This is what he had to say about the break-up of Seagrams.
Charles Bronfman, former co-chair of Seagram, once a Montreal-based liquor heavyweight, and son of legendary businessman, Sam Bronfman, says he’s still upset about the sale of the company, calling it a "terrible tragedy."
"It was our DNA as a family, but more important than that, it was what happened to the other shareholders who lost a hell of a lot of money. It's what happened to my colleagues, our employees, those I feel the worst for and for what happened to my own self image and my kids' self image," he tells BNN. "Frankly it was devastating."
Bronfman says his father, who helped turn the liquor company into a global powerhouse, would feel even worse.
"I get very emotional every time I think about it," he says. "He didn't build up that business to see it go away."
He also says he regrets how the sale happened, as well as his reaction to it.
"I always felt responsible for not having fought as a hard as maybe I might have fought. But that would have ended up in a family war and in a family war nobody wins and probably the same results at the end of the day would have happened," Bronfman says.
In the 1990s, Charles Bronfman's nephew, Edgar Bronfman Jr., altered the focus of the company's operations to the entertainment business by first selling Seagrams' stake in DuPont and then acquiring Polygram, MCA and Universal Pictures. Eventually his nephew orchestrated an outright sale of the entire company to French conglomerate Vivendi, who spun off the liquor operations and eventually sold those to Pernod Ricard and Diageo.
"It was a very interesting business and a serious one and to see it go down the tubes…that hurts," Charles Bronfman tells BNN.
The Seagram Building Headquarters in Montreal. This building is now owned by McGill University after a gift from Vivendi Universal. In 2000, Seagrams was broken-up and the assets sold to Vivendi Universal, Pernod and Diageo.
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