Gulf and Western Industries


Gulf and Western Industries, Inc. was an American conglomerate. The company originally focused on manufacturing and resource extraction, but it began purchasing a number of entertainment companies beginning in 1966 and continuing through the 1970s. Most notable among the acquisitions were film studio Paramount Pictures in 1966, television studio Desilu Productions in 1967, arcade and later videogame manufacturer Sega in 1969, book publisher Simon & Schuster in 1975, and a number of music labels including Dot Records. Some of these properties were reorganized under the Paramount brand, with Dot Records becoming the nucleus of Paramount Records and Desilu being renamed Paramount Television.
The company pivoted to focus on entertainment and publishing, selling off its other assets through the course of the 1980s. Gulf and Western rebranded itself as Paramount Communications in 1989.
A controlling interest in Paramount Communications was purchased by Viacom in 1994, and the entertainment assets of Gulf and Western are today part of the media conglomerate Paramount Skydance Corporation.

History

Bluhdorn period

Gulf and Western's origins date to the 1934 founding of the Michigan Bumper Corporation. In 1955, the company changed its name to Michigan Plating and Stamping Company, and later in 1956 it was taken over by Charles Bluhdorn. In 1957, Michigan Plating and Stamping acquired the Beard & Stone Electric Company of Houston, Texas, and changed its name to Gulf and Western Corporation in 1958. Bluhdorn treated this name change as the company's "founding" for the purpose of later anniversaries. The name reflected its operations in Houston near the Gulf of Mexico and the intent to serve the growing automotive industry in the Western United States. It was changed once again in 1960 to Gulf and Western Industries.
Under Bluhdorn, the company diversified into a variety of businesses that included agriculture, apparel, building products, entertainment, financial services, home and consumer products, natural resources, and publishing. A partial list of Gulf and Western's holdings between 1958 and 1982 with the year of acquisition in parentheses:

1950s

  • J. A. Walsh
  • Lester Battery & Electric Company
  • Unicord, a manufacturer of electric transformers that would later begin marketing a line of amplifiers under the name of Univox.

    1960s

  • Mal Tool and Engineering Company
  • Hendrie & Bolthoff Manufacturing & Supply Company, including Casper Supply Company subsidiary
  • Scheufler Supply Company
  • Allbright's Auto Parts
  • E. S. Youse Company, including Bee and Y. A. Yerger subsidiaries
  • Gaul, Derr & Shearer Company
  • General Products Corporation, acquired from Marco Hecht
  • Guaranteed Parts, acquired from Marco Hecht
  • H. M. Parker & Son
  • L. J. Messers Company, including Kanebco and P. Sorensen Manufacturing subsidiaries
  • Merson Musical Products
  • Ocram Corporation, acquired from Marco Hecht
  • Randco, acquired from Marco Hecht
  • William & Harvey Rowland Company
  • Rocket Jet Engineering Corporation
  • Thomas S. Perry Company, including Jobbers Gasket Service subsidiary
  • Wonstop Automotive Warehouse and B.K.S. Corporation, acquired from B.K. Sweeney Manufacturing Company
  • Amplifier Corporation of America
  • Crampton Manufacturing Company, including Angle Steel, Bay Castings, Chase Manufacturing, Conrad, Grand Rapids Brass and Scott's subsidiaries
  • East Side Plating Company, a bumper plating company of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Gulf and Western also owned the similarly named East Side Stamping Company.
  • Foxcraft Products Corporation
  • Miller Manufacturing Company, including Crawford Steel, Bonney Forge, Buckeye Forge, Huntingdon Machine and Monroe Steel Castings subsidiaries
  • Philmont Pressed Steel, including Kamis Engineering Company subsidiary
  • Barr, Thomson & Company
  • Detroit Body Products
  • Furniture City Plating Company
  • Lenape Hydraulic Pressing & Forging Company, acquired from Charles Moore
  • Rea Auto Supply
  • Winkler Auto Parts
  • General Plastics
  • H. Koch & Sons
  • O & S Bearing & Manufacturing
  • Paramount Pictures
  • The New Jersey Zinc Company, including its Chestnut Ridge Railway Company, Palmer Water Company, Saucon Valley Iron and Railroad Company and Vernon Minerals subsidiaries, the stake in its Quebec Iron and Titanium joint venture with Kennecott, and the Eagle and Austinville mines it acquired when it merged with the Empire Zinc Company and the Bertha Mineral Company, respectively. The Eagle mine was designated a Superfund site after its closure, and Viacom International was identified by the EPA as the successor in interest to the mine. The Austinville mine is currently owned by the Austinville Limestone Company.
  • Universal American Corporation, including American Pulley, Amron, Bingham Stamping, Bohn Aluminum and Brass, Butterworth Manufacturing, Daybrook-Ottawa, Hardie, Hubbard Spool, Livingston-Graham, Morse Cutting Tools, Norma-Hoffman, Pullman Flexolators, Super Tool, Utility Metal Products, Van Norman and Young Spring & Wire subsidiaries
  • Alloy Flange and Fittings
  • Collyer Insulated Wire
  • Hedman Mines
  • Mount Clemens Metal Products Company
  • North & Judd Manufacturing Company, including Con-Torq, Hook-Flex and Wilcox, Crittenden & Company subsidiaries
  • Scott-Mattson Farms, including Abaco Farms subsidiary
  • South Puerto Rico Sugar Company, a holding company in Jersey City, New Jersey, with a principal subsidiary, called South Porto Rico Sugar Company, a cane sugar refiner in Ensenada, Guánica, Puerto Rico which owned the Central Guánica, purported to once be the largest cane sugar refinery in the world. South Puerto Rico Sugar Company also owned Guánica Agricultural Service Company, Okeelanta Sugar of Okeelanta, Florida, Central Romana Corporation of La Romana, Dominican Republic, Magdalena Development Corporation and Central Romana By-Products, which produced furfural.
  • Taylor Forge & Pipe Works
  • Associates Investment, including Capitol Life Insurance Company, Emmco Insurance Company, Excel Insurance Company and First Bank & Trust Company of South Bend subsidiaries
  • Atlas Metal Products
  • Brown Company, including Cheverton & Laidler, Monarch Match Company, Saifecs, Superior Match Company subsidiaries and Linweave line of fine papers
  • Chicago Thoroughbred Enterprises, acquired from Marjorie L. Everett
  • Consolidated Cigar Corporation, including Columbia Engineering, Consolidated Caguas, Consolidated Cigar Corporation of Cayey, Flinchbaugh Products, Orbit Tool & Die, Sentinel Plastics, Simon Cigar and N.V. Willem II Sigarenfabrieken subsidiaries. Gulf and Western would also later establish Consolidated Domingo to produce cigars in the Dominican Republic.
  • E. W. Bliss Company, including Eagle Signal, Gamewell, Good Roads Machinery and Mackintosh-Hemphill subsidiaries. Gamewell was later merged with Alarmtronics Engineering, creating the Gamewell/Alarmtronics division.
  • Gardner Clark Spring Company
  • General Steel Products
  • Marion Plant Life Fertilizer Company
  • North Brevard Cable Television Company
  • Orange CATV
  • Providence Washington Insurance Company, including Motor Vehicle Casualty Company, Texas Casualty Insurance Company, Western Alliance Insurance Company and York Insurance Company subsidiaries
  • WCM Machine Works
  • Sega

    1970s

  • Eagle A
  • Auto Body Parts Corporation
  • Camino Tours
  • Bayamon Body Parts
  • Guayama Body Parts
  • Newport Supply Company
  • Piezas Europeas
  • Aye & Stearns
  • Budget Finance Plan
  • Fabrica Accumulatori Uranio
  • Fun In The Sun Tours
  • Hawaiian Polynesia Tours
  • John M. Henderson & Company
  • Newport Supply Company
  • Shattuck Denn Mining Corporation, including Fireproof Products Company and Richmond Screw Anchor Company subsidiaries
  • Symons Corporation
  • Plavica
  • Preferred General Agency of Alaska
  • Sterling Pulp & Paper Company
  • Behm, acquired from Pott Industries
  • Elco Corporation
  • Fab-co Metals, acquired from Pott Industries
  • Hawtin & Partners
  • Société de Construction Mécanique de Bourgogne, acquired from Dujardin Montbard Somenor
  • Kayser-Roth Corporation, a clothing company that owned Miss Universe Inc. because it had bought Pacific Mills, which had invented the pageant to promote its Catalina swimwear brand. The acquisition of Kayser-Roth also included Hammacher Schlemmer, which it had bought in 1960.
  • Simon & Schuster and by extension Pocket Books, Monarch Press and Washington Square Press
  • Her Majesty Industries, a children's wear manufacturer
  • Peavey Paper Mills
  • Solar Fuel Company
  • Madison Square Garden and by extension the New York Rangers, New York Knicks and Holiday on Ice, the O'Hare Hilton Hotel in Chicago, the Arlington Park, Roosevelt Raceway and Washington Park horse race tracks, and real estate in Manhattan, Long Island and Chicago
  • Société des Blancs de Zinc de la Méditerranée
  • Gremlin Industries, including Noval subsidiary. Later renamed Sega Electronics, Inc.
  • Compañía Insular Tabacalera
  • Canaries Cigar and Tobacco
  • Esco Trading
  • Simmons Company
  • Wallace Metal Products

    1980s

  • National Casket Company, acquired from Walco National Corporation
  • Thomas Ryder & Son, of Bolton, England, a machine tool manufacturing company, acquired from Whitecroft

    Minority stakes

Gulf and Western also owned minority stakes in Camino Gold Mines, Cementos Nacionales, Fertilizantes Santo Domingo, Flying Diamond Oil Corporation, Jonathan Logan, J.P. Stevens & Company, Matadero del Este, Mohasco Corporation, Alberto-Culver, Amfac, B.F. Goodrich, Brunswick Corporation, Bulova, Cluett Peabody & Company, Cummins, Fratelli Fabbri Editori, General Tire, Libbey-Owens-Ford, Munsingwear and Uniroyal, among other companies.