Carl Lindström A.G. was a global record company founded in 1893 and based in Berlin, Germany.
History
Founded by Carl Lindström (1869–1932), a Swedish inventor living in Berlin, it originally produced phonographs or gramophones with the brand names "Parlograph" and "Parlophon" and eventually began producing records as well. It became the holding company for Odeon Records, Parlophone Records (originally "Parlophon"), Beka Records, Okeh Records, Fonotipia Records, Lyrophon, Homophon, and other labels. Lindström sold the company to Max Straus (Odeon co-founder), but Lindström remained with the company as an engineer and inventor.
World War I caused the company to cut back its holdings closing the United Kingdom branch of Odeon when war broke out. Okeh in the U.S. survived the war intact because its president, Otto Heinemann, was an American citizen. During the war, the Transoceanic Trading Company was set up in the Netherlands to look after its overseas assets. Lindström returned to the UK in 1923 with the establishment of a British Parlophone branch. Parlophone's "₤" trademark is not the lira sign but a stylised