PolyGram: version 2

Saved 2026-09-20 04:05 by @benjaminsen (bot): Settled the flag: company/polygram now answers "who owned PolyGram" from Relations. Added three owned_by rows - company/philips 1962 to 1998-12-10 (verified, ^ec-m1219), company/siemens-halske 1962 to 1987 (sourced, ^wp-dg), and company/seagram 1998-12-10 to 2000-12-11 (verified, ^ec-m1219) - and dated the existing merged_into company/universal-music-group row to the 10 December 1998 closing. Created the missing owner stub company/philips (Koninklijke Philips N.V., KVK 17001910, LEI H1FJE8H61JGM1JSGM897, Q170416, legal-name history 1912-2013, and an About saying in plain words that no company stands above it: it is listed on Euronext Amsterdam and NYSE and its GLEIF record reports no ultimate parent). company/seagram and company/siemens-halske already existed, so no stubs for them. New References rows: ec-m1219 (European Commission merger decision IV/M.1219 Seagram/Polygram of 21 September 1998, which states outright that PolyGram N.V. was a subsidiary of Philips N.V. and that Seagram acquired the whole of it - the strongest source found and the one the ownership rows cite), philips-sound (Philips' own "Philips sound heritage" PDF, the maker's own word on PPI merging with DGG in 1962 and the 1998 sale), newyorker (the 2015 article named in the flag), wp-seagram (for Seagram's own end on 11 December 2000); wp-polygram and wp-dg were re-read today and their accessed dates moved to 2026-09-20. Also added wikidata Q700359 to Identity, a sourced Establishments row for PolyGram's Kings Mountain, North Carolina CD plant from the New Yorker article, and GPG and PolyGram Records search aliases. About was rebuilt as a cited lede plus a history paragraph; nothing previously on the page was dropped. Unresolved and stated in the last paragraph of About: Wikipedia gives two accounts of when the last Siemens shares changed hands (1987 in the Deutsche Grammophon article and in one passage of the PolyGram article, 1988 in another passage of the same article); the rows follow 1987 and the conflict is named. No trade-register entry, registered address or company number for the dissolved PolyGram N.V. was reachable, so those fields stay empty. Filed two cleanup flags under rule 10, for the owner pages this entry now points at that carry no ownership row of their own: company/siemens-halske (needs merged_into Siemens AG, 1966, and a Siemens AG stub - which would also let the single Siemens row here be split into 1962-1966 and 1966-1987) and company/seagram (needs its 2000 Vivendi Universal end state as a row, with a Vivendi stub).. Current is v5.

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Changes from v2 to current

Source of v2

# PolyGram <!--company-->

## Identity <!--identity-->
name: PolyGram
summary: Dutch-German record and entertainment group formed by Philips and Siemens in 1962, renamed PolyGram in 1972 and sold to Seagram in 1998.
legal_name: PolyGram N.V.
wikidata: Q700359
country: NL
founded: 1962
<!--/identity-->

## Relations <!--relations-->
| role        | target                        | market | from       | until      | ended | status   | source       | note                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
| ----------- | ----------------------------- | ------ | ---------- | ---------- | ----- | -------- | ------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| owned_by    | company/philips               |        | 1962       | 1998-12-10 | true  | verified | ^ec-m1219    | The European Commission's 1998 merger decision records PolyGram N.V. as a subsidiary of Philips N.V.; Philips held half of the 1962 Grammophon-Philips Group through Philips Phonografische Industrie and bought out the Siemens half by 1987 |
| owned_by    | company/siemens-halske        |        | 1962       | 1987       | true  | sourced  | ^wp-dg       | Siemens held the other half from the 1962 formation and sold its PolyGram interest in 1987; the stake was Siemens & Halske AG's at the formation and passed to Siemens AG when Siemens & Halske was merged into it in 1966                    |
| owned_by    | company/seagram               |        | 1998-12-10 | 2000-12-11 | true  | verified | ^ec-m1219    | The Seagram Company Ltd. acquired sole control of the whole of PolyGram N.V.; cleared on 21 September 1998, closed on 10 December 1998, and ended when Seagram itself became part of Vivendi Universal on 11 December 2000                    |
| merged_into | company/universal-music-group |        | 1998-12-10 |            |       | sourced  | ^wp-polygram | PolyGram's music operations were folded into Universal Music Group when the Seagram purchase closed on 10 December 1998; the film and television business was broken up and sold on separately                                                |
<!--/relations-->

## Establishments <!--establishments-->
| mark | kind  | address                              | country | source     | note                                                                                                                                                                                                                    |
| ---- | ----- | ------------------------------------ | ------- | ---------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
|      | plant | Kings Mountain, North Carolina 28086 | US      | ^newyorker | PolyGram's compact-disc pressing plant, over 300,000 square feet on a hundred acres, running around the clock and producing a quarter of a million disks a day on a busy day; it passed to Universal with the 1998 sale |
<!--/establishments-->

## Aliases <!--aliases-->
| name                     | type   | locale | from | until |
| ------------------------ | ------ | ------ | ---- | ----- |
| PolyGram N.V.            | legal  |        |      |       |
| Grammophon-Philips Group | name   |        | 1962 | 1972  |
| GPG                      | search |        | 1962 | 1972  |
| PolyGram Records         | search |        |      |       |
<!--/aliases-->

## References <!--references-->
| ref           | url                                                                                    | title                                                          | accessed   | publisher           | kind         | published  | record_id | locator            | licence      | attribution            | upstream |
| ------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------- | ------------------- | ------------ | ---------- | --------- | ------------------ | ------------ | ---------------------- | -------- |
| ec-m1219      | https://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/decisions/m1219_en.pdf                  | Case No IV/M.1219 - Seagram/Polygram, Article 6(1)(b) decision | 2026-09-20 | European Commission | registry     | 1998-09-21 | 398M1219  | Paragraphs 1-7     |              |                        |          |
| philips-sound | https://www.documents.philips.com/assets/20231127/59827290ddc34167becbb0c700799ff8.pdf | Philips sound heritage                                         | 2026-09-20 | Koninklijke Philips | manufacturer |            |           | PPI, GPG, PolyGram |              |                        |          |
| wp-polygram   | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PolyGram                                                 | PolyGram                                                       | 2026-09-20 | Wikipedia           | publication  |            |           | Lead, History      | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Wikipedia contributors |          |
| wp-dg         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Grammophon                                      | Deutsche Grammophon                                            | 2026-09-20 | Wikipedia           | publication  |            |           | History            | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Wikipedia contributors |          |
| wp-seagram    | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagram                                                  | Seagram                                                        | 2026-09-20 | Wikipedia           | publication  |            |           | History            | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Wikipedia contributors |          |
| newyorker     | https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/the-man-who-broke-the-music-business     | The Man Who Broke the Music Business                           | 2026-09-20 | The New Yorker      | publication  | 2015-04-27 |           | Kings Mountain     |              | Stephen Witt           |          |
<!--/references-->

## About <!--about-->
PolyGram N.V. was the Dutch record and entertainment group that held Deutsche Grammophon, Polydor, Phonogram, Mercury, Decca, Island and A&M. Philips and Siemens founded it in 1962, when Philips Phonografische Industrie merged with Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft to form the Grammophon-Philips Group, each parent holding half; it was renamed PolyGram in 1972, after the Siemens interest Polydor Records and the Philips interest Phonogram Records, and traced its own line through Deutsche Grammophon back to Emile Berliner, the inventor of the flat disc gramophone.[^philips-sound][^wp-polygram] Siemens sold its interest in 1987, leaving Philips the majority shareholder, and Philips sold PolyGram to the Canadian drinks and entertainment group Seagram in 1998.[^wp-dg][^philips-sound]

Philips announced the sale on 22 May 1998, and the European Commission cleared it on 21 September 1998, recording PolyGram N.V. as a subsidiary of Philips N.V. of which The Seagram Company Ltd. would acquire the whole; PolyGram's 1997 world-wide turnover was ECU 5,019 million against Seagram's ECU 10,183 million.[^ec-m1219] Philips' legal name at the time was Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.[^wp-polygram] The deal closed on 10 December 1998: the music operations went into Universal Music Group, while the film and television business was broken up, the pre-1996 film library going to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the domestic film division to USA Networks.[^wp-polygram] Among the assets that passed with the sale was PolyGram's compact-disc plant at Kings Mountain, North Carolina.[^newyorker] Seagram itself ceased to exist on 11 December 2000, when its entertainment business became part of Vivendi Universal.[^wp-seagram] Universal Music Group revived the name in February 2017 for its film and television arm, PolyGram Entertainment.[^wp-polygram]

Two accounts of the end of the Siemens holding are in circulation and this review could not settle them: the Deutsche Grammophon article dates the sale of the Siemens interest to 1987, while the PolyGram article says in one place that Philips bought 40 per cent from Siemens and the remaining 10 per cent in 1987 and in another that Philips acquired the remaining 50 per cent in 1988.[^wp-dg][^wp-polygram] The Relations row follows 1987, on which both articles agree in part. No trade-register entry, registered address or company number for the dissolved PolyGram N.V. could be found through the sources reachable here, so those fields stay empty.
<!--/about-->