Avex Group Holdings Inc. (エイベックス・グループ・ホールディングス株式会社, Eibekkusu Gurūpu Hōrudingusu Kabushiki-gaisha^?), listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange as 7860 and abbreviated as AGHD, is the holding company for a group of entertainment-related subsidiaries based in Japan. The word Avex is actually an acronym of the English words Audio Visual Expert.

With leading producer's Tetsuya Komuro's assistance, Avex became Japan's leading dance record company during the 1990s, and continues producing and recording some of Japan's most famous pop singers such as Japan's highest selling solo musician, Ayumi Hamasaki. The company also provides theme music soundtracks to many anime and a few video games through its subsidiary Avex Mode.

Avex Group is mainly known in Japan because of its flagship music imprint, Avex Trax, which was founded in 1990. It is one of the top three record labels in Japan since the Komuro period,^[3] and is currently the second biggest, behind Sony Music Japan.

Name[link]

Avex is an acronym of the English words Audio Visual Expert. Since its foundation, its corporate name was Avex D.D., Incorporated, and ten years later it was changed to Avex, Incorporated.

The current name, Avex Group Holdings, Incorporated, was adopted in 2004 as part of reconstruction process after Tom Yoda's resignation. Avex Group Holdings, Incorporated was used for the main subsidiaries, while the old name (Avex, Incorporated) was for entertainment components of the Group.

In 2005, Avex, Incorporated became Avex Entertainment, Incorporated, and stayed on as part of the Group.

History[link]

1988-1999: The Early Years[link]

The company was established in 1988 as "Avex D.D., Inc", a CD wholesaler based in Machida, Tokyo.

They opened a recording studio and created Avex Trax as a music label in September 1990. In the same year, they created "Musique Folio Inc.", a music publishing company, which later became "Prime Direction Inc."

In 1993, they transferred to Aoyama, Tokyo and created a U.S. branch, called "AV Experience America Inc." The year also marked the first of Avex's yearly events. It was held in Tokyo Dome under the name "avex rave '93" and attracted 50,000 attendees. This also marked the foundation of the Cutting Edge label.

In 1994, they formed two UK subsidiaries, "Rhythm Republic Limited" and "Avex U.K. Limited". Later that year, they opened a disco, claimed on their website to be "the world's largest scale disco", named as Velfarre.^[4]

In 1997, they opened a series of concert halls called "Zepp" along with Sony Music Entertainment Japan.

In early 1999, they signed an agreement with Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records to handle both companies' Japanese CD releases. Later that year "Avex Mode", an animation company, was established. In December, still of the same year, the company was listed on the 1st section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol 7860.^[5]

2000-2009: In Times of Unity and Divisiveness[link]

In 2001, Avex opened "avex artists academy", a music school.^[6]

In 2002, they released the "CCCD", a type of copy-protected CD, and built their building in Aoyama {Sumitomo Life answered the expenses, worth 205 billion yen.}.

In 2003, they opened a classical music business (named as Avex Classics).^[7]

In 2004, they began selling Japanese music CDs in South Korea. At the same date, Avex President Max Matsuura "spotted" former-idol Ami Suzuki performing live at the annual festival of their school, Nihon University. He subsequently signed her to the Avex label.^[8]

In 2005, Avex acquired distribution rights for Aozora Records' catalogue including all future Hitomi Yaida releases.^[9]

In early 2008, Avex has partnered with Victor JVC to officially create the label D-topia Entertainment as a business partnership between the two labels and its founder, Terukado Onishi, with the sales promotion handled by Victor while the area promotion handled by Avex. Later that year, as part of the Avex Group's 20th anniversary celebration, the big project is occurring with avex trax's ever "produced by avex trax" artists, the band Girl Next Door formed and debuted in September 2008.

Avex Group also launched its own IPTV service, BeeTV, last May 2009 in partnership with NTT DoCoMo.

[edit] 2004: Internal Feud : Max Matsuura v. Tom Yoda

In August 2004, a feud between Max Matsuura and co-founder Tom Yoda almost ruined the group.^[10] It started because of Yoda's ambition to expand Avex into other entertainment-related ventures, especially producing movies.^[11] In addition, he accused Ryuhei Chiba, the company's executive director and also the president of Axev Inc. (now Avex Planning and Development), of pursuing personal profit from a few big artists.^[10]

July 30 - On a board meeting, Yoda introduced a resolution calling on Chiba to resign because of an alleged conflict of interest. A source says the disagreement arose because Chiba had signed to Axev an artist managed by a member of his family. The board backed Yoda's resolution in a 6-1 vote. However, Matsuura—described by insiders as a close ally of Chiba's—then introduced a second resolution demanding that Yoda step down due to "a difference of opinion in management principles." Matsuura's motion was defeated 5-2. He and Chiba resigned the next day.^[12]

August 2 - Matsuura and Chiba announced resignation from their respective positions on a meeting with employees of Avex. On the meet, Chiba tearfully denied committing any fault, while Matsuura complained that Avex had lost its love of music and said he wanted to start over.They have the support of many staff who also said they would quit. More significantly, the label's top star, Ayumi Hamasaki, also said she's off with the company.^[10] As a result, Avex's stocks in the TSE fell by 16 percent that day.^[13]

August 3 - Due to pressure by employees and artists and to save the company from going bankrupt (since the company's stocks plunged),Yoda resigned and was replaced by Toshio Kobayashi.^[2][10]

2010-present[link]

On November 24, 2010, Avex Entertainment, as well as SM Entertainment Japan, released a statement about the renewal of contracts of SM artists BoA, Tohoshinki, J-Min, Super Junior, and f(x), which are signed to Avex.^[14]

AGHD is also currently listed at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Börse München of Germany under the ticker symbol AX8.^[15]

More K-pop artists from other agencies than SM Entertainment continued to signed with Avex such as YG Entertainment's 2NE1 (2010), KeyEast Entertainment's former SS501 member Kim Hyung Jun (2011), Pledis Entertainment's After School (2011), NH Media's U-KISS (2011)^[16] and Yejeon Media's Shu-I (2011).^[17]

On July 21, 2011, it was announced that Avex paired with Korean management label YG Entertainment to form YGEX Entertainment.^[18]

Operations[link]

Subsidiaries[link]

In April 2010 - the Avex Group corporation was re-structured to establish Avex Music Publishing Inc. as a consolidated subsidiary, in a corporate spin-off of music publishing division of Avex Group Holdings Inc. Thus the Avex Group became a pure holding company, with a corporate structure as follows:^[19]

Japan[link]

• Avex Entertainment Inc

• Avex Broadcasting & Communications Inc
• Binyl Records Inc^[20]

• Avex Management Inc^[21]
• Avex Marketing Inc

• Hatch Entertainment Inc^[22]
• Muzie Co. Ltd.^[23]
• Para TV Inc^[24]

• Avex Live Creative Inc^[25]
• Avex Planning & Development Inc^[26]
• Avex Music Publishing Inc

Other[link]

• Avex International Holdings Ltd - Management and supervision of Avex Hong Kong, Avex Taiwan and Avex China

• Avex Hong Kong Limited (formerly known as Avex Asia - Est. September 1996)^[19] - renamed in November 2008^[27]
• Avex Taiwan Inc. - Est. July 1998^[19][28]
• Avex China Co Ltd - Est. November 2006^[29]
• Avex Hawaii Inc^[30]

Affiliates[link]

• D-topia Entertainment
• Dwango Co Ltd^[31]
• Hall Network Inc (owner of Zepp)
• Label Gate Co Ltd (operator of mora)^[32]
• LDH Inc.^[33]
• Memory-Tech Corporation
• Recochoku Co Ltd^[34]

Music labels[link]

• Avex Casa (house music and electronica)
• Avex Classics (classical music)
• Avex Club (compilation albums)
• Avex Globe (globe's label)
• Avex Ideak
• Avex International (international releases)
• Avex IO^[35]
• Avex Trance (trance music)
• Avex Trax (first record label of the Group (1990.09))
• Avex Tune (dance music)
• Bareknuckle
• Binyl Records (rock music)
  • Dive in! Disc^[36]
  • Gokukara Records (joint venture with Marty Friedman)^[37][38]
  • PopTop
• Blowgrow^[39]
• Commmons (joint venture with Ryuichi Sakamoto)
• Cross-A
• Cutting Edge (second record label of the Group (1993.12))
• D-Force
• Disc du Soleil
• Dois Irmaos (Lisa Ono)
• Dwango Music Entertainment (sister company of dwango.jp)
• Espionage Records (joint venture with Verbal)
• Five-D Plus
• Foxtrot (joint venture with Rams Incorporated)^[40][41]
• Hach Entertainment (joint venture with NTT SmartConnect)
• Hi-BPM Studio
• HPQ (Visual kei)
• Idol Street (for idol performers, launched October 2, 2010 by Tatsuo Higuchi^[42])^[43]
• J-Friends Project
• J-More^[44]
• Junk Museum
• Locomusic (Love-chan's label)
• Love Life Records (hitomi's label)
• Mad Pray Records (Anna Tsuchiya's label)
• Maximum 10
• Mode '99
• Motorod Records
• nakedrecords
• Oorong Records (joint venture with Oorong-sha Group)
• Rhythm Republic
• Rhythm Zone (third record label of the Group (1999))
  • Fluctus
  • Riddim Zone
  • Starz by Rhythm Zone
• Rising Records
• Sonic Groove
• Superb Trax
• Tachytelic Records (joint venture with Taku Takahashi)
• Tank Top Records^[45]
• Tearbridge Production^[46]
• The Six Dragons
• True Song Music (Dai Nagao's label)
• Velfarre Records
• YGEX (joint label with YG Entertainment)
• Zoom Flicker

Entertainment ventures[link]

• Animation
  • Avex Mode
• Television
  • Avex and East (joint venture with East Company)
• Movies
  • Domestic
    • Avex Entertainment
  • Foreign
    • Elephant Pictures^[47]
    • PiX Inc.^[48]
• Artist Management
  • Agape
  • Avex Management
  • Platinum Productions
• Advertising
  • M!dea Incorporated
• Digital
  • Avex Broadcasting and Communications (joint venture with NTT docomo)
  • Avex Marketing (digital marketing and website hosting)
  • dwango.jp (20% Ownership)
  • mu-mo.net (Japanese)(own music store of the Group)
  • Prismix
• Live Shows
  • Avex Live Creative
  • Velfarre
• Magazines
  • Beat Freak^[49]
• Lounges
  • Alux^[50]

Labels Distributed[link]

• A stAtion (Ayaka's own record label), since 2012.^[51]
• Aozora Records, since 2005.
  • GMT Records, since 2005.
• Armada Music
• CAM Entertainment, since 2008.
• D-topia Entertainment,since 2008. (co-distributed with Victor Entertainment and Universal Music Japan)
• Danger Crue Records, since 2006.
• Disney Music Group, since 1999.
• Fluxus Entertainment
• Free-Will
  • ISM Label (kannivalism's label), since 2006.
• HATS Unlimited (Taro Hakase's label)
  • AG Label
• Higashiyakena Soundbuilder (HY's label), since 2000.
• I Scream Records, since 2010. (Japan only)
• J Storm/Johnny's Entertainment (Taiwan and Hong Kong only)
• Kontor Records
• P-Vine Records (co-distributed with Victor Entertainment and BMG Japan/Sony Music Japan)
  • Almond Eyes
  • Kai-san Factory
• SM Entertainment, since 2000. (except Girls' Generation and SHINee)
• S2S Pte. Ltd. (Japan only)
• Vamprose, since 2008. (Vamps and Monoral's label)
• Vandit
• Yamaha Music Communications Inc., since 2006.^[52]
  • contemode

Promotional projects[link]

• A-Nation (annual summer music festival)
• Channel A (syndicated TV program from 1998–2009)
• Aoyama Christmas Circus (annual Christmas tree lighting event)

IFPI Membership[link]

The Group is a member of the IFPI for Hong Kong and Japan.^[53]

A-Nation[link]

Each year since 2002, Avex has hosted a summer concert tour around Japan, "a-nation", featuring the company's most successful acts.

It is held every weekends of August in different Japanese cities.

Top Avex acts like Ayumi Hamasaki, Kumi Koda, AAA, Ai Otsuka, BoA, Do As Infinity, Hitomi, TRF, Every Little Thing and TVXQ have performed to major crowds each year. In 2008, Namie Amuro made her first appearance at a-nation and performed on all dates that year.^[54][55]

Sponsors include Joe Weider and his Weider fitness products, Seven & I Holdings Co., NTT DoCoMo, Mizuno Corp., Nissay (through its You May Dream! Project), and others.

Ruling the Japanese pop world[link]

According to CNN, Sony Music Entertainment Japan ceded the entire tanned skin cultural world to Avex as competition increases.^[56]

International partners[link]

• USA - Morgan Rich Corporation^[57]/Universal Music Group
• South Korea - S.M. Entertainment, YG Entertainment
• Philippines - Universal Records
• Thailand - GMM Grammy^[58]
• Chinese P.R. - China Record (Shanghai) Corporation^[59]

Locations[link]

• Japan : Avex Building, 1-30 Minami-Aoyama San-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-8525
• China : Room 302, Tianhai Business Building, Block B, 107 North Street, Dongxi, Beijing 100007
• Hong Kong : Suite 03, 11th Floor, Exchange Tower, 33 Wang Chiu Road, Kowloon Bay, Kowloon

See also[link]

• List of artists under the Avex Group
• List of record labels
• Velfarre
• Sony Music Entertainment Japan (Avex's former shareholder)^[3]

References[link]

External links[link]

Japan[link]

• Official website (Japanese) (English) (Chinese)
• Avex Network (Japanese)

Asia ex. Japan[link]

• Website in Taiwan (Chinese)
• Website in China (Chinese)
• Website in Hong Kong (Chinese)
• Asian Website (Japanese) (Chinese) (Korean)

Others[link]

YouTube[link]

• Avex Network's channel on YouTube

Anime News Network[link]

• Avex Group at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia

Avex Group related articles v t e Avex Group Holdings Inc. Max Matsuura, Co-Founder, President and CEO Board of Directors: CEO:Max Matsuura • CSO:Ryuhei Chiba • CFO:Shigekazu Takeuchi • CBO:Shinji Hayashi • Directors: Toru Kenjo • Tomohiro Toyama • Yuichi Sato • Auditors:Shinkichi Iwata • Kenji Nomura • Toshiaki Katsushima • Akihiro Tamaki • Corporate executives:Masahiro Anan • Toshiki Shida • Takahiro Miura Main Subsidiaries Avex Broadcasting and Communications • Avex Entertainment • Avex Live Creative • Avex Management • Avex Marketing • Avex Music Publishing • Avex Planning and Development Record Labels Avex Casa • Avex Classics • Avex Club • Avex Globe • Avex Ideak • Avex International • Avex IO • Avex Trance • Avex Trax • Avex Tune • Bareknuckle • Binyl Records • Blowgrow • Commmons • Cross-A • Cutting Edge • D-Force • Disc du Soleil • Dwango Music Entertainment • Five-D Plus • Hi-BPM Studio • HPQ • Idol Street • J-Friends Project • J-More • Junk Museum • Locomusic • Love Life Records • Mad Pray Records • Maximum 10 • Mode '99 • Motorod Records • nakedrecords • Oorong Records • Rhythm Republic • Rhythm Zone (Espionage Records/Fluctus/Riddim Zone/Starz by Rhythm Zone) • Rising Records • Sonic Groove • Superb Trax • Tearbridge Production • True Song Music • Velfarre Records • Zoom Flicker Annual revenue: 4.229 million JPY Annual net income: 30.266 million JPY (FY 2010) · Employees: 1,438 · Stock symbol: TYO:7860, FWB:AX8 · Website:Japan Taiwan China Hong Kong · Avex Group v t e IFPI members in Japan Avex Group Holdings Inc. EMI Music Japan Inc. Geneon Universal Entertainment Japan LLC King Records Co. Ltd. Nippon Crown Co. Ltd. Pony Canyon Inc. Pryaid Records Sony Music Entertainment Japan Inc. Tokuma Japan Communications Co. Ltd. Universal Music LLC VAP Inc. Victor Entertainment Inc. Teichiku Entertainment Inc. Warner Music Japan Inc.