Mister Sam's Succession

INDUSTRY Mister Sam's Succesion Samuel Bronfman, founder and president of Distillers Corp.-Seagrams Ltd., was fond of quoting a line from Tennyson's In Memoriam that spoke of grasping "the skirts of happy chance." As Bronfman remarked: "Chances always come. Do you grasp or not?"

Parlaying a small hotel and bar in Winnipeg into the world's largest liquor empire (fiscal 1970 sales: $1.4 billion), "Mister Sam" was a lifelong avatar of Tennyson's 19th century striving optimism. When he died two weeks ago in Montreal at 80, it was apparent that little of his family fortune, worth more than $400 million, had really been left to chance. The founding father had prepared a succession more orderly than that of many other corporate giants.

Like many self-made rich men, Bronfman was a personality of extremes; he was extremely temperamental, sentimental and tough. Forced out of the retail liquor business by a government monopoly, Bronfman set up a modest distillery in Montreal in 1925. His company profited enormously from

U.S. Prohibition. Bronfman's deals with bootleggers' agents in Canada were legal, and he had no doubts where most of his whisky was headed. He later said: "I never went on the other side of the border to count the empty Seagrams botties."

As Seagrams developed, Bronfman bought effective control of its stock from seven brothers and sisters, placing much of it in trust funds to ensure that the bulk of his wealth would go to his widow and children and that his two sons would eventually inherit the mantle of power. Bronfman instructed Sons Edgar and Charles in every step of the business, beginning with his own ritual of "looking at the whisky" as it was distilled. In 1957 Edgar was named president of the Seagrams U.S. operation, which accounts for 81% of the parent corporation's revenues, and Charles took over the Canadian operation. The senior Bronfman went into the office almost daily and retained veto power over major decisions until the end, although he devoted more and more time to charitable projects.

This week, as his father had decided long ago, Edgar Bronfman will succeed him as president of the overall Seagrams corporate interests; Charles will become executive vice president. Though U.S. liquor sales were flat during the recent recession, Seagrams profits have steadily increased, to $59 million in fiscal 1970, as the result of new acquisitions and busy expansion overseas. Seagram's 7 Crown is the biggest-selling brand in the world. The company is also aging the largest inventory of the industry's newest product, "light whisky," which will go on sale next summer. Says Edgar Bronfman: "I'm 42, and my brother is 40, and my father certainly had ample time to train us."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.