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In 1853, Franklin Pierce turned President of the U.S., Washington turned a territory and Levi Strauss began his clothing and dry-merchandise business in San Francisco.
In that exact same 12 months, a German immigrant named Henry Engelhard Steinway developed the first Steinway piano in a loft at 85 Varick Road in New York Metropolis.
Steinway, who went by Steinweg again then, experienced a easy goal: “To establish the best piano doable.”
‘No Way But Steinway’
The firm has developed radically given that those people early days, and the checklist of artists who have employed Steinway pianos vary from Irving Berlin and Cole Porter to Sergei Rachmaninoff to Diana Krall and Billy Joel.
“If I am to engage in my most effective, there is no way but Steinway,” pianist Lang Lang when reported.
Now, Steinway Musical Devices Holdings has filed with the Securities and Trade Commission to checklist its stock on the New York Stock Exchange underneath the ticker image STWY.
“The Steinway piano was the instrument of option for about 97% of concert pianists when carrying out with orchestras across the globe throughout the 2018-2019 concert period,” the organization said in its submitting.
Steinway 1st went general public in 1996, buying and selling less than the ticker symbol LVB for Ludwig van Beethoven, until billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson purchased the organization in 2013.
“As a custodian of Steinway, John Paulson has concentrated on investing in our organization, such as in technologies, firm-owned showrooms, our manufacturing processes and machinery, and in instruction our workforce to make a stronger team,” the filing mentioned.
‘Established, Lucrative Company.’ Is Timing Right?
Goldman Sachs, Lender of The usa Securities and Barclays are the joint lead bookrunning supervisors and reps for the proposed supplying.
But is this the suitable time for an IPO?
A report previous thirty day period by the accounting organization EY uncovered explained the IPO market place has noticed a major slowdown from 2021, owing to variables these kinds of as a increase in geopolitical tensions, inventory-market place volatility, and concerns about growing commodity and power rates.
EY reported there was also there was a appreciable fall in SPAC IPOs, as properly as cross-border, unicorn and mega IPOs, which are those with proceeds previously mentioned $1 billion.
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“The IPO market place has gone from remarkably sizzling to remarkably cold due to the fact the convert of the yr,” claimed Jay Ritter, professor at the College of Florida’s Warrington School of Company.
Ritter claimed that 2021 was the most active IPO industry in the U.S. since 2000, by a huge margin. Nevertheless, only six IPOs elevated additional than $100 million have introduced this yr.
“Steinway Musical Devices Holdings is an established, rewarding business with yearly profits of $538 million and just after-tax revenue of $59.2 million for 2021,” he mentioned. “It will have no issues locating IPO investors at a valuation of about $1 billion.”
Tradition, and Innovation
Innovation is proving to be 1 supply of earnings, as Steinway introduces engineering that Henry Engelhard Steinway could never consider.
In 2015 the corporation introduced the Spirio participant piano, which attributes recorded performances by renowned pianists.
Spirio | r, released in 2019, enables recording and large-resolution modifying in addition to playback.
Final year, the corporation launched Spiriocast, which permits performances to be streamed dwell, in sync with online video and audio, from a piano to listeners and viewers any where in the environment.
Sales of Spirio and Spirio | r pianos grew at a compounded annual charge of additional than 30% from 2016 by means of 2021 and represented about 32% of the firm’s piano-segment net product sales in 2021.
Critically Important New Market
Steinway is also searching toward China, because of to “a deep-rooted reverence for classical music, especially piano songs, and a sizeable and swiftly expanding center and higher course with an hunger for luxury Western products.”
China is the major world-wide marketplace for pianos and has about 40 million practising pianists, the enterprise said. That is about 7 times the range of working towards pianists in the U.S.
Steinway said that about 30 million kids in China are having piano classes, compared with less than 10 million in the rest of the environment, “suggesting that the the vast majority of youngsters enjoying the piano globally are in China.”
“Despite the prevalence of piano playing in China and our model toughness in the region, we have historically been beneath-penetrated in the nation, offering close to fifty percent as quite a few Steinway grand pianos in China as in the U.S. market,” the filing claimed.
As China proceeds to acquire and accumulate prosperity, Steinway said it “will find to capture the growing desire for extremely-quality pianos by private buyers.”
“In excess of the very last 20 yrs, we have remodeled our company in China to sell extra pianos to private shoppers instead than institutions,” the corporation mentioned.