Film production
Bronfman proceeded to a brief career in entertainment in the 1970s as a film and Broadway producer. The summer before his final year of high school, in 1972, he was a credited producer on the film, The Blockhouse. He briefly had a production company, with Steve Sheppard, called Sagittarius. His Efer Productions company was signed by Universal Studios in 1977 to a three-year movie production contract. He produced the unsuccessful film The Border (1982), which starred Jack Nicholson.
Seagram Company
In 1982, Bronfman returned to the Seagram Company, before moving to London to become managing director of Seagram Europe. In 1984, Bronfman returned to New York as President of the House of Seagram, the company's U.S. marketing division. By 1994, he became the Chief Executive Officer, where he began a move away from the traditional liquor business and into entertainment. According to Cigar Aficionado, Edgar Jr. led the family on a series of disastrous business deals, ultimately losing the family's ownership of Seagram.[7]
The first step in this diversification was the widely criticised sale of Seagram's stake in DuPont. In 1981, Edgar Bronfman Sr. had sold Seagram's stake in Conoco to DuPont, in exchange for almost 25% of the chemical giant.[8] This stake in DuPont, by 1995, represented about 70% of Seagram's total earnings. Nevertheless, Bronfman Jr., acting as Seagram CEO, approached DuPont about buying back its shares, a deal that DuPont wasted no time in closing.[9][10][11][12]
With the proceeds of the $9 billion sale (equivalent to $ billion in ), Bronfman Jr. went on an expansion into the entertainment business, in music through the acquisition of PolyGram ($10.6 billion), and in film entertainment through MCA and Universal Pictures ($5.7 billion) from Matsushita .[13][14][15][16][17] However, the new entertainment conglomerate he created had a brief life, before needing a strategic partner. Bronfman Jr., then led Seagram into a controversial all-stock acquisition by French conglomerate Vivendi in 2000 for $34 billion.[18]
In December 2001, Bronfman announced he was stepping down from an executive capacity at Vivendi Universal, but remaining as vice chair of the board.[22]
In 2002, Bronfman joined private investment firm Accretive LLC as General Partner.[23] The firm focuses on conducting deep market research and hand-selecting firms to back. Among its past projects are Accretive Health and Fandango (ticket service). Companies it currently backs include human resources firm AlphaStaff and small-business insurance company Insureon.[24]
Warner Music Group
On February 27, 2004, Bronfman finalized the acquisition of Warner Music Group (WMG) from Time Warner with equity partners Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital for $2.6 billion.[25][26] He was chairman and CEO of the music company for the following seven years. [27] WMG held an initial public offering of stock in 2005 (NYSE: WMG), and was the only standalone major music company to be publicly traded. While the stock has fallen from a high in 2005 of over $30 per share, the company has nonetheless produced double-digit growth in its digital business, increased its market share, and delivered stable revenue performance despite a drastic music industry decline during the same period.[28] In 2008, The New York Times reported that WMG's Atlantic Records became the first major record label to generate more than half of its music sales in the U.S. from digital products.[29]
Waverley Capital
In 2017, it was announced that Bronfman would be launching a new venture capital firm called Waverley Capital, alongside Luminari Capital founder Daniel Leff.[39] This firm would invest in "innovative and disruptive" companies within both technology and entertainment, with offices in New York and Palo Alto, California, with a Los Angeles office expected to open in the future.[40]
In 2020, Bronfman was named the Executive Chairman of sports streaming service FuboTV after the leading the merger of FuboTV with Facebank Group. Bronfman is both a direct investor in FuboTV and an investor through his firm Waverley Capital.[41]
