Gulf and Western
 |
|
| Conglomerate | |
| Industry | Clothing, entertainment, industry, mass media, publishing |
| Fate | Non-publishing/entertainment assets dismantled; renamed as Paramount Communications in 1989 after leading subsidiary Paramount Pictures Sold to Viacom in 1994 Remnants operating as Viacom and CBS Corporation |
| Successor |
Viacom (controlled by National Amusements) |
| Founded | 1934 (as the Michigan Bumper Company) |
| Defunct | 1994 |
| Headquarters | New York, New York, United States |
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Key people
|
Charles Bluhdorn, Martin S. Davis |
| Owner | Charles Bluhdorn (1958) |
| Subsidiaries | Associates First Capital Corporation Consolidated Cigars Kayser-Roth Madison Square Garden New Jersey Zinc Paramount Pictures Paramount Television Simon and Schuster South Puerto Rico Sugar Company |
Gulf and Western Industries, Inc., (stylized as Gulf+Western) was an American conglomerate.
Gulf and Western's origins date to a manufacturer named the Michigan Bumper Company founded in 1934, although Charles Bluhdorn treated his 1958 takeover of what was then Michigan Plating and Stamping, as its "founding" for the purpose of later anniversaries.
Under Bluhdorn the company diversified widely, leaving behind such things as stamping metal bumpers for a variety of businesses, including financial services, manufacturing, apparel and home, consumer and agricultural, auto parts, natural resources and building products, entertainment and publishing. A partial list of Gulf and Western's holdings between 1958 and 1982, with year of acquisition in parentheses:
With the Paramount acquisition, Gulf and Western became parent company of the Dot Records label, and the Famous Music publishing company. After Stax was acquired, that label became a subsidiary of Dot, although Dot was not at all mentioned on the label (rather, Dot and Stax were noted as subsidiaries of Paramount). Later on, the record operation was moved under Famous Music and renamed the Famous Music Group.
In 1967, the company also purchased Lucille Ball's Desilu Productions library, which included most of her television product, as well as such properties as Star Trek and Mission: Impossible, both of which would rank amongst its most profitable commodities over the years. Desilu was renamed Paramount Television.
Gulf and Western sold Stax back to its original owners in 1970, and with it the rights to all Stax recordings not owned by Atlantic Records. A year before, Dot's non–country music roster and catalog was moved to a newly created label, Paramount Records (the name was previously used by a label unrelated to the movie studio; Paramount acquired the rights to that name in order to launch this label). It assumed Dot's status as the flagship label of Paramount's record operations, releasing music by pop artists and soundtracks from Paramount's films and television series. Dot meanwhile became a country label.
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