PolyGram /

PolyGram was the name from 1972 of the major label recording company started by Philips as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group. 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. HDD was doing good business during World War II, because of the absence of American and British competition. Van Zoelen wanted to sell to Philips so that HDD would have suitable backing when the competition returned, and so Philips took the opportunity to buy HDD in 1942. At this time, most large recording companies manufactured both gramophones and records; Philips CEO Anton Philips had noticed that it was risky to make gramophones without an interest in music recording and record manufacture, and that Radio Corporation of America (RCA) had merged with the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1929 for this reason. Research was