EMI makes changes at the top as bosses decide to quit

The revolving door that is the senior management of EMI got a further spin today when the executive chairman Charles Allen and Lord Birt, the chairman of its parent company, stepped down.

In what Allen said was a move long in the planning, Roger Faxon, boss of EMI's music publishing division, which owns the rights to songs, takes over as group chief executive of the only British-owned major record label.

Allen, former boss of ITV, moved up to be executive chairman in March, when chief executive Elio Leoni-Sceti suddenly quit after 18 months in charge.

Allen and Birt, ex-director-general of the BBC and chairman of Maltby Capital, will continue to advise EMI's private-equity owner Terra Firma.

EMI, the label behind Coldplay and Katy Perry, said the shake-up was part of a repositioning of the label as "a comprehensive rights management company".

The restructuring means the two divisions — music publishing and recorded music, responsible for releasing CDs and signing new acts — will be united under Faxon. Insiders insisted this did not mean EMI was going to cut back on releasing new acts.

Terra Firma boss Guy Hands has struggled with EMI since he bought the label in 2007 for £4 billion, borrowing more than £3 billion from Citigroup. In February, EMI slumped to a £1.75 billion pre-tax loss and investors had to stump up more than £100 million on 14 June after breaching banking covenants.

Today Allen said: "Job done." He said he only became executive chairman when Leoni-Sceti left and since then he had been preparing the ground for a music industry insider to take over.

Unlike Allen and Birt, Faxon is an industry veteran, with a background in finance. He used to work in Hollywood with George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, and has been at EMI since 1994.

His music publishing division has been more stable than the recorded music arm, generating steady profits from owning the rights to a vast back catalogue of songs including The Beatles.

Faxon said: "I believe that the two divisions working in concert with one another as a global rights management business, can and will deliver."

Former Terra Firma executive Stephen Alexander replaces Birt.