Buffet picks up Besson and closes UK operation
First published: Music Trade News, April 2006
The dismemberment of the former Boosey & Hawkes conglomerate, once the UK’s biggest MI-related company, has reached its final stage. Besson, the UK brass instrument manufacturer, was placed in administration on December 6 and its rights and existing inventory snapped up shortly afterwards for an undisclosed sum by the French company Buffet Crampon. The closure of Besson’s Watford premises has meant the loss of 69 jobs, the majority of them in manufacturing. Current Besson orders are being being fulfilled from stock while Buffet prepares to switch production to its facilities in France later this year.
The break up of Boosey’s empire became inevitable after the company — which owned several instrument brands in addition to its music publishing and retail interests — predicted a loss of more than £11m on a £45m turnover in 2000. Major contributing factors were a BBC Watchdog report highlighting quality control failures at its antiquated Edgware factory, and bad debts compounded by a £15m discrepancy in the accounts of its US operation. The company was put up for sale,while manufacturing was restructured. 2001 saw the relocation of UK operations — including manufacture of the Besson range — to a purpose-built facility in Watford funded by the disposal of the Edgware site. Boosey’s then CEO, Richard Holland, promised that, ‘Whatever happens in the world of business, the manufacture of musical instruments is in Watford to stay.’
Over the next four years, the retail premises at 295 Regent Street were sold to Brittens Music, while the music publishing division was sold to a management consortium backed by the HgCapital finance group in a deal which valued that business at £75m. Distribution of the printed music catalogue has since been taken over by Schott, leaving Boosey to concentrate its resources on the lucrative media and rights management elements. Meanwhile, the instrument business had been sold, in February 2003, to The Music Group, a 85/15 partnership between Rutland Fund Management and Boosey MI management, for £33.2m. Rutland immediately set about maximizing the value of its assets and capitalizing on them.
There followed the sale of Rico Reeds for $22.2m in 2004, the management buyout of Höfner (guitars) for a seven-figure sum, and the sale of Buffet Crampon itself for £25m to its management, backed by Argos Soditic, a French private equity house. Although the Buffet brand is best known for its award-winning clarinets, the company also owns the Paris-based Courtois brand of brass instruments through an acquisition announced on 4 January this year.
Not included in Buffet’s purchase of Besson was the physical tooling from the Watford factory, which has been bought by Schreiber & Keilwerth, a German woodwind and saxophone manufacturer, and the sole remaining brand in The Music Group’s portfolio. This has led to speculation on brass-players’ web-based forums that future instruments may combine typical features of Besson instruments — particularly its compensating systems for larger instruments — with certain attributes of the Courtois brand.
That eventuality is rejected out of hand by Buffet Crampon, for whom Peter Chevis commented, ‘We are committed to maintaining the integrity, the tradition and the sound of Besson instruments, while striving to improve the quality and reliability of delivery. Besson players need not worry. We won’t release instruments back into the market until we’re comfortable that the products are exactly right. Buffet Crampon has built its reputation on the quality of our instruments and our relationship with both musicians and dealers, and we’re certainly not going to jeopardize that relationship.’
Distribution of Besson’s products in the UK is now being handled by Lyndon Chapman, 12,Stratford Way, Watford, WD17 3DH (T: +44 1923 245580, M: +44 7899 91807, E: lyndon.chapman@ukgateway.net), while the specialist Denis Wick range is being distributed by Denis Wick Products Ltd (+44 1372 849707 or denis@deniswick.co.uk).