BRANCA SETS THE
BIBLE STRAIGHT
The Bible has messed up again. In a story posted this morning about the possible sale of Sony/ATV (triggered by Sony’s activation of a buy/sell provision), Ed Christman described John Branca, mega-attorney and executor of the Michael Jackson Estate, as a “contender” to succeed Marty Bandier as Chairman/CEO of the world’s biggest publishing company.
To support this claim, the reporter quoted an unnamed source as stating, “Branca really wants to take this over.” The source is then paraphrased as saying that Branca’s relationship with Bandier had been close but has become strained in recent months due to Bandier quashing the estate’s voice in the Sony/ATV dealings.
Our source is somewhat more reliable, and we can name him: Branca himself. “I did not talk to them,” he wrote in an email, “but Marty has been my dear friend for 30 years, and I completely support him. The story says we want to take the company over—true—but I do not want Marty's job.”
Christman notes that “Reps for Sony Corp. of America, Sony/ATV and the Jackson estate declined comment”—thus, the veracity of the story hangs on one ill-informed anonymous source as well as “a former employee.” Wonder who those are?
