hi Paz, could you please help me with understanding louis’ business ventures? he has a record label of his own right? or does that not exist anymore? his albums are under 78 productions (afaik) so is that his label or what? he also mentioned starting a management company in 2021 but have there been any updates on that since?
sorry, but it’s all just so confusing to me 😭 the only one i know and am sure of is 28 clothing lol
hello love,
OOF, I totally get that it's confusing! It really is quite the jungle and it also took me months to sniff snoff my way through hundreds of public record documents and websites to feel like I have an okay-grasp on things 😩 so please be gentle with yourself 💖
explaining all of Louis' business ventures would exceed the frame of an ask reply i'm capable of, since Louis has and/or was in a whopping 12 companies (as of today), but I will try and give you an overview and answer your question - and as soon as I've finished & posted my upcoming H&L companies masterpost hopefully this month, you will be able to really dig in deep (◠‿◠✿)
The Limited Companies Louis has/had: 1D Media Ltd. since Dec 23, 2010, nature of business: “Performing arts”, occupation: Entertainer PPM Music Ltd. since Dec 12, 2011, nature of business: “Performing arts”, occupation: Entertainer Rollcall Touring Ltd. dissolved in 2018, nature of business: “Performing arts”, occupation: Entertainer One Mode Productions Ltd. sold to Universal Music in 2020, nature of business: “Support activities to performing arts” + "touring, merchandising (incl. the books) & recording", occupation: Entertainer Triple Strings Ltd. dormant from the start on Jan 16, 2015, nature of business: “Other amusement and recreation activities not elsewhere classified”, occupation: Musician 78 Productions Ltd. since Jan 7, 2015, nature of business: “Support activities to performing arts” + since at least May 2023, Louis’ clothing line 28 Clothing is also being run through this company, occupation: Entertainer LT Publishing Ltd. since Feb 22, 2017, nature of business: “Artistic creation”, occupation: Performer LT Media Ltd. since Jan 5, 2023, nature of business: “Artistic creation”, occupation: Performer LLPs: 1D Live LLP dissolved in 2016, nature of business: touring ODOT LLP dissolved in 2016, "was established to facilitate touring activities" and also “contracted certain touring & related sponsorship activities in regions outside of the UK/Ireland & North America” LT Touring LLP since Nov 9, 2017 (self-explanatory nature of business) LT Merch LLP since Sep 26, 2022 (self-explanatory nature of business)
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The “Support activities to performing arts” for 78 Productions Ltd. is the same nature of business as Harry's HSA Publishing Ltd., which was founded just a few months prior. Record label things are not my personal expertise (I'm a tour- and artist manager, as well as a live show producer and accountant), but I've always understood it in the way that when it states "78 Productions" or just "78" is the label, Louis has financed certain things about the release through his own company, essentially turning it into an indie label without trademark or real branding. It doesn't have a website or any other official public platform, like officially-run social media accounts. As of today, it seems Louis uses the company purely for the purposes of financing releases when he wants/needs to.
If Louis ever planned/plans to do more with the "78" name for a label in the future, then it's defs smart to have continuously used it for releases already, though, no matter how small the contribution might've been.
Let's take the example of his standalone single Back To You, which was released through 78 Productions, as well as Epic Records, with whom Louis had signed within the same month, July 2017, and he was also still signed with Syco. The next 2017 single, Just Like You, he surprise-dropped and released it only through Syco, even though he was still signed with Epic Records during that time. The last 2017-single, Miss You, was again released through Epic Records, 78 Productions, and Syco. In 2018 he didn't release any music and in 2019 and all the way until his album, Walls, came out, all releases (incl. the album) were then through Arista Records, 78 Productions, and Syco. (it also needs to be said that Simon Cowbell was already 75% out of the Syco company since 2015 and most of the company shares were held by Sony) (I wrote about his struggle to find a supportive record label and finally put out a first album in this post.)
I know there's contracts and aspects of the releases that get dealt and financed by different companies, sometimes also depending on/split by the costs of physical & digital distribution and promo in different countries. Especially nowadays that's pretty common. Especially small(er) Artists are expected to chip in with their personal money to get 'the whole package'. (a yucky deal) Now I do not have the numbers, meta, and insights to judge whether he could've been called a 'smaller artist' 2017 - 2019, but the fact is that he DID use quite a lot of his own money for the releases back then. Let me give one tiny example: 78 Productions made only £78k of income before taxes in the financial year Up to Jan 2018 (meaning: Jan 2017 - Jan 2018). What matters more, though, are the funds of the company and those were at £988k. This could be, for example, if money from somewhere else (a personal account, or one of H & his shared accounts) had been transferred into the company. At the end of that financial year, the company had £323k left in funds. The company earned a lot of it back in the next year. Income before taxes for the financial year of Up to Jan 2019 was £570k (he did do X-Factor in 2018!) and company funds at the end of that financial year were at £1.2 million. The pandemic ripped quite a hole into that again, but that was to be expected.. To this day, 78 Productions Ltd. is Louis' most profitable company out of all. A few of his companies are still young, though and almost every company starts with 1-2 years of losses. Although fun fact: to this day, 1D Media Ltd., still holds almost as many funds at the end of each financial year as 78 Productions Ltd. does. ✨The power of 1D, man!✨ (but that's also because the funds there are never fully drained)
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Next topic, his plan/idea to start his own music management company, as he tweeted on March 6, 2021 -
..as far as I know, nothing has come of this, yet. And Louis did clarify that at that stage it was only still "an idea". I also find it interesting that he highlighted that he did not want to start a label.
I had been eyeing this article (2022 interview with Matt Vines from Louis' management, Seven 7) for months, though, because of a few things he said:
"Within One Direction, his role was not only chief songwriter, he was also the decision-maker. That’s something he wants to employ going forward, whether it be managing artists or from a label perspective and those are all things we’re looking at doing."
"BMG was an exciting choice, because Louis didn’t want to do the conventional major label deal set-up that he was used to before, coming out of Syco."
"[...] the idea of a ‘manager-artist relationship’ is a bit outdated and, actually, we’re simply partners in running a business. It’s a very transparent partnership and, when you put that mindset on things, it gives you the opportunity to do things differently. Louis has done everything and he knows how the business works; he’s incredibly intelligent and street smart."
..and it gave me some food for thought. But keep in mind, this is only hypothetical and there's no evidence at all for this!
So my thought had been whether Louis potentially might have unofficially joined hands a little bit with Matt Vines there, business-wise in an advisory way. Louis' name definitely appears nowhere in the public records of Matt's 2 management companies, Seven 7 Artist Management Ltd. and Seven 7 Rights Management Ltd. That means he's not a shareholder, not a controller, and not a director of the company. He could still very well have certain contracts or agreements with Matt regarding management advisory, etc. Louis is super knowledgable in the music business and has an incredible wealth of personal knowledge. And I'm sure he firsthand knows how he would've wanted to be treated as an artist... opposed to the treatment his husband, his friends, and him actually got. Judging just from public records, I also can't rule out the possibility that he could be financially invested in Matt's company outside of obviously making the company money as a client.
According to the filed Accounts (Financial Statements) of Seven 7 Artist Management Ltd., that company is growing steadily & well since signing Lou in July 2018, which will subsequently show in the numbers of the following financial year, so 2019: 2017 - £29k - 4 employees 2018 - £57k - 5 employees 2019 - £231k - 5 employees 2020 - £199k - 5 employees (pandemic/world tour cancellation) 2021 - £272k - 4 employees (pandemic/livestream in Dec 2020) 2022 - £383k - 5 employees 2023 - £449k - 5 employees 2024 - £663k - 7 employees (as previously mentioned, these numbers are the funds of the company at the end of each financial year)
Seven 7 Rights Management Ltd., though has never and is still not doing well. It never had more than losses in at the end of the financial year, up to a maximum of only £13k in funds.
In conclusion, this is just a theory/thought I had, of course. I've never come across any paperwork or have seen articles about it online.
But yeah, nothing else has come after those March 6, 2021 tweets, yet, as far as I can remember. Since it's been 4 years, maybe Louis has changed his mind or just postponed that idea. Never say never. :) (If I've overlooked something, please feel free to drop a message or comment and I'll add it in here.)
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dear anon, I hope this answered a few of your questions or at least gave you a better understanding of Louis' extensive business ventures.
For a really deep dive, I'll have to kindly ask you to wait until I've finished and posted my masterpost - hopefully at the end of this month 🥹💖 It'll be split into 3 separate posts for 1D, Louis, and Harry.
Thank you for your kind message 💖 x
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additional resources: Louis' career tag by @tobethemselves Louis' career Part 1 + 2 • Part 3 + 4 • Business Talk • Louis career tags by @fookinhellcurlyyy Louis' career • Record Contracts • Louis Was Always The Boss tags by @twopoppies Louis' career • Publishing Deal • Record Deal • Louis' Team • Record Labels • Music Business tags by @daisiesonafield-blog Louis The Boss • Contracts & Business tags by @skepticalarrie my own tags: Harry companies • Louis companies • 1D companies