BBE Sound Acquires Two Fender Guitar Companies

A Huntington Beach audio technology company has acquired two guitar companies formed by the late music giant Leo Fender for just under $2 million.

BBE Sound Inc. last week took over Fullerton-based G&L; Manufacturing and G&L; Sales, collectively known as G&L; Guitars.

Fender came out of retirement in 1980 to start the companies, which he used to improve on designs he first developed as the president of world-famous Fender Musical Instruments Corp., which began in his Fullerton garage in 1950.

“It was as much a hobby as it was to make beautiful musical instruments,” said BBE chairman John C. McClaren.

Fender Musical Instruments Corp. was sold to CBS in 1965 and was subsequently bought by private investors.

The G&L; companies were sold by the estate of Leo Fender, who died last March at the age of 81.

McClaren, who once ran the Fender Co. subsidiary for CBS, said the G&L; companies were a smart buy because his company already sells most of its sound-enhancing equipment to music stores, the most likely buyers of G&L; guitars.

Guitar Player magazine columnist Richard Smith said Wednesday that Fender “used the original Fender guitar as a starting point and he improved all of it from top to bottom” in creating the G&L; guitars, some of which carry the emblem “created by Leo Fender.”

However, most of the differences are so technical that they wouldn’t be apparent to anyone but guitar aficionados and practiced musicians, Smith said.

G&L;, which has about $2 million a year in sales and about 30 employees, is named after Fender and one of his longtime friends, George Fullerton.

Japanese musicians are the biggest single buyers of G&L; guitars, according to McClaren. “The American instruments have a certain mystique the Japanese like very much,” he said.