Seagram
Seagram (full name Seagram Company Ltd. ) was a great in Montréal ( Canada -based) conglomerate . The company was the world's largest spirits manufacturer at the time and expanded into the music, film / television and entertainment industries towards the end of its existence. The name Seagram or the brand name Seagram’s (see Seagram's Distillery ) largely disappeared through mergers and sales , the former core areas are now part of the companies Pernod Ricard , Vivendi and NBC Universal .
The Seagram Building at 375 Park Avenue in New York City - the company's former US headquarters - still bears the Seagram name, designed by architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson .
history
In Waterloo in the Canadian province of Ontario one was in 1857 Distillery ( distillery ), founded in 1869, at the Joseph E. Seagram involved as a partner. Seagram took over the company in 1883 and renamed it Joseph E. Seagram & Sons .
Samuel Bronfman founded Distillers Corporation Ltd. in 1924 in Montréal and benefited from prohibition in the USA in the 1920s , which helped his company grow strongly. In 1928 Bronfman bought the small distillery Joseph E. Seagram & Sons and the naming rights to it from Seagram's heirs.
Seagram , as Distillers Corp. in the meantime called, had large quantities of various whiskeys and was thus well equipped for the lifting of prohibition in 1933. The most famous whiskey was the Canadian blend Seagram's VO (for "Version Original"). The company flourished and brought the Bronfman family a fortune that grew practically regardless of economic conditions.
Through this success, the Seagram name is usually associated with the Bronfman family, which incorrectly leads to the claim that Samuel Bronfman founded Seagram. Until his death in 1971, Samuel Bronfman ran the company, which was then taken over by his son Edgar Bronfman sen. was acquired.
Edgar Sr. relied on diversification of the billion dollar company and tried in 1981 to take over Conoco Inc. , a large American oil and gas producer. Although Seagram was able to acquire 32.2% of the company, the hostile takeover failed because the chemical company DuPont came into play as the White Knight and took over Conoco. In exchange for the shares in Conoco, Seagram received 24.3% of DuPont. Until 1995 Seagram was DuPont's largest single shareholder and had four seats on the board of directors - 70% of Seagram's income at that time came from its stake in DuPont.
In 1987 Seagram took over the well-known French cognac manufacturer Martell & Cie for 1.2 billion US dollars.
In June 1994 Edgar sen. the position of CEO his son Edgar Bronfman jun. Under Edgar jun. The conversion of the company into a media and investment group began almost immediately.
On April 6, 1995, DuPont announced that it would buy back Seagram's shares, and Standard & Poor's announced that this could result in a downgrade of Seagram due to its long-term debt of $ 4.2 billion. Since Edgar jun. insisted on converting Seagram into an entertainment company, the deal was carried out.
That same year, Seagram acquired 80% of the Music Corporation of America (MCA Inc.) from the Japanese Matsushita group for an estimated US $ 5.7 billion . The MCA-Holding was renamed Universal Studios at the same time , the MCA Music Entertainment Group became the Universal Music Group .
In 1997, Seagram bought Viacom's 50% stake in USA Network for $ 1.7 billion . In 1998 Seagram acquired PolyGram , the music division of the Philips group, for 10.4 billion US dollars , which was integrated into the Universal Music Group (UMG), creating the world's largest music publisher.
The sale of the former core business began in 1999. Seagram Australia went to the Foster's Group . Mumm & Cie, Champagne Perrier-Jouët, and the fruit juice brand Tropicana were sold to various companies for a total of 4 billion US dollars. When Seagram was swallowed by Vivendi for 34 billion US dollars in 2000 , the new owner sold all remaining spirits and wine divisions, including the naming rights, for 8.1 billion US dollars to the companies Pernod Ricard and Diageo .
Vivendi temporarily changed the name to Vivendi Universal - based on the two large Seagram entertainment divisions Universal Studios and Universal Music . Since then, the Seagram name has only been an exclusive brand of certain Pernod Ricard and Diageo products.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Gilbert Delos: Les Whiskeys du Monde. Translation from French: Karin-Jutta Hofmann: Whiskey from all over the world. Karl Müller, Erlangen 1998, ISBN 3-86070-442-7 , p. 143.