Live Company Group plc formerly known as Parallel Media Group plc, World Sport Group plc and Orchard Furniture plc, is a public company based in

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

and formerly in London. The company is listed in the

Alternative Investment Market AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...

. The company was the parent company of both

World Sport Group (Jersey) Limited Headquartered in Singapore, World Sport Group was a sports marketing, event management and media company in Asia, with a roster of golf, association football and cricket events. World Sport Group manages almost 600 days of sports events annually ...

and Parallel Media Group International Limited from 2001 to 2002. However, the founders of World Sport Group Limited bought back WSG in 2002; while World Sport Group plc was renamed to Parallel Media Group plc. Parallel Media Group involved in sports and media agency. However, under the previous name, the listed company was founded as holding company for tea business, and then foundry in 1984, and then furniture businesses in the 1980s.

Predecessors

The

legal person In law, a legal person is any person or 'thing' (less ambiguously, any legal entity) that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on. The reason for ...

of Live Company Group plc, was formerly known as Parallel Media Group plc, Orchard Furniture plc, Wyefield Group plc, Lincoln House plc, William Morris Fine Arts plc and Ceylon & Indian Planters Holdings' plc. It is a listed company in the

and formerly in the

Unlisted Securities Market The Unlisted Securities Market (USM), which ran from 1980 to 1996, was a stock exchange set up by the London Stock Exchange to cater for companies too small to qualify for a full listing. The USM allowed companies to be traded which did not have ...

of the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

Ceylon & Indian Planters

Ceylon & Indian Planters' Holdings plc was incorporated on 23 June 1959, at that time known as Ceylon & Indian Planters' Holdings Limited. The company was established to acquire the full or part of the share capital of The Ceylon & Indian Planters' Association Limited. The Ceylon & Indian Planters' Association, established on 23 April 1897, was known as a pioneer tea company. In the 1900s, The Ceylon & Indian Planters' Association was already a public company. According to ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', Ceylon and Indian Planters' Holdings was a listed company in the

until 1976. In 1976, the exchange cancelled the share quotes of Ceylon and Indian Planters, as well as more than a dozen of other similar companies, as the assets of Ceylon and Indian Planters was nationalized by the government of Sri Lanka (as well as India), formerly known as Ceylon (as the

Dominion of Ceylon Between 1948 and 1972, Ceylon The Sri Lanka Independence Act 1947 uses the name "Ceylon" for the new dominion; nowhere does that Act use the term "Dominion of Ceylon", which although sometimes used was not the official name. was an independent ...

from 1948 to 1972). In 1982, the 1959 incorporated Ceylon & Indian Planters' Holdings was re-registered from a

private company limited by shares A private company limited by shares is a class of private limited company incorporated under the laws of England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, certain Commonwealth countries, and the Republic of Ireland. It has shareholders with limit ...

to a

public limited company A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth jurisdictions, and the Republic of Ireland. It is a limited liability company ...

. While the former subsidiary, The Ceylon & Indian Planters' Association also switched to plc legal form in April 1983. In 1983, the 1897 incorporated Ceylon & Indian Planters' Association returned to the London Stock Exchange as a cash shell, but in the Exchange's

division. That company also acquired electronic companies as a backdoor listing. It was renamed to Sunleigh Electronics plc. On 31 May 1983, and then just Sunleigh plc from 23 May 1989 to 8 December 2008. That company was dissolved on the same day.Company Number: 00052233 Immediate after the listing of Sunleigh Electronics, as of 1983, it was 58% owned by the 5 directors of the company. An additional 21% shares were owned by the former owner of Sunleigh Electronics' subsidiaries as of 1983. A year later, the former parent company of Sunleigh Electronics, the 1959 incorporated Ceylon & Indian Planters' Holdings, acquired other companies and renaming to William Morris Fine Arts plc. The company also admitted to the Unlisted Securities Market in the same year.

William Morris Fine Arts

In April 1984, Ceylon & Indian Planters' Holdings plc became a listed company in the Unlisted Securities Market, as well as acquiring

Morris Singer Morris Singer is a British art foundry, recognised as the oldest fine art foundry in the world. Its predecessor, Singer was established in 1848 in Frome, Somerset, by John Webb Singer, as the Frome Art Metal Works. The Singer Art Foundry was famou ...

Foundry Limited as well as wallpaper trading and manufacturing company Peterlee Wallpaper.1984 Annual Report, William Morris Fine Arts plc The

was renamed into William Morris Fine Arts plc immediately. In December 1984, William Morris acquired the wallcovering division of Leyland Paint & Wallpaper plc for £3.3 million. In 1988 the listed company ceased to use the name William Morris Fine Arts.

Lincoln House, Wyefield Group & Orchard Furniture

William Morris Fine Arts became a furniture company under the name Lincoln House plc in 1988. Lincoln House acquired Medallion Upholstery for £8.2 million in 1994, renaming itself to Wyefield Group in the same year. The Factory of Medallion was closed down in 1998, making the company had only one manufacturing site left, located in

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

. It became a

shell company A shell corporation is a company or corporation that exists only on paper and has no office and no employees, but may have a bank account or may hold passive investments or be the registered owner of assets, such as intellectual property, or s ...

(as cash shell) again in 1999. The company was renamed to Orchard Furniture plc, with no assets and negative

shareholders' equity In finance, equity is ownership of assets that may have debts or other liabilities attached to them. Equity is measured for accounting purposes by subtracting liabilities from the value of the assets. For example, if someone owns a car worth $2 ...

. Before turning into a cash shell, the company had sold its subsidiaries: Medallion Upholstery, Lincoln House (Furnishings) and Quantum Designs Furniture as well as assets, to another listed company

DFS Furniture Company plc DFS (DFS Furniture plc, stylised as dfs, is a furniture retailer in the United Kingdom, Spain and Ireland specialising in sofas and soft furnishings. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange. History Northern Upholstery In 1969, aged 22, Gr ...

for £1.5 million. However, Orchard Furniture acquired

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label=Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependencies, Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west F ...

-incorporated holding companies

and Parallel Media Group International Limited as part of a

backdoor listing A reverse takeover (RTO), reverse merger, or reverse IPO is the acquisition of a public company by a private company so that the private company can bypass the lengthy and complex process of going public. Sometimes, conversely, the public compa ...

of the two agency groups in 2001.

History

Parallel Media Group plc and World Sport Group plc

The businesses of Parallel Media Group plc was founded in 1987 by David Ciclitira as ldParallel Media Group plc. In 1997, ldParallel Media Group plc was renamed into Elysian Group plc; a sister company Parallel Media Group International Limited (PMI) was incorporated in

, receiving businesses from the old PMG. It formed a joint venture, Parallel Television, with the

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

in 1998. In 2001, PMI and fellow agency

(WSG) were

as World Sport Group plc. However, the founders of WSG re-privatized WSG in 2002, leaving PMI as the major assets of the public limited company. The plc also renamed to ewParallel Media Group plc. ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' described Parallel Media Group as "one of the major names in sports and music promotion and events". Since the takeover in 2001, David Ciclitira was the chairman of the plc. Parallel Media Group plc sold a subsidiary, "Parallel Media Group (Championships) Limited", in 2015, to the chairman, the largest shareholder and the creditor of the plc, David Ciclitira as a connected-parties transaction. During the year the company was the broker for

Maroon 5 Maroon 5 is an American pop rock band from Los Angeles, California. It currently consists of lead vocalist Adam Levine, keyboardist and rhythm guitarist Jesse Carmichael, lead guitarist James Valentine (musician), James Valentine, drummer Matt ...

tour in Hong Kong. The company is the media agency of

The Championship at Laguna National The Ballantine's Championship (known as The Championship at Laguna National in its final year) was a European Tour golf tournament which was played from 2008 to 2014. It was the first European Tour event to be staged in South Korea. From 2008 to 2 ...

, a golf tournament since 2008. The tournament was co-sanctioned (permission) by both

Asian Tour The Asian Tour is the principal men's professional golf tour in Asia except for Japan, which has its own Japan Golf Tour, which is also a full member of the International Federation of PGA Tours. Official money events on the tour count for Wor ...

and

European Tour The European Tour (currently known as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons), legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour (for players aged fift ...

. The contract with the Championship was renewed in 2013. Parallel Media Group started to plan a golf tournament in 2004, after the company part away with World Sport Group Limited, the agency employed by

and the original joint venture entity in the

Tour de las Américas The Tour de las Américas (TLA) was the principal men's professional golf tour throughout Latin America and the Caribbean from 2000 through to 2012 when it was superseded by PGA Tour Latinoamérica. History Top level tournament golf in Latin Ameri ...

. Parallel Media Group also won a court ruling to protect its contractual commercial rights on the Tour de las Américas in 2003.

Live Company Group

On 22 December 2017, the public company was once again renamed to Live Company Group plc.

Footnotes

References

External links

* {{Authority control Sports journalism Companies based in London Companies based in Surrey Holding companies of the United Kingdom Companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market