Just the other day I was reporting on EMI’s only (semi-)happy news story of the year, wherein the company managed to raise a significant portion of money to prevent their loans from running out and save their necks for a couple more months, but it seems that the (brief) celebration was ill-timed, as it appears EMI now owes as much as $365 million in pension payments due to an alleged shortfall in funds! Yowza, EMI, that’s a buttload of cash!
The UK’s famous leg-breaker, “Pension Regulator,” has come knocking on EMI’s door and says that the famously in-debt record label needs to fork over the “buttload” of cash so that 22,000 pensioners (with only 500 still working for the company) can get their monthly checks.
However, EMI is all “no way!” and says that they only owe 15 million dollars, which is strange since EMI’s holding company, Maltby Capital Ltd., did their own accounting and said the debt could be $15 million or it could be $292 million. In any case, definitely not $365 million. Maltby claims the variance in numbers is due to “different actuaries using a variety of methodologies.” Sure, Maltby, how about you blame somebody besides actuaries for once.
Now, I know this sounds like bad news, but think of it this way, EMI: 365 million dollars is only a dollar a day for a million years and you can easily sell a Beatles song a day on iTunes for a million years. Oh, you’re also having trouble getting The Beatles on iTunes? That sucks. Just blame Yoko, it works for me.
