Founded in the early 1990s by Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb, Live Entertainment Corporation of Canada, or Livent, was by all appearances a highly successful developer of popular stage productions, including the long-running Phantom of the Opera. Behind the scenes, however, Drabinsky and Gottlieb (with the help of other senior managers and many of the company's accounting staff) were manipulating the company's financial records to make Livent appear more profitable than it was in order to attract much needed funding from the capital markets. When new management discovered and exposed the fraud in 1998, Livent's dire financial situation was revealed. The company soon filed for bankruptcy protection and was placed into receivership. Drabinsky and Gottlieb were fired and ultimately convicted of fraud.