Fender is ready to land in Wall Street

It is one of the most famous brands in the field of music instruments, and now it is ready to “play” also in Wall Street: Fender is entering the stock market.

Fender will soon add a new, important chapter to its long and glorious history, a history made of music, songs and rockstars that have chosen this famous brand to give voice and life to their art. Probably a more prosaic and less poetic chapter, which is still important for the history of a company that was born in 1946: Fender, a name that all of us, even the less expert, immediately connect to a world made of notes, rock and musicians that have gone down in history like Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon, is ready to land in the stock market.

The news, which has been widespread some months ago (in March the company presented all the necessary documents to Sec, the Authority that is in charge of controlling the US markets), is becoming more and more real in these days, after the group has fixed the ipo (initial public offering) price between 13 and 15 million dollars. Aim of the landing of Fender in Wall Street is gathering about 160,7 million dollars and gaining a market value of about 400 million dollars, to retrieve the loss that there has recently been. According to Fender, the choice of entering the stock market also derives from the need to make the company improve by leaps and bounds and keep pace with the times. The aim of the company, for the future, is to keep launching more and more new and innovative products, to attract customers and enhance loyalty.

A new chapter for a history that began over 60 years ago, when Leo Fender founded the homonymous brand specialized in guitars, electric basses and amplifiers (the complete name of the brand is Fender Musical Instruments Corporation), aiming at producing good instruments at affordable prices using industrial production series. Leo Fender, a 1909 born U.S. luthier, materialized in this way the interest for electronic that he had since he was a kid, and in so doing he gave birth to a legend. The first mass-produced electric guitar is a Fender (Broadcaster), and also the first mass-produced electric bass is a Fender (Precision Bass). And how could we leave out the famous Stratocaster, a name that is well-known also by those who have never even touched a guitar, the favourite instrument of musicians as important as David Gilmour, Kurt Cobain e Jimi Hendrix? Hendrix, in particular, helped the popularity of this instrument dramatically, broadening its expressive potentials exponentially. From the production of the first Stratocaster on commercial basis, in 1954, the versions of the guitar have multiplied and differentiated a lot.

The history of Fender is also made of a chapter that was not completely positive, i.e. the sale of the company to the Columbia Boradcasting System Inc. in 1965, a sale that was not accepted by many customers. The instruments that were produced before the sale, indeed, the so-called pre-CBS, are sometimes considered as better than the other ones.

Nowadays the brand Fender also includes other brands and produces about 2000 instruments a day, not only in the headquarters of Scottsdale, Arizona, but also in California, Mexico, Japan, Korea and China.