Former Guvera Chief Banned From Managing Corporations for Two Years
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has disqualified Darren Herft, the former CEO of failed streaming company Guvera, from managing corporations for a period of two years…
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has disqualified Darren Herft, the former CEO of failed streaming company Guvera, from managing corporations for a period of two years, after noting concerns about his involvement in “significant conflicts of interest”.
The Queensland-based executive’s punishment follows the failure of seven companies, including four within the Guvera Group, which operated and developed the music streaming platform.
In a statement issued this week, ASIC found Herft “did not act in good faith” in his management of Guv Services and used the Guvera Group structure “for his gain and the gain of others in circumstances where there were significant conflicts of interest in the operation of the companies within the group.”
The once promising Australia-based streaming startup quietly shuttered operations in 2017, just a year after its plans to launch an initial public offering on the Australian Stock Exchange were scuppered.
According to a widely-criticized prospectus published in June 2016, the company lost A$81 million in 2015. That same month the company’s A$80 million IPO was rejected by the ASX and it placed two of its subsidiaries, Guvera Australia and Guv Services, both of which focused on international markets, under administration.
Herft, Claes Loberg and Brad Christiansen founded Guvera in 2008 and launched it two years later as an MP3 site, later evolving into a traditional streaming service with both ad-based and premium tiers.
With licensing deals completed with all the major labels, Guvera expanded beyond Australia and into India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Russia, Mexico, Singapore and the United States, among other territories, and once boasted an estimated 15-million plus users.
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