Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Bosendorfer has been sold!

This will certainly position Brodmann nicely and add a great deal of credibility to their entire enterprise.

Apparently these guys are well-funded and mean business!

Boesendorfer was sold for a mere pittance (11M Euros), about 21 pianos of their most expensive model (Swarovsky).

I think Brodmann already had some credibility. Who knows if gaining more is worth the accumulated debt that Boesendorfer brings to the table? Time will tell.

Yamaha will probably have other opportunities.

We 'knew this' for a while.

Always get a funny feeling when a national warehouse is suddenly emptied out with next containers virtually sold ahead of time.....

Norbert

at least with the Yamaha company they would have vast finanacial help in the years ahead. Broadman is only a piano with invented name from China.

Brodmann is not an 'invented' name but finds its [common...] roots in the company they just bought.

Unintelligible perhaps for some in other parts of the world, European history is often very intertwined and interwoven.

To *which degree* - admittedly - may be a different question.

Norbert

Only 16.1 dollars?!?!

Actually, with 8 million Euros of debt, that bumps the value of the deal to 21 million Euros, about half of Steinway's quarterly revenue.

Any one knows how well capitalized Brodmann was, prior to the acquisition? Just curious.

Bosendorfer’f former executive Mr. Christian Höferl headed the group that was bidding for Bosendorfer, and according to the article bought the company.
I believe that the Brodmann piano was Mr. Hoferl’s “baby” while at Bosendorfer.
At the time, Bosendorfer thought of introducing the Broadmann as a less expensive piano, in a similar way to what Steinway did with the launch of the Boston and Essex lines.

When Christian Hoferl left Bosendorfer a few years ago, he apparently took the Brodmann project with him, and continued its development and marketing while building it mostly in China.
Brodmann pianos, in their modern incarnation, have only been produced for the past few years.

Once Bosendorfer was out for sale, Mr. Hoferl and the group he headed, placed a bid on Bosendorfer.
The group and the company is based in Austria and is considered local, the bid apparently was under the name of Broadmann pianos.

It is not a take over of the Bosendorfer Company by a foreign manufacturer, but rather the decision was apparently made to keep it in European/Austrian hands.

In short, it would be accurate to say that the Bosendorfer piano company was sold to a group of investors headed by former Bosendorfer executives, who developed and ran Broadmann pianos in the last few years.

Thanks Ori.

This scenario will be interesting to watch as it unfolds and we see what kind of owner Brodmann really is.

Perhaps this one will be a harbinger of future deals...

Brodman.........Brodmann.........Broadman.........Broadmann?

There are so many misspelled references to Brodmann on the net that you can get google hits on the misspellings as well as the real name. Even Zormpas' news source got it wrong.

BTW, if anyone (swampwiz perhaps) would care to send a congratulatory e-mail to Mr. Hoeferl, his direct e-mail link is on the Brodmann website opening page.

My speculation:

• Brodmann Pianos "merges" with Bösendorfer.
• Brodmann-branded pianos carry "By Bösendorfer" verbiage on every fall board thereafter.

Not a chance Ax.

I wonder how this will effect quality of Bõsendorfer pianos?

The history of every great maker has always been based on a healthy blend between quality manufacturing and and the required business acumen to market such product.

When companies did only the one,without the other,they eventually failed.

In the case of the new CEO's of this company, Christian Hoeferl and Colin Taylor, Brodmann Co IMHO has acquired this pefect and essential balance to certainly succeed in the future.

Norbert

Hi Norbert,

Even so, this is hardly a growth industry and a fledgling company assuming a debt-ridden small production maker does have some peril.

What's that old song.....

Catch - a - fal - ling - knife - and - put - it - in - your - poc - ket....

Well,people might say all kind of things at this point.

Since ourselves becoming Estonia dealers some 10 years ago, the nay-sayers and dooms-dayers have certainly had their run and expressed their opinions.....

If empty national warehouses and all stock suddenly [pre]sold are any kind of indication, I would certainly say that for any maker, this is a fairly exceptional situation, particularly now at a time, which has been described by many as a "shrinking market"

Anybody who ever met Mr. Hoeferl and Mr.Taylor in person would hardly get the impression that these two belong to some kind of obscure, self-inflicted, i.e. masochistic victim type help group.

"Help" one might argue, is required perhaps more elsewhere and by others.

"To keep up with things" and - "the rapid course of events and developments right now in the industry".

Norbert

This is, of course quite true. But improved marketing, while necessary, will not be sufficient to bring Bosendorfer back to financial health. Also required will be changes in the manufacturing process enabling Bosie to make pianos which can be sold for more than it costs to make them. This, based on their finanacials, is not currently the case despite their stratospheric pricing.

A heavily indebted company with a negative net cash flow ....

Brodmann seemingly bought two things, the capital stock of the company (small potatoes, esp. since the debt came with it) and the name of the company ....i.e. intangible capital. It's anyone's guess what the worth of that intangible capital is in the hands of a new owner.

Actually, it will be the Bosendorfer fallboards that will read "by Brodmann" from here out.

The entire team running Brodmann were former execs, conert technicians, and heads of QC and manufacturing from Bosendorfer. It is a very sharp group, and this is very positive for Bosendorfer's future. The entire piano industry will be watching closely to see how they turn Bosendorfer around.