Seagram was the world's largest spirits empire — then it was sold to Vivendi and destroyed

Seagram was built by the Bronfman family over four generations into the world's largest distilled spirits company, with over 180 brands including Crown Royal, Chivas Regal, Absolut, Captain Morgan, and Martell. The family's holding company, Cemp Investments, controlled the business through a web of cross-ownership. By 1994, Seagram's 24.3% stake in DuPont alone accounted for roughly 70% of the company's earnings.

When Edgar Bronfman Jr. became CEO in 1994, he wanted to pivot Seagram from spirits into entertainment and media. In 1995 he sold the DuPont stake back to the company for $9 billion — a move that Standard & Poor's warned could trigger a debt downgrade and that the investment community heavily criticized. He used the proceeds to buy a controlling interest in MCA Inc. (Universal Pictures and its theme parks) from Matsushita. In 1998 he added PolyGram for $10.6 billion, and sold Tropicana to PepsiCo for $3.1 billion to raise cash.

The final act came in 2000. Seagram merged with Vivendi, a French water-and-utilities conglomerate that had been rapidly acquiring media assets, to create Vivendi Universal. The Bronfman family became the largest single shareholder of the new company. The spirits division was sold off to Diageo and Pernod Ricard, dismantling the empire the Bronfmans had spent a century building.

Vivendi Universal collapsed under the weight of its debt and overexpansion. In 2002 it disclosed a corporate loss of €23.3 billion — one of the largest in French corporate history. The Bronfman family's fortune, once estimated at several billion dollars, was largely destroyed. Charles Bronfman, Edgar Jr.'s uncle, later said: "It was a disaster, it is a disaster, it will be a disaster. It was a family tragedy."