August 20, 2010

By By Lars Brandle, Brisbane

Stomp Entertainment, one of Australia's leading independent distributors, has changed hands.

Stomp was acquired Aug. 13 by Surrealus, a new company owned by Paul Uniacke and Edward Nedelko, directors of Franchise Entertainment Group.

In a statement posted Friday (Aug. 20) on the Stomp website, Uniacke wrote that the company would continue to operate from their current premises in Abbotsford, Victoria, and that all Stomp personnel in Australia have been offered employment. Financial terms of the arrangement were not disclosed.

FEG owns and operates the Australian chains of Video Ezy, Blockbuster and the EzyDVD, which count more than 750 stores combined.

"We see a lot of potential synergies," Stomp CFO Tim Richardson tells Billboard.biz. "They have a huge customer base, and we've seen some very exciting ideas from them. We're all very excited, certainly those of us in the management team."

Launched in 1994, Stomp is a full-service, import distribution company with interests in music, music-related merchandise, DVD movies, gaming products, and fashion, boasting a supply network of more than 4,000 retail stores throughout Australasia. Its businesses include the retail Web sites Play4me and cdwow.com.

The development follows the sale last month of financially troubled competitor Shock, whose remaining assets were acquired by Regency Media for a reputed $5 Australian-$10 million Australian ($4.45 million-$8.9 million).

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