Profile

Brunswick Corporation, formerly known as the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, is an American corporation that has been developing, manufacturing and marketing a wide variety of products since 1845. Today, Brunswick Corporation is best known for its boating-lifestyle brands such as Mercury Marine, Sea Ray, Bayliner, Crestliner, Harris Boats, and Boston Whaler. Starting in the 1970s, the company also entered the field of arms development and manufacture. In 2015, it had sales of US$4.105 billion with net earnings of $241.4 million that year, and $276 million in 2016. Brunswick's global headquarters is in the northern Chicago suburb of Mettawa, Illinois. Brunswick was founded by John Moses Brunswick who came to the United States from Switzerland at the age of 15. The J. M. Brunswick Manufacturing Company opened for business on September 15, 1845, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Originally J. M. Brunswick intended his company to be mainly in the business of making carriages, but soon after opening his machine shop, he became fascinated with billiards and decided that making billiard tables would be more lucrative, as the better tables then in use in the United States were imported from England. Brunswick billiard tables were a commercial success, and the business expanded and opened the first of what would become many branch offices in Chicago, Illinois, in 1848. It was later renamed J. M. Brunswick & Brother by 1860, after a family member came on board, and the company's slogan at this time was: "The oldest and most extensive billiard table manufacturers in the United States".