Grundig AG is (WAS) a German manufacturer of consumer electronics for home entertainment which transferred to Turkish control in the period 2004-2007. Established in 1945 in Nuremberg, Germany by Max Grundig the company changed hands several times before becoming part of the Turkish Koç Holding group. In 2007, after buying control of the Grundig brand, Koc renamed its Beko Elektronik white goods and consumer electronics division Grundig Elektronik A.Ş.[1], which has decided to merge with Arçelik A.Ş. as declared on February 27, 2009
Max Grundig (7 May 1908 – 8 December 1989) was the founder of electronics company Grundig AG. 
He was raised by his parents in Nuremberg, where he delayed his final school exams (Abitur) and completed training as an electrician. In 1930 he and a colleague opened a store selling radios under the name Fuerth, Grundig & Wurzer (RVF), generating one million Reichsmark in sales by 1938. After World War II business expanded with a successful range of consumer electronics. In 1972 the company became a corporation and was sold to Philips in 1984.
His company was one of the first to produce frequency modulated radios, cutting out static interference for clearer reception. In 1952, it was one of the first European companies to start producing TV sets.
Grundig built his company up after World War II to become a market leader in home entertainment products and a symbol of West Germany's Wirtschaftswunder. It was only in the late 1970s that it began to lose some of its marketshare as it came under increasing pressure from lower priced Japanese products, and in 1980 the company recorded its first losses.
Grundig's answer to the Asian competition was to form EURO, a common front of European manufacturers. It did not stave off the challenge, however, and the company was forced to close eleven plants and cut its workforce from thirty-five thousand to twenty-nine thousand workers. In 1984, the Dutch Philips group bought out nearly a third share and took over the management.
Colleagues described Max Grundig, the son of a warehouse manager, as a workaholic who made decisions alone and interested by himself in the minutest detail of his business.
"Order is holy to him; it means as much as half," was an official company description of him.
Grundig's father died when he was twelve and his mother had to support her five children on a factory wage.
Young Max started his working life as a plumber's apprentice but by the age of twenty-two had set up his own radio shop with a friend in Nuremberg.
After World War II, he was permitted by the Allies to relocate his business to the Franconian city of Fuerth where he set up his own factory to produce radio parts.
He was married to Chantal Grundig.
Early history
The history of the company began in 1930 with the establishment of a store named Fuerth, Grundig & Wurzer (RVF), which sold radios. After World War II Max Grundig recognized the need for radios in Germany, and in 1947 produced a kit, while a factory and administration centre were under construction at Fürth. In 1951 the first televisions were manufactured at the new facility with the company and the surrounding area growing rapidly. At the time Grundig was the largest radio manufacturer in Europe. Divisions in Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Karlsruhe were set up.
Grundig in Belfast
A plant was opened in 1960 to manufacture tape recorders in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the first production by Grundig outside Germany. The managing director of the plant Thomas Niedermayer, was kidnapped and later killed by the Provisional IRA in December 1973.[3] The factory was closed with the loss of around 1000 jobs in 1980.
Philips takeover
In 1972, Grundig GmbH became Grundig AG. After this Philips began to gradually accumulate shares in the company over the course of many years, and assumed complete control in 1993. Philips resold Grundig to a Bavarian consortium in 1998 due to unsatisfactory performance.
Later history
At the end of June 2000 the company relocated its headquarters in Fürth and Nuremberg. Grundig lost €1.281 million the following year. In autumn 2002, Grundig's banks did not extend the company's lines of credit, leaving the company with an April 2003 deadline to announce insolvency. Grundig AG declared bankruptcy in 2003, selling its satellite equipment division to Thomson. In 2004 Britain's Alba plc and the Turkish Koc's Beko jointly took over Grundig Home InterMedia System, Grundig's consumer electronics division. In 2007 Alba sold its half of the business to Beko for US$50.3 million,[5] although it retained the licence to use the Grundig brand in the UK until 2010, and in Australasia until 2012.
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