The Bronfman Family was one of the driving forces in the twentieth-century globalization of the spirits industry. In 1889 Yechiel Bronfman, a Bessarabian tobacco farmer, brought his family to Canada to escape anti-Semitic pogroms. Though they struggled to survive, his children would later achieve enormous financial success building the world’s largest spirits business.
During the early 1920s, “boozoriums” that his sons Samuel (1889–1971) and Harry (1885–1983) established along the US border generated monthly revenues approaching $400,000, selling compounded spirits to American bootleggers. By 1928, “Mr. Sam”—now clearly in charge—had acquired several distilleries, including Joseph E. Seagram & Sons. He called the newly merged firm Distillers Corporation–Seagram’s Limited. At the height of their success the Bronfmans operated a global empire from their thirty-eight-38-story Park Avenue headquarters in New York. With wineries and thirty-nine distilleries around the world, including several it built in the United States and Scotland, the company earned billions annually from such brands as Seagram’s VO, Four Roses, Chivas Regal, and Mumm champagne.
By the time of his death, Mr. Sam had methodically eliminated his brothers and their families from leadership roles in the firm and had appointed his son Edgar (1929–2013) as CEO. However, overlooked family members created rival fortunes in real estate. In 1989 Edgar appointed his own son, another Edgar (1955–), as president of Seagram’s, then in 1994 as CEO. In a series of disastrous moves Edgar Jr. sold Seagram’s largest profit center (shares in DuPont Corporation) for $12 billion, to finance Seagram’s 1995 entry into the entertainment business. Then in 2000 Bronfman sold Seagram’s to Vivendi Corporation for $42 billion, mostly in shares. In the financial implosion that followed, the family watched billions disappear as the spirits business passed briefly to Pernod-Ricard, and eventually to Diageo, minus several key brands. Many of Seagram’s brands, such as Chivas Regal whisky and Captain Morgan rum, remain vital in other hands, although Seagram’s itself is a rapidly fading memory of a once celebrated spirits enterprise, and the Bronfmans stand as examples of how to build and destroy a business empire.
Chivas Regal; Pernod-Ricard; and Seagram Company Ltd.Faith, Nicholas. The Bronfmans: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram. New York: St. Martin’s, 2006.
Marrus, Michael R. Samuel Bronfman: The Life and Times of Seagram’s Mr. Sam. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 1991.
Newman, Peter C. King of the Castle: The Making of a Dynasty; Seagram’s and the Bronfman Empire. New York: Atheneum, 1979.
By: Davin de Kergommeaux