PolyGram
PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips and Siemens as a holding company for their music interests in 1979. The name was chosen to reflect the Siemens interest Polydor Records and the Philips interest Phonogram. The company traced its origins through Deutsche Grammophon back to the inventor of the flat disk gramophone, Emil Berliner.
In 1999, it was sold to Seagram which owned MCA. The newly merged company was named Universal Music Group or UMG. When the new company faced financial difficulties, its parent Seagram was sold in large part to Vivendi, and for a brief time, the company was known as Universal Vivendi, or in some instances, Vivendi Universal. Vivendi is the present owner of UMG.
Hollandsche Decca Distributie (HDD), 1929–1950
In 1929, Decca Records (London) licensed record shop owner H.W. van Zoelen as a distributor in the Netherlands. By 1931, his company Hollandsche Decca Distributie (HDD) had become exclusive Decca distributor for all of the Netherlands and its colonies. Over the course of the 1930s, HDD put together its own facilities for A&R, recording and manufacture.
