Ayling, Board Directors Exit Sanctuary Group

LONDON (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Sanctuary Group chairman Robert Ayling and three non-executive directors have left the board of Sanctuary Music, less than two weeks after Universal Music Group announced that it would buy the music group for $87.68 million.

Ayling was joined by his colleagues James Walla, a senior independent non-executive director/chairman of the audit committee; Tina Sharp, a chair of the remuneration committee; and John Preston, a member of the audit and remuneration committee, according to Billboard.biz.

Sanctuary’s board now consists of chief executive Frank Presland and finance director Paul Wallace, the firm said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.

Sanctuary hired Ayling in April of 2006 to help solve some of the financial issues plaguing the nearly bankrupt company.

Ayling brought major changes to the company’s operations, promising to “ensure proper standards of corporate governance and financial transparency and ensure the group delivers appropriate levels of performance.”

Ayling removed company co-founder Andy Taylor as CEO, and elevated Presland, then CEO of Sanctuary-affiliated Twenty-First Artists Management, into the vacant post.

Ayling was best known prior to his appointment in 2006 for his tenure as CEO of British Airways from 1992 to 2000. –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers