Mutli million sale for music company Gaylord

AMERICAN MULTI MEDIA company Gaylord Entertainment Company announced in December its purchase of Word Records and Music. Thomas Nelson Inc sold Word to Gaylord for $110 million. In 1992 Thomas Nelson bought Word for a reported $72 million. With annual sales of approximately $100 million, Word Records and Music contains nine record labels with such artists as Amy Grant, Point Of Grace, Petra, Shirley Caesar, Sandi Patty, Jaci Velasquez, Anointed and Crystal Lewis. Word's music publishing operation contains more than 40,000 songs.

"Buying Word Records and Music is a wonderful opportunity for us to further expand our involvement in the contemporary Christian music business," said Gaylord Entertainment president/CEO, E W Wendell. One of Gaylord's offshoots, Opryland Music Group, publishes the songs of such CCM songwriters as Michael W Smith and Jeff Borders and also owns the CCM video cable network Z Music Television. Other parts of Gaylord's activities are ownership of Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, the Grand Ole Opry and the Opryland theme park.

In the UK Nelson Word will become Word Entertainment Ltd. The company's Jonathan Brown said he was "very excited about the potential for growth the move has brought."
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