B&S in private hands for 20 years

There was much celebration of the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and of the Reunification of Germany together with much macroeconomic review and outlook. Likewise there happened a change in the microcosmos of the musical industry, in the Vogtland Musical Corner, in the town of orchestral instruments Markneukirchen and in Klingenthal, situated opposite to Graslitz.

The former so called GDR (German Democratic Republic) had dispossessed many companies of the musical industry with its roots in artisan work of 250 year. The many single enterprises had been compulsorily merged in People’s owned enterprises. Above all the Combined Works of Musical instruments, brushes and brooms was standing, exports were allowed only by the export trading company Demusa.

One of these People’s Owned enterprises was B&S, the People’s owned enterprise Brass and Signal instruments where complete firms or parts of them had been taken up, as e.g. Hess, Max B. Martin, Johannes Scherzer, Reichelt, Schuster, Uebel, Hüller, Mönnig and many others.
In the year 1990 et seq. those firms were privatized by the Trust Agency. In 1991 after several demergers and reorganizations the holding company IMM under the management of Gerhard A. Meinl acquired the core constituents of B&S. Meinl brought in his parental company, the Wenzel Meinl GmbH at Geretsried, former Graslitz in German Sudeten territories.

Again diverse restructurings and changes of names took place, e.g. Vogtländische Musikinstrumentenfabrik GmbH, TA Musik GmbH and JA Musik GmbH, but today we have again the B&S GmbH, the CEO of which is still Gerhard A. Meinl.