History
Michel Lambot and Kenny Gates met circa September 1981 at Michel’s record store then called “Casablanca Moon”, exclusively selling records from independent labels and they quickly became friends.
In June 1982 the store “Casablanca Moon” was closed down and they made plans to start an import company named “Play It Again Sam”. Play It Again Sam started importing from the UK in October 1982 and were based in the basement of in Kenny's parents' house in Brussels, Belgium. Michel and Kenny were then respectively 21 and 19 years old.
The company was incorporated in March 1983 with a starting capital of €5000 and the strategy rapidly became to be a “distributor” rather than an importer / wholesaler; that meant offering a full range of services to labels, such as promotion and marketing.
They started up a distribution company in the UK in 1988; in the Netherlands in 1989, in France in 1994, in Germany in 1998 and in Spain in 2001. Recordings is the group's in-house recorded music division, comprising two labels, Play It Again Sam and Different Recordings, headquartered in 's UK office in Bermondsey, London.
In early 2013, acquired Cooperative Music (and the Coop-owned V2 Records label) from Universal Music Group.
Read more about this topic: PIAS Entertainment Group
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