How to Lose Money When You Are Bigger Than Jesus
Tuesday, May 15th, 2007The Beatles were phenominally successful. That being said, they did experience some failures.
They invested 100,000 pounds in a fashion boutique in 1967. It was called the Apple Boutique and the creative force behind it was known as ‘The Fool’. The staff was told to give everything in the store away one day in 1968.
Apple electronics never created any innovations and is most notable for it’s drawn out legal battles with Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. now owns the Apple name and licenses it to Apple Corps. Apple Corps was started because the Beatles accountant suggested that their money would be better spent on business ventures that remitted as taxes.
The Magical Mystery Tour was a flop.
Paul McCartney lost out on ownership of a large portion of the Beatles songbook…to Michael Jackson. The Beatles had sold the publishing rights years before to save on taxes. Snopes has an interesting page on this.
What you have to keep in mind is most of this poor management was because the money was coming in so fast from the Beatles’ main revenue stream, record sales. Almost every record the Beatles ever made was profitable. Capitol lost money on the US release of Yesterday and Today, largely because of a controversial image on the cover of the initial printing. An printing plant manager at the time of the recall kept a private stash of the Butcher Covers. When he sold them this century, the were fetching up to $40,000 each
