Foreign Invaders

Sunday, Feb. 17, 2002 By LISA TAKEUCHI CULLEN
Article Tools
Print
Reprints
Sphere
RSS

(2 of 2)
For the record label Nippon Columbia, Ripplewood's task was less to redefine the business than to get back to it. Over the years the company had simply stopped producing hits, relying for sales revenue on the albums of enka queen Hibari Misora--who died in 1989. Nippon Columbia owned Denon, an audio-equipment maker, and odd assets such as real estate and golf memberships. The staff was bloated, the headquarters stuffy, and the company had not turned a profit in 10 years.

Collins hired a renowned industry talent, Strauss Zelnick, former CEO of BMG Entertainment, who in turn hired a respected Japanese record exec to scout for new pop and rock acts. Ripplewood spun off Denon and other non-core assets and slashed the staff. Even the building looks snazzier, with Sheryl Crow on video screens in the lobby alongside posters of young artists like Kiyoshi Hikawa and Charcoal Filter.

Collins turned Ripplewood's renamed Phoenix Seagaia Resort over to his fly-fishing buddy Michael Glennie, who had run the Boca Raton Resort and Club and the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, but who concedes that "this is a different challenge." Seagaia boasts five golf courses, four hotels and a convention center on six miles of Pacific coastline. It offers bowling, tennis and riding. It also has a water park called the Ocean Dome that costs $5 million a year to operate and includes simulated waves lapping at a beach made of imported crushed marble.

Glennie has hired Starwood Resorts to manage the hotels as Sheratons and revamped pricing for the resort's services. But on a recent weekday, only a couple of dozen vacationers could be seen in the Ocean Dome. What are Glennie's plans for it? He scratches his head: "Still working on that one."