Avex Group

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Avex Group Holdings Inc.
Type Public KK (TYO:7860)
Genre Music Record Label
Founded April 11, 1988: registered June 1, 1973 and originally located in Machida, Tokyo[1]
Founder(s) Masato "Max" Matsuura
Tom Yoda
Ken Suzuki (now on S2S Pte Ltd)
Headquarters 3-1-30 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku,Tokyo, Japan 107-8525
Area served Asia
Key people Masato "Max" Matsuura- CEO

Ryuhei Chiba- Co-CEO
Takashi Araki- COO, Senior ED
Toshio Kobayashi- CFO, Senior MD
Shinji Hayashi- CIO, Senior MD
Hiroshi Inagaki- MD
Hisashiko Iida- MD
Hajime Taniguchi- MD
Katsuro Oshita- MD
Hiroyuki Kishi- MD
Tadasu Ohe- MD
Toru Arakawa- MD
Shin Ushijima- MD
Minoru Onozato- MD

Nobuo Kawakami- MD
Industry Music and Entertainment
Products CDs, DVDs
Revenue 4,229.6 million yen
Owner(s) 1-The Master Trust Bank of Japan-6.39%
2-Max Matsuura-4.85%
3-Toshio Kobayashi-4.85% [1]
Employees 1,344 (Correct at end of March,2009, according to their official site)
Subsidiaries see Sub-labels and Subsidiaries
Website Avex Group Official Website

Avex Group Holdings Inc. (エイベックス・グループ・ホールディングス株式会社 Eibekkusu Gurūpu Hōrudingusu Kabushiki-gaisha?) TYO: 7860 is the holding company for a group of entertainment-related subsidiaries based in Japan. The origin of the word Avex comes from the English words Audio Visual Expert.

Avex was Japan's leading dance record company during the nineties, and continues producing and recording some of Japan's most famous J-pop singers such as Japan's highest selling female musician, Ayumi Hamasaki. Avex Trax also provides theme music soundtracks to many anime and a few video games.

Contents

[edit] History

The company was established in 1988 as "Avex D.D., Inc", a CD wholesaler based in Machida, Tokyo. They opened a recording studio and created Avex Trax as a music label in September 1990. In the same year, they created "Musique Folio Inc.", a music publishing company, which later became "Prime Direction Inc." In 1993, they transferred to Aoyama, Tokyo and created a U.S. branch, called "AV Experience America Inc." The year also marked the first of Avex's yearly events. It was held in Tokyo Dome under the name "avex rave '93" and attracted 50,000 attendees. In 1994, they formed two UK subsidiaries, "Rhythm Republic Limited" and "Avex U.K. Limited". Later that year, they opened a disco, claimed on their website to be "the world's largest scale disco", named as Velfarre.[2]

In 1997, they opened a series of concert halls called "Zepp" along with Sony Music Entertainment Japan and created another label, Cutting Edge. In early 1999, they signed an agreement with Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records to handle both companies' Japanese CD releases. Later that year "Avex Mode", an animation company, was established. In December, still of the same year, the company was listed on the 1st section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol 7860.[3]

In 2001, Avex opened "avex artists academy", a music school.[4] In 2002, they released the "CCCD", a type of copy-protected CD, and built their building in Aoyama {Sumitomo Life answered the expenses, worth 205 billion yen.}. In 2003, they opened a classical music business (named as Avex Classics).[5] In 2004, they began selling Japanese music CDs in South Korea.

In 2004, Avex President Max Matsuura "spotted" former-idol Ami Suzuki performing live at the annual festival of their school, Nihon University. He subsequently signed her to the Avex label.[6] But a feud between him {Matsuura} and co-founder Tom Yoda almost ruined the group. It came to an end on Yoda's resignation and his replacement by Toshio Kobayashi.[1]

In 2005, Avex acquired distribution rights for Aozora Records' catalogue including all future Hitomi Yaida releases.[7]

As part of the Avex Group's 20th anniversary celebration, the big project is occurring with avex trax's ever "produced by avex trax" artists, the band Girl Next Door formed and debuted in September 2008.

The Group is a member of the IFPI for Hong Kong and Japan.[8]

[edit] A-Nation

Each year since 2002, Avex has hosted a summer concert tour around Japan, "a-nation", featuring the company's most successful acts. Top Avex acts like Hitomi, Kumi Koda, Ai Otsuka, BoA, Tohoshinki, TRF, Every Little Thing and Ayumi Hamasaki have performed to major crowds each year. In 2008, Namie Amuro made her first appearance at a-nation and performed on all dates that year.[9]

[edit] Artists

See also: List of Avex Trax artists

[edit] Sub-labels and Subsidiaries

[edit] Music

  • Avex Classics[10] - label for classical music
  • Avex Club[11] - label for music collection
  • Avex Globe - Globe's label
  • Avex Ideak
  • Avex International[12] - label for foreign artists
  • Avex IO[13] - label for alternative and New Age music
  • Avex Trance
  • Avex Trax - one of the three major labels of the Avex Group, label for various genres
  • Avex Tune - label for dance pop singers like Da Pump
  • Bareknuckle
  • Binyl Records[14] - label for rock music
  • Blowgrow[15] - label for rock, acoustic and alternative music
  • Commmons[16] - joint venture with Ryuichi Sakamoto
  • Cross-A
  • Cutting Edge - one of the three major labels, label for alternative, rock music, acoustic and contemporary R&B
  • D-Force - label for Techno music
  • Disc du Soleil
  • Espionage Records[17] - heartsdales' label
  • Five-D Plus
  • Fluctus[18]
  • Hi-BPM Studio
  • J-Friends Project
  • J-More[19] - label for blues, enka and New Age
  • Junk Museum[20] - rock music label
  • Love Life Records - hitomi's label
  • Mad Pray Records - Anna Tsuchiya's label
  • Maximum 10
  • Mode '99
  • Motorod Records
  • nakedrecords
  • Oorong Records
  • Rhythm Republic
  • Rhythm Zone - one of the three major labels, label for contemporary R&B and hip-hop
  • Rising Records
  • Sonic Groove - label for J-pop and contemporary R&B
  • Starz by Rhythm Zone[21]
  • Superb Trax
  • Tearbridge Production[22] - label for rock, contemporary R&B and alternative music
  • True Song Music - Dai Nagao's label
  • Velfarre Records
  • Zoom Flicker

[edit] Entertainment (Movie and TV)

  • Agape
  • Avex and East - joint venture with East Company
  • Avex Broadcasting and Communications - joint venture with NTT docomo
  • Avex Entertainment
  • Avex Mode - animation company of the Group
  • PiX Incorporated[23] - distributor of foreign movies
  • Platinum Productions
  • Prismix

[edit] Others

  • Avex Live Creative[24]
  • Avex Management
  • Avex Marketing
  • Avex Planning and Development
  • Beat Freak Magazine[25]
  • Dwango
  • M!dea Incorporated[26] - an advertising company
  • mu-mo - rival of Mora
  • Velfarre

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c [1] Avex Group's article on the Japanese Wikipedia.
  2. ^ [2] Avex Group's Company Developments, according to its official site.
  3. ^ [3] Avex Group Holdings Inc.'s Official Quote, courtesy of Bloomberg L.P..
  4. ^ [4] Avex Artist Academy's Official Site.
  5. ^ [5] Avex Classics's Official Site.
  6. ^ Microsoft Word - PooleMT.doc
  7. ^ [6] Start of Commission Sales of the Aozora Records Catalogue, an Avex Group Holdings Inc. press release (September 15, 2005)
  8. ^ IFPI Member Record Companies IFPI
  9. ^ [7] A-Nation's Official Site.
  10. ^ Avex Classics
  11. ^ Avex Club
  12. ^ Avex International
  13. ^ Avex IO
  14. ^ Binyl Records
  15. ^ Blowgrow
  16. ^ Commmons
  17. ^ Espionage Records
  18. ^ Fluctus
  19. ^ J-More
  20. ^ Junk Museum
  21. ^ Starz by Rhythm Zone
  22. ^ Tearbridge Production
  23. ^ PiX Incorporated
  24. ^ Avex Live Creative
  25. ^ Beat Freak Magazine
  26. ^ M!dea Incorporated

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avex_Group"