Midlands Arts Marketing (MAM), the marketing and audience development agency which was a wholly owned subsidiary of East Midlands Arts (EMA), has ceased trading and its Directors are taking steps to liquidate the company. The surprise announcement was made following the collapse in August of plans under which the company would have been sold by EMA to MAM's management team.
Midlands Arts Marketing was set up in 1991 by EMA to act as the marketing agency for the region, and EMA marketing department staff were transferred into it to run the business. But the Board of EMA made the decision to sell its shares in MAM in February this year due to the worsening financial position of the company, and the view of the Board that sums owed to EMA through an agreed loan were unlikely to be retrieved. The sale of the company to its management team was agreed in May, but the offer was withdrawn earlier this month, and this, coupled with the loss of a major contract, has led the Directors of MAM to make the decision to cease trading. MAM's 14 staff have been laid off with immediate effect, but the company is not in a position to pay all the salaries and wages that are due. A meeting of creditors has been called for 3.00pm on September 4 at the Jarvis Nottingham Hotel in Long Eaton.
Although the structure of the relationship between MAM and EMA was very different from those that exist between other agencies and their Regional Arts Boards, the demise of MAM has sent shock waves through the country's other audience development and marketing agencies. Stephen Cashman, Chief Executive of Developing Audiences in the North, said "The new agenda of audience development and access for all makes the role of audience development all the more crucial in bringing audiences into contact with the arts, so the loss of one such agency means that the fulfilment of that role across the country will be all the poorer." Alex Saint, spokesperson for Network, the consortium of arts marketing agencies, expressed her concern at the impact the closure would have on staff and clients, as well as on the wider development of arts audiences in the East Midlands. She said "The loss of MAM opens yet another gap in an incomplete national infrastructure for audience development and arts marketing."
Any queries from creditors or clients of MAM should be made in writing to the insolvency practitioner assisting the Directors of MAM. Contact Situl Raithatha, Springfields, 78 Hinckley Road, Leicester, LE3 0RD.