Brunswick Corporation

Brunswick Corporation
Brunswick Corporation
Type Public
Traded as NYSEBC
Industry Conglomerate
Founded September 15, 1845
Founder(s) John Moses Brunswick
Headquarters Lake Forest, IL, U.S.
Area served Worldwide
Key people Dustan E. McCoy
(Chairman of the Board) & (CEO)
Revenue decrease $ 4.708 billion (2008)
Operating income decrease $ -611.60 million (2008)
Net income decrease $ -788.10 million (2008)
Total assets decrease $ 3.223 billion (2008)
Total equity decrease $ 729.90 million (2008)
Employees 19,760 (July 2009)
Divisions List of Divisions
Website Brunswick.com

The Brunswick Corporation (NYSEBC), formerly known as the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, is a United States-based corporation that has been involved in manufacturing a wide variety of products since 1845. Brunswick's global headquarters is in the northern Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, Illinois. In 2007, it had sales of US$5.671 billion with net earnings of $111.6 million.[1]

Contents

History

Brunswick was founded by John Moses Brunswick who came to the United States from Switzerland at the age of 15. The J.M. Brunswick Manufacturing Company opened for business on September 15, 1845, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Originally J. M. Brunswick intended his company to be mainly in the business of making carriages, but soon after opening his machine shop, he became fascinated with billiards and decided that making billiard tables would be more lucrative, as the better tables then in use in the United States were imported from England. Brunswick billiard tables were a commercial success, and the business expanded and opened up the first of what would become many branch offices in Chicago, Illinois in 1848.

In 1873, the Brunswick company merged with competitor Great Western Billiard Manufactory owned by Julius Balke to become the Brunswick & Balke Company, incorporated with a capital stock of $275,000. In 1884, another competitor, H.W. Collender Company of New York (founded by Hugh W. Collender), was absorbed to form the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company (or B.B.C. Company for short[2]) with capital of $1.5 million.

The company expanded into making a number of other products. Large ornate neo-classical style bars for saloons were a popular product. Bowling balls, pins, and equipment led a growing line of sporting equipment. It popularized bowling balls of manufactured materials, vulcanized rubber at first; earlier bowling balls had been solid wood.

In the early 20th century, Brunswick expanded the product line to include such diverse products as toilet seats, automobile tires, and phonographs. In the late 1910s, they introduced a quickly-popular line of disc phonograph records, under the name Brunswick Records. In 1930, Brunswick sold the control of the record company to Warner Brothers and came out with a line of refrigerators.

During World War II, Brunswick-Balke-Collender made small target-drone aircraft for the U.S. military.

Bowling alley automatic pinsetter, US patent 2973204

After the war, Brunswick introduced a line of school furniture. In 1955, the Brunswick "Model A" Mechanical Pinsetter fully automated unit premiered, for the purpose of handling bowling pins for the sport of tenpins, in competition with American Machine and Foundry (AMF). Previously, Brunswick had made two models of semi-automated, manually operated "spotting tables" for the tenpin sport, that the "Model A" unit replaced. The decade also saw the introduction of a line of golfing equipment to compete with AMF in the leisure products and sporting goods markets.

The Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company officially changed its name to the Brunswick Corporation on April 10, 1960. The following year the company reported sales of $422 million. Brunswick acquired Mercury Marine in 1961. In the 1970s, Brunswick introduced the automatic scorer, which electronically tallied the score instead of the bowler doing it by hand.

In the 1980s, Brunswick became a major maker of yachts and pleasure boats, whose brands include Bayliner, Boston Whaler, Maxum, Sea Ray, and Trophy.

During the Gulf War, Brunswick supplied the military with camouflage nets. They also made radomes for the Patriot missile.

In 1997, Brunswick purchased the Roadmaster bicycle division, one of the last U.S. manufacturers of low-cost, mass-market bicycles. However, it became apparent that continued U.S. manufacture of such products was not viable in the presence of surging low-priced imports from overseas producers, primarily China. In 1999, Brunswick sold its Roadmaster bicycle division and brand to Pacific Cycle, who went on to acquire several U.S. bicycle brands for use on bicycles imported from China.

Recent events

As of the early 21st century, the Brunswick Corporation still manufactures sporting and fitness equipment (Life Fitness, Hammer Strength, Parabody) in addition to boats (Sea Ray, Bayliner, Maxum, etc.) and marine engines under the Mercury Marine brand name.

In 2004, Brunswick acquired Lowe Boats. The same year, the company also purchased Northstar Technologies, a leading marine electronics provider based in Acton, Massachusetts, from Canadian Marconi Corporation (now CMC Electronics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Esterline Technologies Corporation). Brunswick then merged Navman, based in Auckland, New Zealand, with Northstar to make Northstar/Navman a supplier to the Brunswick Boat Groups. Brunswick also acquired Mx-Marine. When George Buckley, CEO at the time, left to join 3M in 2006, new leadership decided to sell Northstar, Navman and Mx-Marine. Navico now owns those three brands in addition to the Eagle, Lowrance, B&G, and Simrad lines.

On November 9, 2006, the company announced that it was closing two plants and downsizing the workforce by 650 employees, citing slow demand for new boats. Numerous other layoffs occurred prior to this in the Brunswick New Technologies division.

Brunswick reports that in the past five years, their international sales have grown at twice the rate of domestic sales. It has established regional headquarters in Verviers, Belgium; Monterrey, Dandenong, Australia; and Dubai to better serve its customers by designing, engineering, manufacturing and distributing products based on local needs, using local talent.[3]

Divisions

References

  1. ^ (PDF) Brunswick Corporation 2007 Complete Annual Report (2007 ed.). Brunswick Corporation. 2008-03-25. pp. 47. http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/97/97828/reports/ar07/2007_complete.pdf. Retrieved 2008-06-13 
  2. ^ Shamos, Mike (1999). The New Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards. New York: Lyons Press. pp.24, 89–90. ISBN 1-55821-797-5. 
  3. ^ "Global Presence". Brunswick.com. Lake Forest, IL: Brunswick Corporation. 2008. http://www.brunswick.com/company/worldwide/globalpresence.php. Retrieved 2008-06-26. 

External links

Boats

Bowling

Billiards


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать реферат

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Brunswick Corporation — Rechtsform AG (global) Gründung 15. September 1845 Sitz …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Brunswick Corporation — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Brunswick. Brunswick Corp. Personnages clés John Brunswick, Fondateur Dustan E. McCoy, Chairman and CEO …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Brunswick (Begriffsklärung) — Brunswick steht für: Brunswick, einen verbreiteten Ortsnamen Brunswick Stew, einen traditioneller Eintopf aus den Südstaaten der USA Brunswick Corporation, einen Hersteller von Bowling und Billard Utensilien (USA) Brunswick Records, ein… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Brunswick — may refer to:Places;Australia * Brunswick, Victoria, suburb of Melbourne;Canada * New Brunswick, Canadian province * Mount New Brunswick, Yukon Territory * Brunswick Mountain aka Mount Brunswick, North Shore Mountains, British Columbia;Chile *… …   Wikipedia

  • Brunswick Records — ist ein Plattenlabel aus den Vereinigten Staaten. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Geschichte 1.1 Firmengründung / Aufstieg 1.2 Tocht …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Brunswick — Cette page d’homonymie répertorie les différents sujets et articles partageant un même nom. Sommaire 1 Géographie 1.1 Allemagne 1.2 …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Brunswick Marine — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Brunswick. Logo de Brunswick Marine Forme juridique so …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Corporation of Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters of New Brunswick — The Corporation of Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters of New Brunswick (CTINB) (or, in French, Corporation des traducteurs, traductrices, terminologues et interprètes du Nouveau Brunswick (CTINB)) represents translators, terminologists… …   Wikipedia

  • Brunswick, Georgia — Infobox Settlement name = Brunswick settlement type=City official name = The City of Brunswick imagesize = 250px image caption = The Brunswick waterfront from Oglethorpe Bay. nickname = The Wick Shrimp Capital of the World motto = Gateway to the… …   Wikipedia

  • Brunswick Records — infobox record label image bg = black parent = Brunswick Records founded = 1916 distributor = Koch Entertainment (In the US) genre = Historic: Various Current: Soul music country = US url = http://brunswickrecords.com/Brunswick Records is a… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”