with the company’s $640 million just four years earlier when it was sold to Affinity by Nine Entertainment.
The Silver Lake transaction is expected to close imminently, subject to customary closing conditions including approval by the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board.
Geoff Jones is the Chief Executive of leading ticketing, live entertainment and data analytics business, TEG.
His association with the company began in 2007 when he first joined Ticketek. After a stint as a Partner and Director of sports and entertainment business SEL, he returned in 2011 to create TEG’s integrated business model.
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