Entrepreneur Dominic Carosa has bought MP3.com.au from Destra, the company that dumped him as CEO in April.
Entrepreneur Dominic Carosa has bought MP3.com.au from Destra, the company that dumped him as CEO in April. Carosa says the acquisition of the business, which is a collection of free music, MP3s, downloads, band reviews and community, will be the first in that space. “I am looking for complimentary businesses and other content style businesses to buy,” he says.
The business, which employs a few staff, helps artists promote and sell their music online. He says there are 100,000 tracks on sites and 30,000 artists on the site.
The business makes its money from online advertising and the sale of online music. “A lot of the content is uploaded from individuals,” he says. “It is the perfect business; highly scalable, low touch and makes money while you sleep.”
He is doing a strategic review of the business. “It’s interesting. I founded it with my sister, listed it and bought it back years later.”
Meanwhile he says he is unaware of the current Destra strategy “except for what I read”.
It has been a tough year for Destra, which announced a loss of $76.9 million for 2007-08 after savagely writing down the value of goodwill, intellectual property and investments.
The company announced plans to sell its entertainment division, after the company’s music and video divisions were smashed by falling sales and the poor performance of recent movie releases.
The company’s executive chairman David Gordon, who was bought in by Destra’s 44% shareholder Prime Media Group to review and improve the company’s strategy, refocused the company on the media sales representation and brand-funded content production businesses within its media division.
The company says Destra had made 13 acquisitions in three years in its attempt to build a media and entertainment group spanning video, music, magazine, online community, media sales representation and brand-funded content production activities.
But the rapid expansion in the range of business activities of the company had created a portfolio of businesses that were not well integrated and lacked critical mass in their chosen market segments.
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