U2 Mega Rich List

Air 360

U2 Arrives ​

It may be four years since they last had a number one hit but U2 remain among the world's richest musicians according to an influential rich list. Bimpe Archer reports THE eagerly awaited Sunday Times Rich List has ranked Dublin rock band U2 as the third richest music millionaires in the UK and Ireland.

It calculates that the band's wealth has increased since 2012 with Bono, the Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton sitting comfortable in the top three of the annual rock and roll-call of riches.

The list continues to be led by Sir Paul McCartney, whose £680 million fortune is shared with third wife Nancy Shevell.

McCartney has topped all the charts since the Sunday Times Rich List began in 1989, when the former Beatle was worth £80m.

By 1993, the McCartney fortune had grown to £400m.

In addition to starring roles at Queen Elizabeth's diamond jubilee and closing the opening ceremony for the London Olympics, his 'On the Run' tour grossed $57m from just 18 dates in 2012.

The tour added £15m to his fortune but the total includes £150m for Shevell's stake in her father's New England Motor Freight trucking operation.

Also ahead of the Dublin rock band is composer and theatre owner Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

Profits from his hugely successful stage shows, such as Phantom of the Opera, Evita and Cats, have helped to boost Lord Lloyd-Webber's fortune by £30m to keep him in sec ond place in the Music Rich List at £620m.

Lord Of The Dance creator Michael Flatley, who brought Irish dancing to global audiences, comes in at number seven.

The show, which made him millions, evolved from his work on Riverdance and became a phenomenon in the 1990s.

Also making an appearance on the list is Donegal singer Enya who is ranked at number 27.

The Sunday Times only started to measure wealth in Ireland as part of its annual Rich List in 1997.

Last year Bono's personal wealth received a boost after the flotation of Facebook. Immediately established a value of $1.9 billion for the Elevation partnership.

The equity investment group was co-founded by Bono, who is also its managing director.

It paid around $90m for just over 2.3 per cent of Facebook.

Before this, with U2 profits split between the band and manager Paul McGuinness, Bono's estimated personal wealth was around £100m.

News that the band's wealth has also increased is likely to increase criticism from taxpayers in the Republic who have been angered at their sophisticated tax arrangements.

A $65m investment by U2 on Broadway's Spider-Man musical also seems to be paying off.

Initially panned by critics and plagued by a series of accidents, things are now looking up and it is proving popular with audiences.

The band also own Vertigo3, an Airbus A320, to fly them around in style.

Adam read your bank statements

Adam Clayton /Dave Long 2010 /U2TOURFANSSurely we do not want you to end up a poor old rocker ! Gosh this is so often the truth wiht artists. Hope fully Adam can resolve this and get back to focusing on the music.

Adam is attempting to sue Bank of Ireland Private Banking Ltd and Gaby Smyth Co, chartered accountants, because he feels they should have notified him that over $5 million went missing from his account over five years.

However, he “couldn’t be bothered” to read his own bank statements, the Commercial Court in Dublin was told yesterday. The Court was told that Clayton felt that bank should have notified him, telling him that his bank account was hemorrhaging money.

The Court also said that Clayton was “putting the cart before the horse” in taking a case against the bank as the separate action against his former assistant, Ms Hawkins, has not been heard. In September 2008 Ms Hawkin’s admitted to skimming about $18,800 but the bank was never notified about this.

Paul Sreenan, Clayton’s lawyer said that his client was suing for a failing to complete the duties owed by bankers to their clients. In October 2009 Clayton was notified that there was some unusual activity in his accounts. His lawyer claims that had he known earlier he might have lost less money.

Though his assistant has admitted to taking $18,800 Clayton believes the figure to total over $5 million. He is suing the two companies for over $11 million for negligence and breach of contract.

Though Justice Peter Kelly refused his application to fast-track the case to the Commercial Court the case will instead go ahead in the High Court.

U2 Top Money Maker

If there was any doubt that U2 was the biggest band in the world, one look at Billboard’s Top Money Makers list should do the trick. Based on actual revenue earned by music artists from touring and music sales, U2 hits #1 on the list, earning nearly double of what the next biggest money maker earned at #2.

Thanks to their sold-out U2 360° tour, the band is likely to earn the title for highest-grossing tour in history thanks to the high capacities of their 360-degree setup. The first tour as part of their current deal Live Nation, that includes touring, merchandise, and more, U2 is a clear lead at #1 with an estimated $108 million dollars in revenue.

Bruce Springsteen is at #2 thanks to his constant touring schedule, the release of a new studio album and Walmart-exclusive hits collection, as well as publishing revenue from his discography of self-written songs and over 2 million in digital sales, The Boss earned a cool $58 million last year.

Madonna came in at #3, earning an estimated $47 million thanks to international stadium sell-outs of her “Sticky & Sweet” tour as part of her new Live Nation deal, as well as her branding and licensing deals. International touring brought in the green for “Back In Black” singers AC/DC, who earned $43 million last year.

Sorry Ringling Brothers, but Britney Spears had the highest-grossing circus last year. Her sold-out “Circus” tour, along with album sales and over 7.5 million digital downloads, earned her over $38 million last year.

The rest of the top money makers according to Billboard include Pink ($36 million), the Jonas Brothers ($33 million), Coldplay ($27 million), Kenny Chesney ($26 million), and Metallica ($25 million).

U2 Ranks Top on Forbes

The world’s biggest rock band, U2 launched a massive world tour in 2009 that has brought in more than $311 million in gross box office receipts. Each tour stop brings in $10 million in gross ticket sales. Add in lucrative merchandise sales, heavy radio play and a steady-selling back catalog, and you have the highest-earning band on the planet.

Power Rank	7
Pay	$130.0 mil
Category	Musicians
Pay Rank	3
Web Rank	11
Press Rank	18
TV/Radio Rank	54
Social Rank	28

Elevaton Funds Facebook

It’s a beautiful day at Facebook. Elevation partners has just injected $120 million in venture capital, which will certainly help power-up Zuckerberg’s business … but why did Bono’s firm make this move?Back in November 2009 Elevation slid about $90 million over the negotiation table in exchange for 2.5 million shares in the world’s most popular social networking Web site, and has seen that investment multiply by two and a half times in value. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Elevation has just forked over another $120 million for a further five million shares at the moment—especially given the fact that the economy really seems to be recovering, and Facebook’s success has been continuing onwards and upwards with more users joining every day.

U2 Random Tuesday

Alan Cumming has left the production of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, a Broadway musica with a score co-written by U2’s the Edge and Bono. Cumming, who was set to play Spider-Man’s nemesis, the Green Goblin, has dropped out of the play due to scheduling conflicts.

Cumming claims that with the production delays on the musical, his CBS show The Good Wife will conflict with his role in Spider-Man.

The Scottish actor said in a statement, “Obviously, having waited over a year for Spider-Manto be greenlit, I am very disappointed that I will not have the chance to collaborate with Bono and the Edge, and to work with [director] Julie Taymor on the stage.”

The Spider-Man project has been beset with problems from the beginning. Production delays, cast turnovers (Evan Rachel Wood, who was set to play Mary Jane, left the production last month), and money problems have plagued the production.

U2 welcomes Drew along

WHEN rock band U2 embarks on its five-month world tour in June, Bono and the gang will be accompanied by Melbourne security company boss Andrew Wolveridge. A regular and trusty face guarding red carpets across town, Wolveridge worked with U2 during the Australian leg of its 2006 Vertigo tour and was approached by the group’s head of security to co-ordinate the 2010 shows. Wolveridge will oversee logistics at stadiums in the US, Helsinki, Moscow, Istanbul, Paris, Rome and many more stops in between. What to pack for the northern hemisphere summer? Definitely Bono-style sunnies.
 

BBC Tops U2 on Money List

U2 and their manager Paul McGuinness top the Irish Sunday Times Music Millionaires Rich List.

Their combined wealth is estimated at £429m, a rise of 1% on 2009. In second place is Lord of the Dance star Michael Flatley, with his total wealth calculated at £241m. The paper said his fortunes have dipped by 2% in the past year because of a fall in the value of the Lord of the Dance brand. Dublin-based singer Enya is third in the list, with a fortune believed to be £85m. All three retain the same top three positions from the 2009 list. Northern Irish singer and songwriter Van Morrison is fourth with his wealth listed at £50m.

U2 Earns a Whopping $108M

So U2TOURFANS FILE PHOTO 2009 If money makes the world go round, then U2’s latest tour, which is dubbed “360 Degrees,” proves this saying true.

The veteran act leads Billboard’s 2010 Money Makers list, earning more than $108 million in 2009.

Bruce Springsteen is second with $57 million and Madonna follows with $47 million. AC/DC and Britney Spears round out the top 5 with $43 and $38 million, respectively.

Just in case if you wanted to know how BillBoard determains the leaders of the money train, here is what they had to say.

Billboard compiles the list from monies earned through tours, CD and digital sales, publishing royalties and more. In compiling these rankings, the editors used proprietary data from the Billboard Boxscore archives (concert grosses), Nielsen SoundScan (sales of physical albums, digital albums and digital tracks), Nielsen BDS (tethered downloads, on-demand streams and noninteractive streaming at Rhapsody, Napster, AOL and Yahoo) and Nielsen RingScan (master ringtone sales), and then applied the corresponding mechanical rates and estimates where necessary for each category to determine the industry’s top-earning artists.

The ranking covers the one-year period from the first week of 2009 (which ended Jan. 4) through the last tracking week of the calendar year ended Jan. 3. It combines an artist’s estimated take from those products with box-office results from concert performances that took place during the calendar year.

U2TOURFANS U2 File Photo 2009 Sales data tallies all available titles for each artist during the tracking period. Artists receive 100% credit for sales of a title if credited as the lead artist or as an equally billed lead artist.

In calculating an artist’s share of revenue from recorded-music sales, Billboard used a royalty rate of 20% for superstars and 16% for newer artists, minus producer fees and the usual packaging and free-goods deductions for CDs.

An artist’s take of revenue from on-demand streams was calculated based on the average wholesale rate paid to labels, while revenue from non-interactive streams was based on SoundExchange’s rate settlement with webcasters. An artist’s share of revenue from tethered downloads was calculated on an average-per-download basis. In instances when the artist is a songwriter, Billboard estimated the share of songs written by the artist.

U2TOURFANS 2009 File Photo CD mechanical royalties for artist/songwriters were calculated by assuming the standard royalty rates. For digital downloads for track, album and ringtone sales, Billboard used the current statutory rates, assuming 12 tracks per album. Billboard also subtracted a 10% manager’s fee for each revenue category. For touring revenue, we credited each artist with 34% of gross tour receipts, after the promoter’s fee, the artist manager’s fee and other costs are subtracted.

Our figures do not include revenue from merchandise sales, sponsorships, synchronization deals and songwriter performance royalties. The data used in this report was compiled and calculated by Billboard Research manager Gordon Murray, senior Billboard correspondent Ed Christman, Nielsen Music special projects manager Deborah Schwartz and Boxscore chart manager Bob Allen.

Bail me out too

1. Pay off everyones house on my block
2. Pay parents homeowners taxes for ever.
3. Set college funds for grad school for both kids
4. Remodel my house
5. Buy 3 cars, one for me, one for each kid. 
6. Setup foundation for Single Fathers, oh yea sure Single mothers too 
7. 10% to foundations that provide what I believe is value back to the public 
8. Build an endowment fund for latin kids. 
9. Clean beach fund 
10. Buy a large boat 

Yea that leaves me with about 7.1 Billion left to spend. Any  ideas? Did you get a chance to see all the earmarks in the bill? How about those arrows, really now thats unbelievable. Well today I was told this was a rescue plan for America. Ok start rescuing ! 

Ok, its Date night, no kids, some food maybe a movie and its amazing how single life takes a back seat to raising kids. So tonight I'm just a guy out with a girl having some fun. Hey we all need a break.