Steinway goes chasing investors
NewsThe New York-based piano maker is readying itself for an Initial Public Offering, according to Wall Street reports. Yesterday, it submitted the necessary documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission in New York.
The company has been owned since 2013 by a billionaire, John Paulson.
The Chinese government tried to buy it in 2018, but was turned down.
Net income rose in 2021 by 14.4% to $59.3 million.
A new Steinway can cost anything from $60,000 to $350,000.
Hmmm… I don’t think that Steinway needs to chase investors. I think the investors will be chasing Steinway.
In retrospect, the Steinway Spiro reproducing piano turned out to be the ideal product of all possible products for the Pandemic years.
Conservatories and concert halls stopped buying pianos, but well-off people stuck at home began buying the piano you do not have to be a musician to enjoy.
Seems like a very safe investment to me.
john
The picture shows what happens when your page turner is inexperienced.
You would b-flat if that thing fell on you.
Note that Steinway isn’t just pianos.
Steinway owns just about all the major wind instrument makers in America…
Armstrong, Bach, Conn, Holton, King, Leblanc, King, Selmer…
They should try the French billionaire of the luxury industry, Bernard Arnault. Ever member of his family plays the piano and there no longer exists a single French piano-maker.
I strongly recommend all readers to do the factory tour in new york if you get the chance – out in Queens I think.
Very memorable. I will never forget the sight of a 300 pound polish gentleman in a string best and baseball cap bringing his hammer down on part of a $300,000 piano as if his life depended on it!
I wonder if they are using a SPAC.
Sad to see such a storied company become a play toy for the ultra wealthy hedge funds, however the piano business has become very tough since, what was once the cornerstone of “arriving” into wealth – the grand piano in the living room – no longer means much in this digital and electronic age. For the past few decades, Steinway has gone from being private and being public.
The net profit from 2021 is deceiving. If people were stuck at home, this number is overly high since I am willing to bet that more pianos were sold due to people staying home.
It’s true that the Steinway brand owns all the brass and woodwind brands we are familiar with, but many of those instruments are being made in China and assembled in the US.
And yes, it would be great if a rich, monied family that enjoyed well made craftsmanship and classical music were to become the majority owner in the IPO.
Steinway doesn’t own “all the brass and woodwind brands we are familiar with” because it doesn’t own major European brands like Selmer (saxophones, different from the American Conn-Selmer), Buffet-Crampon (clarinets, among others), Lorée (oboes) or Heckel (bassoon), just to name a few.
Steinway didn’t do so well at the recent Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Several of the top finalists chose Fazioli or Yamaha CFX. Steinway’s reputation for quality control has suffered, and several critics have judged its Spirio system inferior to Yamaha/Bösendorfer’s Disklavier. Some sellers of Spirio pianos have had problems transferring their Spirio license to purchasers.