Edel Music

History

Edel was founded in 1986 by the current chairman of the board of directors and the majority shareholder Michael Haentjes as a one-man company under the name edel Gesellschaft für Produktmarketing mbH and initially dealt exclusively with mail order for film music. In 1992, the company name was changed to edel Company Music GmbH. In April 1993 Edel purchased the East German VEB Deutsche Schallplatten's classical music recording catalog of 2,000 recordings. Specifically, Edel's Berlin Classics imprint has carried the output of VEB's classical Eterna label. Edel grew steadily and recorded sales of more than 150 million Deutsche Mark in 1995. In 1998, under the new company name edel music AG, the IPO (WKN 564950) and the listing on the Neuer Markt followed. The first stock market listing was 101 DM. The IPO brought the company a gross capital inflow of almost 60 DM million. As part of a global strategy, investments were acquired abroad, for example the PIAS Group in Belgium, which also included Connected Music Vertrieb GmbH, founded by Haentjes in 1997, and Eagle Rock, London. In 2000, more than 1 billion DM in consolidated sales was achieved.