Ayu's Wealth Extremes
 

What do you think about Ayu's standing on the economic point-of-view? After all those years of ultra success, how vast do you think is Ayu's wealth?

I remember her credit card for having "no limit" and her house "having so much rooms" she can't even explore them at all lol

Edit: and don't get me started with that New York Daily news blah. doesn't seem legit for me. i think her account's waaay "fatter" than that.

well her estimated wealth is about 400 million.

She doesn't see anywhere near $400,000,000 USD, I can promise you that, but you can safely assume that she is incredibly wealthy. I mean, several houses, several cars, dedicated personal assistants and all the personal things she could ever desire.

That's an old rumour from a faked Forbes article.

@microphone, wealth is different from having money.

the problem is that the Japanese society doesn't reveal the money they make in a year much like in western countries. What they do release is the top 10 payers in tax and you can kinda of guess how much a person makes from how much tax they paid, but everything is very unofficial.

^I rather like that they do not. Why do we need to know how much money these people make? It's good enough to assume that they're not having financial problems.

50 million CDs sold, most artists get around $1 sometimes more for each sold in US dollars. Considering Avex prices I'd say she likely get $2-$3 for each sale. Then there is all of the additional products they release, her spokesperson jobs for Rimmel, Lands of Eden, Morinaga and many others. Then add the concert tours for atleast 13 of 15 years that everyone says woud earn more than her Cds. All together $400 million in US dollars would be on the low end of her possible earnings.

As far as the multiple homes and multiple cars things go or the huge house. The cars she's been shown to drive herself show her in standard coupe models and only owning 1 at a time. She said since laws changed she's quit driving. PQ interviews talk about a huge house with rooms she's never seen, I've never heard of anyone buying a home without checking every room to know what theyre getting. Pictures from her house interior and exterior show a much more modest size. The interviews for PQ also describe this huge elaborate multimillion dollar car for her drivers to take her places, but she still shows up everywhere in the same style SUV she's used for atleast 3 years.

If you want a better idea of how she lives, closely watch the tweets & TA entries where she shows places she goes and around her home. You're much better off ignoring what is told to the press, because with each album's new image the details about her life are usually changed to help sell the current image and all the products that go with that image.

she most likely gets more per CD just because of who she is and owns stock in the company and also being able to control who the president is... lol

But, most artist do not make their money on the album, but the contract that they sign with the company. Avex makes their money back from paying her in the contract through album sales and what not. She gets a small percentage that was agreed upon at the time of signing.

Ayumi makes the bulk of her money through endorsements and concerts. Id on't know about the house or the car thing, but I have never seen her once get of a driving car before, not to say that she hasnt but most of them time if its for the press its going to be a company car. But it is interesting to hear about the laws changing and her not wanting to drive anymore... lol I wonder if that has to do with strict laws or shes a bad driver.

ExodusUK in another thread had the estimated total and taxes paid by Ayumi from one of her peak years and so I stand corrected by a whole lot. If she matched the income of her peak years through all 15 years it would bring her to $120 Million US Dollars, only about 1/4 what I would have guessed based on american artists. And since the taxes listed show she pays about 40% of her income in taxes, that leaves her with only $72 Million US dollars over the last 15 years.

Very bad contract for her and Avex is really taking advantage of her at that amount.

It's likely her original contract ended along time ago, it's unlikely Avex would have signed some unknown singer with no real prospects for anything longer than 5 years. I imagine she has a much better deal/agreement now with Avex. She's made it clear in the past she's considered leaving Avex before and nearly did so during the Tom Yoda drama so it's not like she's afraid to do it if she's really unhappy with it.

To be fair Avex does seem to give Ayu a bottomless budget for PVs and touring. I'm curious as to who pays for Ayu and her 20+ team monthly stays in 5 star hotels in expensive cities like LA, New York and London. Ayu or Avex..

Her income is actually probably more than what it was considering now she tours a lot more than she used to back then and her ticket prices have risen over the rate of inflation.

I hope you're right. Those kinds of numbers sure don't appear to be in her favor.

If its for work then Avex fronts the bill...

but you guys are still confusing wealth and income.
the tax she paid was for INCOME, that doesn't include everything she owns (which is her wealth).

Also, I can assume much like Exodus that she has a much better contract... but also at the peak of her career she was like, what, 20, 21... avex owned her at that time and so the bulk of what she made went to avex, that's what A best and My story were all about... she started to break away from them with A Best and told the story in My story.

Also during those times where she would make much of her money, she didn't have such huge amounts of tours... She probably didn't tour to as many people as she does now (to my understand, she has been adding more and more dates since 2006... correct me if im wrong), which adds more to her income and wealth.

And who knows how avex controlled her earnings through endorsements and what not when she first started... it's sad really to think how much money she lsot out on just because she didn't understand what was going on...

If at $8 Million she was #1 among singers, then I doubt there has been much of a change, probably a small % up each time she renews the contract. More concerts might be adding another 1-2 million a year but she's also got way lower sales since they added more concerts. Fortunately with the changing exchange rate, every million she made before would be about 1.3 to 1.4 million now. The highest she made though, I'd guess is still barely over $100 Million US and I doubt it's that high after seeing amounts from her peak years.

As far as wealth in what she owns, probably her home in Tokyo, 1 car that she owns. Usually rides in a manager's car or a rental. Some stocks, probably more than just in Avex. More clothes than most people. Lots of jewelry and whatever money is left in the bank which is probably directly connected to her unlimited credit card. She calls the hotels she stays at home away from home, so I doubt she owns any other homes. She also bought an expensive burial plot in Tokyo that cost roughy $1 milllion US that is for her grandmother, mother and herself.

She owns another house near a beach IIRC, she talked about it on Hey!Hey!Hey! when was promoting Fairyland.

She probably also owns HANABI too.

I think she bought Hanabi for her mom, so it's probably in her mom's name now. As far the beach house goes, I think either she was referring to Rainbow House, her home in Tokyo is close to the beach or it's fabricated since it was being told to the public, just like the multi room mansion she talked about for PQ that when she shares pics from her home, they don't add up. Part of it is simply publicity for Ayumi Hamasaki the product, it gets people talking. In all the pics from her actual home, I've seen inside the door, the downstairs patio, the upstairs patio with her garden. A seperate patio upstairs covered with outdoor furniture, part of the living room, part of an indoor staircase and the piece of the backyard with a hot tub.

If there is actually a seperate beach house she owns, it could be where she stays while in Hawaii since I've seen pics that don't match any advertised hotel.

About who pays for her entourage etc... wasn't there a comment during her stay for Love Songs along the lines of "Avex would only do this for Ayu" and that she'd pretty much overstayed what they'd budgeted or something? The tone was definitely that Avex were not happy with her living in a luxury hotel for a few months.

It's in Japan. It's not a beach house, it's just near a beach and it's not the Rainbow thing. It's an actual home. I think the subbed video of her talking about it is on youtube.

Then it's probably her home she always shows bits of in pics then. If it's near the area around Odaiba or Tokyo Disney Sea Resort there's alot of beach around there.

I thought she lived in the Minato area...
her and timmy were twitting about that area.

she could have more then one condo in tokyo as well.

Yeah she lives in Minato, in the NHK 99 documentary they show her home and the view of the harbour and Rainbow Bridge from her window.

Does anyone know where one can find picutres of any kind of any of her houses???

I think she takes a lot of pictures in her books that she has...

I really want to know how much her Avex stock is worth :yes

what? just one house? these artists usually buy a lot of them, so I doubt she has just one or two.
I don't know how much money she has, but I'm sure I'll never get close to it xD

pics of her house are split between twitter pics and her TA diary pics. most books were on location in foreign countries.

Well then that would be a beachfront home and even more likely that she only has that one.

idk... when someone says beachfront I think a house on the beach...
not that I can see the ocean from my house.

my last apartment I could see the beach from my upstairs window, but it wasn't beachfront.

How rich IS Ayu anyway?
Can she wipe her butt with 1000 yen bills?

that seems like that would hurt... lol
But I wouldn't be surprised if she could.

It would be so nice to be THAT rich. The pain of wiping your butt with your cash~~

^#1percentproblems


I don't think she necessarily has to have multiple houses. A lot of artists will rent out hotel floors and such when they have to stay somewhere for an extended amount of time.

Or rent out mansions/apartments for a few weeks. That's also very popular.

Any source mentioned that Ayu owned stocks in avex? I remember in 2001/2002 Ayu was like accounted for 40% of Avex's total revenue, if she converted half those numbers for stocks she would definitely rich.

there nothing official I dont think (besides some interviews) because the japanese companies just dont work that way...
personal life stays just that. personal.

stuff about earnings and the lot is considered rude to talk about.

Well it'll be natural for ayu to own a part of avex, may it be stocks or whatever. Prolly she bought like 10-15% of it or something?

And what about her merchandise empire? Is that business ran out of its course? If she only invested on retailing she'll be a taipan lol

But honestly, can we say she's avex's richest star?

what she should of done all those years ago was made a clothing line of all that stuff she made cool in the early 2000's...
I think that would still be going strong... lol.

Yeah, can anyone share these in here? I'm interested to see what her Tokyo apartment looks like.

^you've seen the white house? that's just the right wing. XD

j/k

can anyone share some pictures?

Here you can find some black&white pictures:
http://ayu.no/news.php?readmore=1378

Oh cool!

Wow... she has a bed in the bathroom.... coolness, lol...

and these say that her apartment is in Hiroo Japan... which is in Shibuya.

interesting :D so much space for just one person :thud

You know, I was looking at those pictures and was thinking that I hate when people have homes that dont look like people live in them...
its horrible and such a waste of space... it's like not even having a home at all.

@Leaf King those pics were fake for a tabloid saying they had pics of the inside. The pics and the description and location are all fake.

If you want a look inside, check the interview that aired in 2000 shared in another thread and look through her pics on her twitter. All the pics shared from the last 13 years are of the same house. You can see the entry, patios, living room, dining room, kitchen and more.

exactly :( but it's in human nature to waste xD

There are two things, how much she has EVER earned

and how much she has now / worth

I would say she has probably earned close to 200 mill in her whole career she is worth at least 150 mill I think. That's just my guess, I dunno if it's true

Ayu most definitely does NOT own a large amount of shares in Avex.

Max Matsuura, the founder and CEO of Avex owns only 4.89% of the shares in his own company, so even if Ayu does own some shares in Avex it can't be a whole lot.

This is public information on Avex Group's website, and you can find it here: http://www.avex.co.jp/e_site/ir/stoc...k_bond_03.html

^I agree, likely well under 2% because it's a huge company with expensive stock and her yearly income isn't as high as most guess, even during her multi million selling years.

They list the major shareholders down to 1.69 % and she is not among them. People need to look past the image of her making the decisions and being the boss, it's just a part of the image they are selling, not reality.

Do we actually have any reliable information about how much money Ayu earns? People throw around a lot of numbers, but it seems to be mostly speculation.
It's one thing to try to estimate how much money Ayu has made for Avex, but it's unlikely that they would ever publish how much of that actually goes to Ayu herself.

The number of what is a lot or not is subjective really.
she can own anywhere between 1-700K...
if you ask me 700K is a ton of shares no matter how you look at it.
it may not be as much as max, but its still a huge number.

and her income not high? at her peak she was ranging in about 8 million a year and thats what was just reported.

and actually Max owns more then 4.89%
He owns 7.38%

If you look on the list he is listed twice.
Once as Masato Matsuura and another as Max 2000, Inc.

So, if he can be listed twice once as himself and once as a different corporation, then whos to say that ayumi isn't in the same boat?

I saw that, but 7% still isn't a whole lot. But of course that list is incomplete, so who knows whoever owns the remaining shares.

Regardless of how many shares Ayu does or does not own, it's unlikely that they would list her as a shareholder on that page anyway. I can't imagine they would want that to be public information.

it would be a conflict of interest...

It's an official list of their major shareholders, she's not on it. Not 1x or 2x, there's nothing left to argue. The questions of homes, earnings and % of stock owned have all been answered very well by some combined research. I'm not going by guesses, I'm going by what has been proven by what we have found working together. Less than 1.69 % in stock. 1 home between 1999-2012 and alot of expensive hotel stays including staying in hotels in Tokyo just for interviews by the press. In the neighborhood of $72Million - $100Million Total earnings in the 15 year career with Avex, with approximately %40 gone in taxes, leaving under $60 Million in total wealth minus whatever has been spent on consumable/rented items.

You dont know who owns what though.
and you cant say she owns less then 1.69 when you dont know for a fact.

49.27% of share holders are Japanese individuals and others... ayumi could be any number of these, its not listed.

the 'major' shareholders only make up 32.23%
and you have to subject the Treasury stock which is 6.58%
that only leaves 38.81 accountable for.

also what do hotel stays have to do with it?
If its for her job, then she doesnt pay for it, so I hope your not subtracting that, which i dont know how you would even know what that number would be.

Also, we dont know for a fact if she only has one home, nor how much she paid for it, nor how much its worth now. There are so many facts into knowing how much money is makes. Like we dont know how much money she makes through each tour, or how much money she makes from her contracts and what not. That price can fluctuate through the years. She could be making more money now then she was during her peak, we just dont know.

from the pie chart its just shares that are sold to the public.
for all intense and purposes Max is the biggest share holder.

Not thats not to say there are not others like him that have multiple companies that are owned by the same person...