Entertainment

Lloyd-Webber Buys Theaters

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 9, 2000 / 11:30 AM EST / CBS

Composer and impresario Andrew Lloyd-Webber said on Sunday he was buying Stoll Moss, one of Britain's top theater companies, for about $139.4 million), making him one of London's biggest theatre-owners.

Lloyd-Webber, composer of hit musicals Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, revealed details of the deal on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost program.

It includes some of London's most famous theaters such as the Palladium, the Garrick, Her Majesty's and the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Lloyd-Webber has been locked in a bidding battle with American entrepreneur Max Weitzenhoffer to buy the Stoll Moss empire, put up for sale last year by Australian businesswoman Janet Holmes a Court.

Lloyd-Webber said the deal, done in partnership with NatWest Equity Partners, was partly to safeguard London's theatrical tradition.

"I have been worried and I think a lot of people have been worried that the group would fall into the hands of people who are, you know, money men and who wouldn't necessarily understand that the thing about theater is you've got to take risks."

Lloyd-Webber said he believed the new business would be profitable as the additional theatres would bring economies of scale. Lloyd-Webber's privately held Really Useful Group will put its three theatres - the Adelphi, the Palace and the New London - into the new business, which has yet to be named.

In clinching the deal, to be signed on Sunday, Lloyd-Webber also beat off competition from his long-time rival Cameron Mackintosh.

Lloyd-Webber said he was working on a new show with British comedian and novelist Ben Elton called The Beautiful Game, about a football team in Northern Ireland in the 1960s.