good one!

How about Ludwig van Beethoven?

As an old-timer, I'm still reeling from when CBS bought Steinway or whatever. I didn't really understand what that deal was (it was around 1987 or so), but it worried me. After that, I stopped thinking about the "corporate" aspects, because I figured I'd rather not think about it.

BTW........Does anyone know what ever became of the CBS connection?

You are now officially our investment guru.

Mark

I will tell you if you will teach me to play Opus 2 No. 1!!

Scriabin - omigod!

When something is a publicly traded company, it's pretty much obligated to that.

Bingissimo!!!

I think we might have a deal here -- I teach you a stupid Scriabin etude, you make me millions.

Worth it - to me, anyway.

The CBS connection was severed when they sold Steinway to the Birmingham brothers, who, I understand, did their level best to continue running the company into the ground, following CBS's footsteps.

The company was subsequently sold again to the present owners. It may not be widely known that the top 2 executives control some 90%+ of the Class A voting stock (from memory - check my numbers).

In my opinion LVB is a great short here.

Named after some hack composer, Ludwig Von Beethoven, or some name like that

edit : deleted

not realizing others have posted answers to same question.

Not that we should necessarily run and short LVB but, speaking as a new person on this site, I'm awed again and again at the level of knowledge and discussion here.

CBS seems to have made a specialty of that. In the '60's they bought the NY Yankees, and pretty much ran them into the ground. That's why George Steinbrenner and his group were able to buy the team for what now sounds bargain-basement: $10 million. The team is now probably worth over a billion.

I had no clue until someone told me.

Hey, it doesn't hurt to say it again.

Ludwig van Beethoven! Ludwig van Beethoven!!! :-)

P.S. I bet Schroeder would have got it.....

P.S. If I were ticker-symboling a company like Steinway, I would have picked JSB, for Bach.
Or, if I wanted to emphasize the piano aspect, FC or CHO for Chopin.

But I don't have too much complaint about LVB. It's pretty cool.

Hey - what about ANS?

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin

Is he chopped liver all of a sudden? Ok, ok - so he was a little bit nuts.

You coulda helped him, Doc.

We are now in serious danger of hijacking the thread.
But I can't pass up the opportunity to say......If a shrink had "helped" Scriabin (or Handel, who was supposedly bipolar; or Mozart who was a wiseguy; or Chopin who sort of brooded, at least according to cliche; or Beethoven who probably didn't "get any" enough) if somebody had "helped" them, would it really have been HELPING them?

Discuss amongst yourselves, I'm all verklempt.

Touche'

At the time CBS purchased Steinway & Sons the company was on its last legs. The family had been taking profit from the company and not reinvesting in raw materials and infrastructure as it had in decades past. It was only CBS's infusion of opperating capital the allowed this precious American icon to continue to build pianos. Production increased slightly and quality improved under CBS watch. I was selling Steinways during this period.

CBS began a period of divestiture of non-media related investments as it wanted to return to its core business. The conglomerate never had the hands on management style necessary to enable S&S to truly flourish. CBS hardly "ran S&S into the ground."

The Birmingham brothers stepped up and purchased the company
at a time of low morale and slipping quality control that occured during the prolonged sale. They assembled a top notch management team of industry professionals and brought production and quality back up. They also invested again in the critical raw materials. The notion that the Berminghams "ran the company into the ground" is unfounded. I was selling Steinways during this period and lived the experience.

Ludvig Van Beethoven

THANKS for that history regarding CBS and Steinway.

I doubt that Steve C. is a day trader, so I assume he meant here that the value of the Steinway stock in his vast Buffettesque portfolio had increased on that given day.

A lot would depend on when Steve picked up his shares. If he bought in early April, 2009, he would be looking good (for the moment).

http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickch...p;x=68&y=18

If he bought in 1997 he would still be underwater and have experienced quite a roller coaster ride.

http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickch...q=2&time=20

Going back to the roots of this thread, one could say go far, so good. There's actually one leisure analyst following LVB and giving a Buy rating expecting a decent 13.2 PE in 2010.

LVB reported stronger than expected quarterly earnings in November and anticipates modest profitability in the coming year. The caveat is that the earnings outlook is based on reduced expenses (probably debt retirement from the SMC capital infusion) and even lower production levels which will obviously result in loss of gross revenues.

http://www.steinwaymusical.com/images/newsfiles/134391Steinway%20Reports%20Q3%202009%20Results.pdf

Year over year comparisons to 2008 (same reference as above--scroll down) show the reality of lost revenues.

In terms of any positive long-term outlook, the words of Mr. Kim himself are illuminating:

"Steinway has great potential throughout the world and is well-positioned to capitalize on near-term growth opportunities in the Asian piano markets"

Looking at Mr. Kim's track record, the savvy of present Korean corporate leaders in general, and taking into account the confidence that Mr. Kim has shown in Steinway's present management by not insisting on any slice of class A shares, it is fair to say that Mr. Kim sees value in his decision and knows what he is doing.

Let's revisit this thread on a monthly basis and follow Steve's money.

Let me give you a hint....glug-glug-glug!

Also, as part of the history...CBS had acquired quite a nice musical company family including Lowrey Organ, Gulbransen pianos and, if I remember correctly Conn Organ and Gibson.

The sold them all to raise cash to fight off a bid by Ted Turner in a hostile takeover attempt. He was spurned and went on to found CNN.

At least that's what I think happened.

I knew that......Maybe I'm too new here to be doing silly sarcastic posts like that.

So.....in addition to investment pointers, we need "member-posting stochastics" --- calculations on length of membership and number of posts we need before we can do whatever kind of stupid post.

There was nothing stupid or sarcastic about your post that I can see. I replied to it because it reminded me of how the thread got started.

Length of membership or post count mean nothing IMO.

But, yes there was -- it was completely sarcastic!
I didn't mean in any way that making money with LVB on that day made him our investment guru.
Nor that it didn't.

It was just a laugh line. Which missed.

I disagree. Those who have been here a long time and have a lot of posts have all learned much in the process. We been thru the flame wars, grey market arguments, pricing debates, etc. and have had the opportunity to learn much about many regulars so we can better evaluate their "positions".

One's prospective evolves here over time and in reading the reponses to our posts.

I disagree as well! Whoever the hack was that said that should have chosen his words more carefully.

Probably what that clown meant to say was that post count and length of membership alone do not guarantee useful post content, and that there is no reason a new member cannot contribute significantly to a thread topic. IMO the writer's intent was to encourage Mark Cannon to contribute to a significant topic. Obviously, that did not happen.

Btw, what does "glug, glug, glug" mean?

You disagree with you??? I'm not a schizophrenic...and neither am I!

The "glug" comment meant I am underwater with my LVB stock.

Yeah! I really do feel like kicking myself on that response. The reason I posted those links to the Steinway stuff yesterday was that the transaction is a barometer of the whole industry. You can read it as hope or desperation depending on your perspective. SMC's rescue of Seiler is interesting as well, but Steinway's disclosure responsibilities as a public company make it much juicier.

It doesn't seem like anyone here wants to discuss it. Let's get back to it when fourth quarter results are posted. Maybe you won't be underwater then.