A £24m windfall for Adele label’s owners

The owners of Adele’s record label have cashed in on the Tottenham singer’s record-breaking success by paying themselves a huge £24m dividend.

Accounts for XL Recordings show founder Richard Russell and business partner Martin Mills’s Beggars Group each collected £12m in April. Ladbroke Grove-based XL is home to Radiohead, The Prodigy, Jack White and rising Peckham rap singer King Krule but Adele remains the star performer, despite not releasing an album since 21 in 2011.

“Back catalogue sales of Adele continued to account for a significant proportion of the sales and profit,” said the 2012 accounts.

Turnover fell from £111.7m to £78.6m, with pre-tax profit dropping to £25.4m against £41.6m.

XL warned of another fall this year because the Skyfall singer will not be releasing a record. However, the independent label was able to pay the £24m windfall as the owners had not taken a divi since collecting £17m in 2011.

Adele has smashed records around the world with 21, the second-best-selling studio album in British history after The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper.

The accounts were also bullish about the “huge growth in streaming and download services”, noting the global music industry increased revenues last year for the first time since 1999.