NO SMALL CHANGE FOR BEGGARS
How much does the largest U.K. indie earn in a year? We’re glad you asked. Beggars Group filed its annual accounts last week, revealing revenues of £70.6m ($96m) in 2016, and a net profit of £11.9m ($16m). The numbers were crunched by the folks at MBW.
Beggars is owned by Martin Mills and exists as the umbrella company for XL, 4AD,Rough Trade, Matador and Young Turks. Revenues earned from Adele’s 25—which is signed to XL/Beggars for the world outside the U.S. and South America—will have made up a significant portion of last year's profits. After its release in November 2015, the album stayed in the U.K.’s Official Albums Top 5 for the first 17 weeks of 2016, and has only left the Top 40 twice since, with sales reaching more than 5m in Blighty alone.
Beggars' 2016 numbers are slightly down—3.3%—on 2015’s revenues of £72.9m and £12.9m net profit, which is down 8.4%. Gross profit, however, was up last year by 12.6% to £19.6m from 2015’s £17.4m.
Across the 39 albums Beggars released last year, its best-sellers included Not To Disappear (4AD) by Daughter, which peaked at #17 on the U.K’s Official Albums Chart, Anohni’s #26 charting album Hopelessness (Rough Trade), and another #26 in Savages’ Adore Life (Matador).
