WHALLEY OUT AT WARNER BROS. RECORDS

The Tom Whalley decade at Warner Bros. Records is over.

Look for the label’s Chairman/CEO to leave the company he originally joined in 2001 from Interscope Geffen A&M.

Whalley originally replaced the retiring Russ Thyret as WBR Chairman/CEO after WMG Chairman/CEO Roger Ames negotiated a deal with UMG to let the exec out of the last five months of his contract.

Ames originally signed Whalley to a five-year deal reportedly worth $30-40 million in May 2000 despite the exec having nearly two years left on his existing contract.

Whalley’s appointment was the first major move by Ames after taking over as WMG Chairman/CEO. Jimmy Iovine made it clear at the time that he wouldn’t let Whalley out of his IGA contract, which was to expire Jan. 1, 2002. At that point, both IGA and Warner Bros. began making moves to prepare for Whalley's eventual transition.

Whalley went to Interscope after being let go in the summer of '90 by Capitol, where he’d been head of A&R. A member of Interscope’s founding A&R team, he was named President of IGA in December ’98, following UMG's purchase of PolyGram.

If you want to know what happens next, check what IB Bad had to say in his column of June 2009 here.