Baldwin pianos have been used by popular entertainers including Ray Charles, Liberace, Richard Carpenter, Michael Feinstein, Billy Joel, Cat Stevens, and Carly Simon, and jazz pianists Dave Brubeck, George Shearing and Dick Hyman.
Many distinguished musicians have chosen to compose, perform and record using Baldwin pianos, including the pianists Walter Gieseking, Claudio Arrau, Jorge Bolet, Morton Estrin, Margaret Baxtresser (née Barthel), Earl Wild and José Iturbi and the composers Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Lukas Foss, André Previn, and John Williams. However, the piano business was not part of the bankruptcy. In 1983, the holding company and several of its subsidiaries were forced into bankruptcy with a total debt of over $9 billion-at that time, the largest bankruptcy ever. Meanwhile, the company had taken on significant debt to finance its acquisitions and new facilities, and was finding it increasingly difficult to meet its loan obligations. By 1982, however, the piano business contributed only three percent of Baldwin's $3.6 billion revenues. In 1980, the company opened a new piano manufacturing facility in Trumann, Arkansas. The company changed its name to Baldwin-United in 1977 after a merger with United Corp.
Thompson, Baldwin bought dozens of firms and by the early 1980s owned over 200 savings and loan institutions, insurance companies and investment firms, including MGIC Investment Corporation. Throughout the 1970s, the company undertook a significant bid to diversify into financial services.
0 kommentar(er)
