Plan to buy CKX is abandoned

CKX Inc., owner of the television show “American Idol,” said a group led by Chief Executive Robert F.X. Sillerman had ended plans to acquire the company, citing “extraordinary national and global economic conditions.”

The Sillerman-led group, 19X, will pay a breakup fee of $37.5 million, according to a CKX filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The group will pay $37 million of the fee with CKX shares, according to the filing.

Sillerman and Simon Fuller, a director of New York-based CKX, plan “to pursue an alternate transaction for the acquisition of the company,” the filing said.