It’s been rocky times for the folks at Future Music Entertainment – recent months have seen the company form an alliance with Mushroom boss Michael Gudinski, who’s spoken of the shaky financial viability of Future Music Festival, as well as discussing the likelihood of scrapping Summadayze festival.
But now a new player has entered the saga – Maria Papadimitriou, a mystery woman that former employees and long-term associates of Future claim to never have heard of, despite the fact that she’s just been named as the director of the newly registered Future Music Holdings, Future Music Trading, and Good Life Music Festivals Pty Ltd.
Previously, the show was being run by Future Events, Future Tours and Future Entertainment. In June, the three companies dropped ‘Future’ from their titles, changing their name to Music Events. By the time Gudinski and the Mushroom Group declared their strategic alliance with Future in August, it had been established that Music Events essentially has no assets to its name and, according to Fairfax Media, has debts of more than $500,000.
The companies that Gudinski has aligned himself with, however, are the new Maria Papadimitriou-directed entities, and he’s adamant that the new Future isn’t responsible for the old Future’s debts, saying, “This is an entirely new company. It has nothing to do with those other companies.”
However, Papadimitriou has registered three companies since May, two of them to the same address as the old Future companies. She’s also transferred trademarks over and registered their websites to companies in her name.
Gudinski has confirmed that she’s the person he dealt with in the transfer, saying, “I believe that an investor had bought some assets and that’s where we got involved. That’s who we bought the IP [intellectual property] from, that woman you asked the name of.” Throwing another spanner in the works, he also confirmed that former Future boss Jason Ayoubi would be taking up a position at the new company, as well major player Brett Robinson.
Liquidators are said to be investigating the links between the two, with more debt from the old Future companies expected to be uncovered.
The lineup for Future Music Festival 2014 is set to be unveiled on 17th September.
