Bosendorfer sold to Yamaha for less than €11 million only

[n_n]

pls see:

https://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/7375.html

or

https://www.forbes.com/markets/2007/11/30/bosendorfer-bawag-yamaha-markets-equity-cx_jc_1130markets04.html

or

https://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/422179


this is the saddest news i've heard in a while...

[n_n]

i don't know why but i get personally sad about this... almost teared up...   I dreamed to eventually own one of those gems! but now I don't want a Yamaha-Bosendorfer even if the instrument stays the same... call me shallow and superficial ! 

[thalberg]

I agree--it's like owning a Toyota-Ferrari.  No way!

But why does one article say it wold to Brodman and the other article says it sold to Yamaha?  I don't understand.

But yes it is very sad.

They mentioned Pleyel---I have never even seen one of those.  I want to see one now.

[n_n]

https://www.boesendorfer.com/index.php?menu=89&dsp=100&act=det&id=1446&lang=en

it's a mistake to have the bank own the company a few years ago! What do the bankers care?!!! If I were an Austrian, I'd starve myself to protest! This is a national treasure they're selling, to another country!

[iumonito]

Didn't Kimbal own Bosendorfer not so long ago? it doesn't affect the pianos.  The Bosie people are serious piano makers.

It really doesn't matter who owns the company, as long as the person in charge of technical production is a serious piano maker.  Bechstein went through a similar period and got repurchased by a German consortium.  Then they stopped making top-tier pianos, and THEN got bought out (I think by Samick).  No blaming Samick for the current state of Bechstein production.  Bluthner and Mason and Hamlin, on the other hand, got in the hands of serious piano makers, and now they are making top-tier pianos after several years of turning out subpar crafted intruments (the new ones are superb).

BTW, Brodman is a Chinese piano company founded by former Bosie people.  They make really good pianos, but not at all on a Bosie template (they are quite similar to Hamburg Steinways, although much cheaper).  I can't imagine Brodman buying Bosie; I doubt they could afford it, and it is not their market anyway.

And another BTW, Yamaha top-flight pianos are really really really good.  Have you played recently one of their full-size concert grands?  I find them way more versatile and responsive than the Bosie 290.  it is certainly a better-engineered instrument, although you have to take of your hat on craftmanship to Bosie's people in Austria.  Those pianos, you may like or dislike their design, but they are exquisitely made.

[gerry]

I don't look at it as sad news at all. Bosendorfer has changed hands many times since its founding--yes including Kimball. My take on it is that this only helps perpetuate the brand as everyone who has acquired it has pledged to in essence leave it alone and allow the craft to continue as it always has. I believe Yamaha will probably use the technology to improve their brand but keep Bosie intact and treat it as a luxury brand in their overall portfolio. It's also possible that Bosie needs some serious fat trimming, who knows.
The upside is that with all Bosie's financial woes, it sure beats bankruptcy and disappearance of the name altogether.

[nyonyo]

Knowing how Yamaha operates, I wonder how long the local workers (the Austrians) can work under Yamaha Corporation management.

Actually, 11 M Euro is about right. Bosendorfer has no market share at all. So it will not produce income for Yamaha. The purchase is just to buy the patent. 

[thalberg]

Knowing how Yamaha operates, I wonder how long the local workers (the Austrians) can work under Yamaha Corporation management.

Actually, 11 M Euro is about right. Bosendorfer has no market share at all. So it will not produce income for Yamaha. The purchase is just to buy the patent. 

What patents do you think Yamaha will "steal" from Bosendorfer?

[daniloperusina]

I think I agree with Gerry. Yamaha is a company who are experts on piano manufacturing, and this deal seems more likely to only insure that Bösendorfer will survive economically. I suppose Bösendorfer's gain is economic security and a marketing departement they couldn't even dream of. Yamaha gains prestige, and are hopefully clever enough to not interfere with how the B people build their pianos.

Steinway was sold to CBS in the 70's. It was a bad period. They eventually sold them again, and now they are owned by someone else, forgot who. But it seems to work very well.

Neumann microphones, a sort of Steinway of mics, was sold to Sennheiser, but it has also worked out very well.

Let's not even mention record labels! Phillips, Decca, Deutsche Grammophone are all owned by the same company. World economy is...weird (and scary)!

[buick8]

How about a FIAT-Ferrari, since Fiat owns it? Or a BMW-Rolls-Royce, or a VW-Bentley? I think it depends on if they recognize and value the culture of the company and its technical heritage and want to preserve it and build on it, or just want to rob what they can get. If they understand pianos its one thing; if they only understand and value business, it can be quite another.
It seems to me the piano business must be tough; no matter how fine and technically excellent the product; no matter how much we romanticize it, the bills still have to be paid (unless of course the staff are all of independent means and are willing to volunteer their work to The Cause...). There has to be customers who slide money across the counter; how crass, but its nontheless true.

[allthumbs]

You've misread the news site. Bosendorfer was not sold to Yamaha.

"The fabled Austrian piano manufacturer Bösendorfer has been sold for just under €11 million, according to the Austrian national broadcaster ORF and Deutsche Presse-Agentur. The purchaser, Brodmann Pianos of Vienna, beat out rival Yamaha Pianos of Japan.

Brodmann's current chief, Christian Höferl, is a former Bösendorfer sales executive."

[gerry]

The selection of Yamaha as final bidder meant that an Austrian rival, Joseph Brodmann, failed to raise its 11 million euro ($16.27 million) offer to match a reported bidding price of 15 million euros ($22.19 million) from Yamaha.


The fabled Austrian piano manufacturer Bösendorfer has been sold for just under €11 million, according to the Austrian national broadcaster ORF and Deutsche Presse-Agentur. The purchaser, Brodmann Pianos of Vienna, beat out rival Yamaha Pianos of Japan.


TOKYO — Austria's L Boesendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH, one of the world's oldest piano makers, has chosen Japan's Yamaha Corp to acquire the company, informed sources said Wednesday. Yamaha, the world's largest piano maker in terms of volume output, won a bidding battle for Boesendorfer with Austria's Joseph Brodmann Piano Group, which is owned by U.S. hedge fund Cerberus.

These are the three key statements from the three articles linked - who are we to believe



 

[arensky]

These are the three key statements from the three articles linked - who are we to believe

The Forbes article is the latest, written on 11/30/07. It seems that Yamaha has prevailed.

[n_n]

i'd go with what Bosendorfer's website says:

https://www.boesendorfer.com/index.php?menu=89&dsp=100&act=det&id=1446&lang=en

I do play on a yamaha now and totally love it. It's just the image of the combination's a bit hard to digest...

[cincy2]

Yamaha does not buy companies losing money just to keep them. There will be changes.  I will go out on a limb and predict:

1. Piano parts and/or subassemblies will be built to Bos.. specs in Japan or elsewhere. Final assembly will still be done in German. German labor costs are very high.

2. The price of a Bosie will not go up significantly. The entire manufacturing, tuning and voicing process at Bosie will be examined and improved to reduce time without compromising the qualities that make these pianos desirable. The Japanese (taught by the American Deming) are experts at squeezing waste out of complex, multi-variable processes.

3. Certain design elements of the Bosies and the high end Yamahas will merge.

4. Bosendorfer will be profitable within five years.

5. Yamaha will keep a very low profile to ensure that the prestige of the Bosie marque remains untarnished.

[gfiore]

The only glitch in your summation is that they are austrian not german.

[jakev2.0]

This is about as sad as Lenovo buying IBM.

(i.e., not very).

[nyonyo]

This is about as sad as Lenovo buying IBM.

(i.e., not very).

It is a normal business decision. If one determines that it is not worth to be in that line of business anymore, one will close the business. I think it is what happened with IBM. IBM would rather concentrate on a more high margin line of product. With Bosendorfer, however, it seems that they cannot cover their production cost, because there are very few people purchase Bosendorfer, unless they are rich or really want to have Bosendorfer piano for various reasons. There are so many subtitute products. I really believe that pricing is the problem why Bosendorfer cannot sell their pianos.

I am really hoping that Yamaha will utilize Bosendorfer technology to produce Yamaha piano with Bosendorfer sound quality and sell the piano much less than Bosendorfer exceedingly high price. If the sound quality of Yamaha improve, Yamaha can introduce new line, Super Yamaha, and charge more to make more profit.  As a result, if Yamaha can make enough money by using this strategy, I am not surprise that Yamaha will eventually close Bosendorfer production. However, they can also keep the Bosendorfer and still sell at high price eventhough people will actually pay much more money for pianos that are actually the same  as that new line of Yamaha piano but with Bosendorfer logo. I bet some people will also buy this piano, because of the logo

Bottom line, most people will be better off from the purchase of Bosendorfer by Yamaha.

[buick8]

There has been a similar historic precednet in the US with automobiles. There currently is no US car line at the Mercedes-Benz S-Klasse price level; There was int he 1920s-1930s: Cadillac , Packard, Lincoln, for three, were premium-level, expensive cars. All three had to start making more mass-produced, lower level cars, which would sell in higher volumes if the manufacturers were to survive. Packard made first the 120, then even a six-cylinder car, the 110, to offer the public a "real" Packard at a lower price. Lincoln made the Zephyr which owed a lot more to Ford's technology and manufacturing methods than to Lincoln; Cadillac came out with the LaSalle and the 60 Special, and gradually moved to a higher-volume, less exclusive and lower-priced product.
Post WWII, the Buick Special was the same thing: a "real" Buick which was built with a Chevrolet body shell restyled and with a Buick engine. Of course, even Mercedes-Benz came out with the 190 Series and continues with the C-Klasse.
Bottom line: if the money is not coming in the door in sufficient quantity to amortize engineering and other overhead, and buy materials and pay wages, and pay the cost of capital, its Game Over for anyone, no matter how "great". Yamaha can learn a lot from B.; B can probably learn a lot from Y and will benefit from having enough capital to fund some engineering and design, and maybe get their volumes up a little to lower their unit cost. Hopefully the result will be higher quality for everyone.

[cincy2]

I agree with all the learned posts on this subject. I believe that a company can continue to exist by only serving an elite customer base with only a high priced product. My husband owns a $20,000 classical guitar made by a luthier and his son working out of their home. If you are privately held and have no objectives beyond making a decent living for yourself and a few others, you will prosper (like this luthier) as long as your product is recognized for its quality and performance. The companies who have failed in serving niche markets are those with grandiose growth plans foisted on them by stock analysts and greedy executives trying to increase the value of their stock options. Japan's business leaders are known for their long term planning horizon. They don't live from quarter to quarter, slaving to increase earnings (even artificially) to satisfy short sighted Boards of Directors and clueless Wall Street mavens. Time will tell what happens to Bosendorfer but if I worked for them I would feel good about this outcome.

[gjkoster]

Why would this have to be bad news no matter what? Even for Bosendorfer I would say whats in a name? Sure, if Bosendorfer was sold to a cookie factory I could see the point... When it comes to the big names like Steinway or Bosendorfer, I feel that some people get overromantic sometimes, as if it is all sheer magic, untouchable by any other living soul. Smoke and fire, off course, but Yamaha is not a bad manufacturer! And they are way to smart to let the market value of the Bosendorfer name slip away. Be positive!

[daniloperusina]

Somehow I can't imagine that Yamaha want to be known as the company who ended Bösendorfer's history by buying them to close them down. Yamaha is buying a business that is losing money, and apparantly outbidded their competitor by several million dollars to do so. Bösendorfer is not really a competitor to Yamaha either. They also won the bid because they guaranteed that the factory will remain in Austria. I think it's quite apparent that Y has tremendous respect for the B. They want the image that goes with the name. They possibly want to develop their own expertise by learning from B. They possibly want to see whether they can turn B into a profitable company without compromising the quality. People buy B because they expect the very best in handicrafted pianos, so there's absolutely no point in degrading the quality.

[deboerbarry]

"It really doesn't matter who owns the company, as long as the person in charge of technical production is a serious piano maker.  Bechstein went through a similar period and got repurchased by a German consortium.  Then they stopped making top-tier pianos, and THEN got bought out (I think by Samick).  No blaming Samick for the current state of Bechstein production.  Bluthner and Mason and Hamlin, on the other hand, got in the hands of serious piano makers, and now they are making top-tier pianos after several years of turning out subpar crafted intruments (the new ones are superb)."

I think you'll find that this is a bit out of date. The largest shareholders in Bechstein today are Karl Schulze and Berenice Kupper. Samick have retained a 19% holding. They have moved production to a new factory in Saxony, and they are making a decent profit. This arrangement has been good for Bechstein and I think the Yamaha tie up could be good for Bosie. Nowadays, Bechstein's premium range of pianos ("Carl Bechstein" as opposed to "Bechstein Academy") are fabulous pianos. I personally prefer them in touch and character to Steinway and Bosie. I have to say, though, that many of  the Yamaha hand-made range of large and concert grands are up there with the best.