December 2008
16 posts
Shoutout to Hello Martin →
Bulldog Gin - great new brand in a tired market. →
Watcha christmas treat for all my friends - from a forthcoming documentary on the last days of CBGBs and it’s founder, Hilly Kristal. for those that don’t know it, I was involved as an Executive Producer and led the sale of the documentary.
The FBI's Elite Art Theft Squad →
“If one looks at the fact that no court has yet applied the Wire Act to Internet...”
– Great quote from Lode Van Den Hende [EU and WTO legal expert] on the current lawsuit against PartyGaming Plc founder Anurag Dikshit regarding the company’s supposed violation of the Wire Act. This is the first time this Act has been applied to Internet gambling beyond sports-betting. Despite...
Brand Strength Can Create Tangible Value For Your...
Below is my first post as a contributing writer for the blog collegemogul.com. I have recently decided to write once a week for the site primarily on topics relating to the consumer and powerful brands. You can find the original post here.
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I never really understood the power of a brand until joining Virgin Group. It’s not something...
“The mission of the NYU Game Center will be to produce the next generation of...”
– Pretty cool. A great move as New York has lagged behind other major cities like SF when it comes to game industry presence.
Brand of the Week...
Vosges Haut-Chocolate. Chocolatier Katrina Markoff realized her dream a long time ago to make chocolate and has been crushing it ever since. While I love the premium pricing and great packaging [the purple is instantly recognizable], the real value to the consumer here is that fact that Katrina is constantly innovating around the central theme of chocolate having no boundaries. ...
Online Gambling Market Overview →
I did a short overview of the online gambling market for some colleagues. Enjoy.
Capital Markets Observations...
Most recent article in the NY Times really exhibits the problems and the shift of power going on in Alternatives as an asset class. We are going through a fundamental change in the PE/VC space right now. A few key things I notice:
-Unprecedented GP/LP conflict has shifted the balance of power and capital back to the LP
-Significant pressure on 2/20 economics
-Blind capital pools are being...
“Elite Island Resorts, a chain of upscale hotels — including the St. James’s Club...”
– Genius idea. This is perhaps one of the most creative ways to create instant value from unutilized space, get extra upside and generate significant positive PR at low cost. It is a rarity to find such innovative marketing and financial acumen in the same person in the hospitality industry.
Pitchfork/Fader Team Up…
Really interesting news coming out of the online music space recently – Pitchfork and Fader have joined forces [kind of] to achieve economies of scale and make bank. Each company will keep its ad sales and editorial teams intact but will maintain an extensive advertising and sponsorship relationship across print, online, festivals, events and unique content exchanges.
This reminds me a lot of the...
Pink Slips for EMI Dealmakers
Image via Wikipedia
Apparently not even PE guys can figure it out. Article in the FT yesterday stating that the top two EMI dealmakers from Terra Firma are getting canned. You might remember that Guy Hands bought the music business in mid-2007 in a £6.2 billion ($7.8 billion) transaction and put in these two guys [Chris Roling as COO and CFO and Ashley Unwin as COO for the U.K. and North...