Donny Osmond Moves Firm to Newport : Pop Singer’s Six-Employee Company Produces, Syndicates Shows

Donny Osmond’s production company has followed the pop singer to Orange County.

Donny Osmond Entertainment Corp. said Wednesday that it has moved its corporate headquarters to Newport Beach from Dallas. The relocation, which involves a corporate staff of just six employees, was prompted by Osmond’s recent move with his family to Irvine from Ogden, Utah.

“We no longer had a reason to be in Dallas,” said William L. Waite III, Osmond’s business manager, who was named president and chief executive of the company on Wednesday. “Since we were all here, and the production guy lived here, we voted at our last board meeting to move the company.”

Osmond, 27, was not available for comment.

But the singer-turned-businessman remains chairman of the struggling 2-year-old company. Osmond Entertainment, which went public in 1984, posted a fiscal 1985 loss of $327,000.

Since that time, however, the company has negotiated a number of production contracts, including a three-year contract recently signed with AT&T; to produce decathlon specials that will star professional athletes.

But the company’s major efforts are to syndicate some 81 “Donny & Marie” variety shows that were produced between 1976 and 1979. The company owns both the domestic and international distribution rights to the shows that star Donny and his sister, Waite said.

Osmond Entertainment is also looking at possible production of home videos that would feature the “Best of Donny & Marie,” Waite added.

On Monday, Osmond Entertainment also signed a contract with an undisclosed Los Angeles company to co-develop an animated children’s music series.

The company also films monthly live boxing matches at the Irvine Marriott and sells the films to Round One Boxing Inc., a Dallas company that distributes the films to eight U.S. markets. Also, Osmond Entertainment recently purchased minority interest in an undisclosed off-Broadway play, scheduled for production this summer.

“For the first year and a half, we were just working to get the company going,” said Waite. “Now, we’re set to implement our plans.” The plans eventually include feature film production, he said.

But in the meantime, Waite was not willing to project the company’s fiscal 1986 earnings. “I just don’t know if we’ll be profitable,” Waite said. “Most of our current projects pay off over a three-year period.”

Osmond, who has sung professionally since age 4 and cut 10 record albums, plays a “hands-on” role as company chairman, Waite said. “He’s the one who puts most of the projects together. This is not just a company that has his name on it.”