Clive Calder
Clive Ian Calder (born 13 December 1946) is a South African record executive and businessman primarily known for co-founding the Zomba Group with Ralph Simon and its subsidiary Jive Records. The relocation of Warner Music Group Chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. to London has pushed Calder from first to second wealthiest music billionaire in Britain, worth an estimated £2.4bn. As of April 2012 he was number 521 on the Forbes list.
Career
Calder was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and grew up there, off Louis Botha Avenue. Calder started his first record company in 1971 in South Africa. By 1975 they had relocated to London and had begun Zomba as an artist and producer management company. By 1978 Zomba had expanded to include publishing, and opened offices in New York City. In 1981 they formed their first record label Jive and Calder began to create a name for Jive as an important outlet for hip hop and rap.
Jive's success was followed by Silvertone Records in 1988 and countless others throughout the nineties. After an unspecified "ethical disagreement," Calder bought Simon's stake in Zomba and became the sole owner in 1990. In the late nineties, Jive expanded its success to include teen pop phenomenons such as Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync and Britney Spears, all of which topped the charts. In 2002 he sold Zomba for US$2.74 billion to the German-based media group Bertelsmann. Though he was offered a position with BMG, he instead chose to stay on temporarily as an advisor during the integration period, but left the business in 2003. The Jive Records brand was discontinued in October 2011, with their artists being moved to RCA Records.
