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| Seagram's | |
| TSX: VO[1] NYSE: VO | |
| Industry | Beverages |
| Founded | 1857; 168 years ago (1857), inWaterloo, Ontario, Canada |
| Defunct | 2000; 25 years ago (2000) |
| Fate | Core business broken up and acquired by Diageo, Pernod Ricard and Infinium Spirits; entertainment assets sold to Vivendi |
| Successors | Diageo Pernod Ricard The Coca-Cola Company Universal Music Group Comcast Vivendi |
| Headquarters | , Canada |
Number of locations | Burlington Oakville Oshawa Brampton Saskatoon Edmonton Burnaby Waterloo New York City |
Key people | Joseph E. Seagram Bronfman family |
| Products | Alcoholic beverages,Ginger ale,Tonic water,Club soda |
| Website | seagram.com (archived) |
The Seagram Company Ltd. (whichtraded asSeagram's) was a Canadian multinationalconglomerate formerly headquartered inMontreal,Quebec. Originally adistiller ofCanadian whisky based inWaterloo, Ontario, it was in the 1990s the largest owner ofalcoholic beverage brands in the world.
Toward the end of its independent existence, it also controlled various entertainment and other business ventures. Its purchase ofMCA Inc., whose assets includedUniversal Pictures and itstheme parks, was financed through the sale of Seagram's 25% holding of chemical companyDuPont, a position it acquired in 1981.
Unable to maintain financial stability, Seagram later imploded, with its beverage assets sold to industry titansDiageo andPernod Ricard. Universal's television holdings were sold toBarry Diller, and the balance of the Universal entertainment empire and what was Seagram was sold to French conglomerateVivendi in 2000.
In 1857, Waterloo Distillery was founded inWaterloo,Ontario,Canada.Joseph E. Seagram became a partner withGeorge Randall, William Roos andWilliam Hespeler in 1869 and sole owner in 1883, and the company became known as Joseph E. Seagram & Sons. Many decades later, in 1924,Samuel Bronfman and his brothers founded Distillers Corporation Limited, in Montreal, which enjoyed substantial growth in the 1920s, in part due toProhibition instituted in the United States in 1919. The Distillers Corporation Limited name was derived from aUnited Kingdom company calledDistillers Company Limited, which controlled the leading brands of whisky in the UK, and which was doing business with the Bronfmans.[2][3]
In 1923, the Bronfmans purchased the Greenbrier Distillery in the United States, dismantled it, shipped it to Canada, and reassembled it inLaSalle, Quebec.[4] The Bronfmans shipped liquor from Canada to the French-controlledoverseas collectivitySaint Pierre and Miquelon off the then-Dominion of Newfoundland, which was then shipped by bootleggers torum rows in New York, New Jersey and other states.[5][3]
In 1928, a few years after the death of Joseph E. Seagram in 1919, the Distillers Corporation acquired Joseph E. Seagram & Sons from heir and PresidentEdward F. Seagram; the merged company retained the Seagram name. The company was prepared for the end of Prohibition in 1933 with an ample stock of aged whiskeys, ready to sell to the newly-opened American market.[5]
Although he was never convicted of criminal activity, Samuel Bronfman's dealings with bootleggers during the Prohibition-era in the United States have been researched by various historians and are documented in various peer-reviewed articles.[6][7]
In the 1930s, when Seagram established business in the United States, it paid a fine of $1.5 million to the US government to settle delinquent excise taxes on liquor illegally exported to the US during Prohibition. The US government had originally asked for $60 million.[8]
From the 1950s, most of Distillers-Seagram was owned by the four children of Samuel Bronfman, through their holding companyCemp Investments. The three most popular Seagram distilled products in the 1960s through 1990s wereSeven Crown, VO, andCrown Royal.[3]
In 1963, Seagram purchased the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company for $61 million in cash and a $216 million production payment sale to Glanville Minerals Corporation of New York. Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company was merged Frankfort Oil Company, another oil-producing company owned by Seagram. The new firm was named Texas Pacific Oil Company.[9] In 1980, the Bronfman heirs sold the Texas Pacific Oil holdings toSun Oil Co. for $2.3 billion.[10]
After the death of Samuel Bronfman in 1971,Edgar Bronfman Sr. was named chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) until June 1994 when his son,Edgar Bronfman Jr., was appointed CEO.[11]
In 1978, Seagram's took over theStonyfell winery in the eastern foothills ofAdelaide fromDalgety Australia, around which time the winemaking part of the business at Stonyfell was wound up.[12]
During the early 1980s, Seagram's attempted to acquireSt. Joe Minerals. However, it was outbid byFluor Corporation.[citation needed]
In 1981, cash-rich and wanting to diversify, the U.S.-based subsidiary Seagram Company Ltd. attempted to engineer a takeover ofConoco Inc., a major American oil and gas producing company. Although Seagram acquired a 32.2% stake in Conoco, DuPont was brought in as awhite knight by the oil company and entered the bidding war. Seagram lost the bidding war, though in exchange for its stake in Conoco it became a 24.3% owner of DuPont. By 1995, Seagram was DuPont's largest single shareholder with four seats on its board.[13]
In 1986, the company started a TV commercial campaign advertising its Goldenwine cooler products. WithBruce Willis as pitchman[clarification needed], Seagram rose from fifth place among distillers to first in just two years.[14]
In 1987, Seagram engineered a $1.2 billion takeover of French cognac makerMartell & Cie.[3]
In 1995, Edgar Bronfman Jr. was eager to enter the film and electronic media business. On April 6, 1995, after being approached by Bronfman, DuPont announced a deal whereby the company would buy back its shares from Seagram for $US9 billion. Seagram was heavily criticized by the investment community; the 24.3% stake in DuPont accounted for 70% of Seagram's earnings.Standard & Poor's took the unusual step of stating that the sale of the DuPont interest could result in a downgrade of Seagram's more than $4.2 billion of long-term debt. Bronfman used the proceeds of the sale to acquire acontrolling interest inMCA fromMatsushita, whose assets includedUniversal Pictures and itstheme parks a year after.[3]
Later in 1998, Seagram purchasedPolyGram and scattered the assets withinUniversal Studios, notably both Universal Music Group and Universal Pictures.[15][16][17][18]
The same year, Seagram sold toPepsiCo its juice businessTropicana Products that it acquired in 1988 for $3.1 billion.[3]
In 2000, Seagram's entertainment division was sold toVivendi, and, after Vivendi had acquired French media giantGroupe Canal+, it became part of the new company, Vivendi Universal, on 11 December 2000.[19]
The beverage division was sold toDiageo andPernod Ricard. By the time Vivendi began auctioning off Seagram's beverages business, the once-renowned operation consisted of around 180 alcoholic drink brands and brand extensions in addition to its original high-profile brand names.[20]
In 2002,The Coca-Cola Company acquired Seagram's mixers (ginger ale, tonic water, club soda and seltzer water) from Pernod Ricard and Diageo, as well as signing a long-term agreement to use the Seagram name from Pernod Ricard for these products.[21]
A licence from Pernod Ricard to produce Seagram's Cooler Escapes and Seagram's malt-beverage brands has been held byNorth American Breweries (formerly KPS) since 2009.[22]
On April 19, 2006, Pernod Ricard announced that they would be closing the former Seagram distillery inLawrenceburg, Indiana, US. The distillery was sold in 2007 toCL Financial, a holding company based inTrinidad and Tobago which then collapsed and required government intervention. They operated the distillery as Lawrenceburg Distillers Indiana. In December 2011, the distillery was purchased by MGP Ingredients, headquartered in Atchison, Kansas.[23] It is now known asMGP of Indiana, and continues to be the source of the components of Seagram's Seven Crown, now owned by Diageo.[23]
In a 2013 interview withThe Globe and Mail,Charles Bronfman (uncle of Edgar Jr.) stated about the decisions leading to the demise of Seagram: "It was a disaster, it is a disaster, it will be a disaster. It was a family tragedy."[24]
Seagram distilleries by country prior to the dissolution:[3]
Seagram distillery
Seagram's had more than 180 alcohol brands at the time the wine and spirits division sale toDiageo andPernod-Ricard:[3]
The Seagram name survives today in various well-known drinks.Seagram's Seven Crown, used to make the American cocktail,7 and 7, is produced byDiageo, while Seagram's V.O. is produced bySazerac.[25] Several brands of coolers are produced under the Seagram name as of 2022: Seagram's Escapes are produced byGenesee Brewing for the American market, while Seagram Island Time is produced byWaterloo Brewing for the Canadian market.[26][27] The Coca-Cola Company currently produces Seagram's Ginger Ale soda line since 2002 & made it widely available in 2011.[28]
Seagram's House, the former company headquarters in Montreal, was donated toMcGill University byVivendi Universal in 2002, then renamedMartlet House.[29] The landmarkedSeagram Building, once the company's American headquarters inNew York City, was commissioned byPhyllis Lambert, daughter of Seagram CEOSamuel Bronfman, and designed by architectLudwig Mies van der Rohe withPhilip Johnson. Regarded as one of the most notable examples of thefunctionalist aesthetic and a prominent instance of corporatemodern architecture, it set the trend for the city's skyline for decades to follow, and has been featured in several Hollywood films. On completion in 1958, its costs made it the world's most expensive skyscraper.[30] The Bronfman family sold the Seagram building toTIAA for $70.5 million in 1979.[31]
TheSeagram Museum, formerly the original Seagram distillery inWaterloo, Ontario, was forced to close due to lack of funds in 1997. The building is now the home of theCentre for International Governance Innovation as well asShopify. The two original barrel houses are now the Seagram Lofts condominiums. There were almost 5 acres (2.0 ha) of open land, upon which theBalsillie School of International Affairs was subsequently built; construction began in 2009, and was completed in 2010.[32][33]
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