hassenfeld brothers hasbro bradley type public traded as nasdaq has s & p 500 component industry toys entertainment founded 1923 ; 93 years ago 1923 as hassenfeld brothers founder henry hassenfeld hillel hassenfeld herman hassenfeld headquarters pawtucket rhode island u.s. area served worldwide key people brian d. goldner chairman president and ceo 1 deborah thomas cfo john frascotti president hasbro brands duncan j. billing evp global operations and business development products toys puzzles board games war games rpg sports equipment brands milton bradley parker brothers playskool tonka revenue us 4.07 billion fy 2009 2 operating income us 922 million fy 2009 2 net income us 375 million fy 2009 2 total assets us 4.402267 billion 2013 3 us 4.325387 billion 2012 3 total equity us 1.39 billion fy 2008 4 number of employees 5 200 2015 5 6 divisions hasbro gaming subsidiaries hasbro studios tiger electronics wizards of the coast boulder media limited website hasbro.com hasbro inc. h zbro is an american multinational toy and board game company . it is the second largest toy maker in the world after mattel in terms of revenue and market . the brand also spawned tv shows such as family game night on the discovery family network to promote its products . the corporate headquarters is located in pawtucket rhode island . the majority of its products are manufactured in east asia . contents 1 history 1.1 hassenfeld brothers 1.2 hasbro industries 1.3 hasbro 2 manufacture 2.1 quality control 3 impact 4 subsidiaries 4.1 former 5 toys and games 6 films and television 7 see also 8 references 9 external links history edit hassenfeld brothers edit in 1923 three brothers named herman hillel and henry hassenfeld 7 founded hassenfeld brothers a company selling textile remnants in providence rhode island . over the next two decades the company expanded to produce pencil cases and school supplies . in 1926 hassenfeld brothers was incorporated with hillel leaving for another textile business while henry took charge of the corporation . with cost of pencils rising and their pencil supplier making pencil cases the hassenfelds began making their own pencils becoming a source of funding for future lines . 8 in the 1940s hassenfeld brothers produced doctor and nurse kits its first toys and modeling clay becoming primarily a toy company by 1942 . with hillel s death in 1943 henry hassenfeld became ceo while his son merrill became president . the company entered the plastic fields during world war ii to support its toy line . 8 hassenfeld brothers first toy hit was mr. potato head 8 which the company purchased from george lerner in 1952 . the toy was a smash success . in 1954 the company became a disney major licensee . 8 in 1960 henry died and merrill took over the parent company and his older brother harold ran the pencil making business empire pencil . hassenfeld brothers expanded to canada with hassenfeld brothers canada ltd. in 1961 . the company was approached in 1963 to license a toy based on the lieutenant which they turned down because they did not want to be tied to a possibly short lived television series . instead in 1964 hassenfeld brothers produced the g.i. joe toy which they termed an action figure in order to market the toy to boys who wouldn t want to play with dolls . in 1964 and 1965 g.i. joe accounted for two thirds of hassenfeld s sales . 8 hasbro industries edit having previously sold toys under the hasbro trade name the company shortened its name to hasbro industries in 1968 and sold a minor stake in the corporation to the public . with the unpopular vietnam war at its height in 1969 hasbro redesigned gi joe to be less militaristic and more adventure oriented . 8 its promotional efforts included the catchphrase boy oh boy it s a hasbro toy in television commercials and print ads . citation needed also in 1969 hasbro bought burt claster enterprises which produced romper room and had just begun a romper room toy line . a month long teamsters strike and far eastern supplier troubles caused the company to have a 1 million loss for the year . 8 in 1970 hasbro began a plan of diversification and opened the romper room nursery school franchise chain to cash in on president richard m. nixon s family assistance plan which subsidized day care for working mothers . by 1975 the company had ended the nursery chain . hasbro also entered the cookware field with the galloping gourmet line based on a contemporary television cooking show . with an attack of termites on the line s salad bowls the line collapsed . two new 1970s toys were public relations disasters . one of the toys was named javelin darts which were similar to the ancient roman plumbata . on december 19 1988 the consumer product safety commission banned lawn darts from sale in the united states due to their hazards as a flying projectile with a sharp metal point causing multiple deaths . 9 the other toy was named the hypo squirt a hypodermic needle shaped water gun tagged by the press as a junior junkie kit . both were recalled . while romper room and its toy line had continued success action for children s television citizens group considered the program as an advertising channel for toys . 8 merrill hassenfeld took over as ceo in 1974 with his son stephen d. hassenfeld becoming president . the company became profitable once again but had mixed results due to cash flow problems from increasing the number of toys in the line to offset g.i. joe s declining sales . in 1975 the g.i. joe line was ended by hasbro caused by the rising price of plastic via its raw material and crude oil s increasing prices . in 1977 hasbro s losses were 2.5 million and the company held a large debt load . that same year hasbro acquired peanuts cartoon characters licensing rights . with the financial situation poor hasbro s bankers made the company temporarily stop dividend payments in early 1979 . the toy division s losses increased harold hassenfeld s resentment regarding the company s treatment of the empire pencil subsidiary as empire received lower levels of capital spending to profits than did the toy division . with merrill s death in 1979 harold did not recognize stephen s authority as the successor to the chairman & ceo position . as a solution hasbro spun off empire pencil in 1980 then the nation s largest pencil maker with harold trading his hasbro shares for those of empire . stephen then became both the ceo and chairman of the board . between 1978 and 1981 stephen reduced the hasbro product line by one third and its new products by one half . hasbro focused on simple low cost longer life cycle toys like mr. potato head . hasbro thus stayed out of the electronic games field which went bust in the early 1980s . 8 in 1982 hasbro revived its g.i. joe line with the help of marvel comics as an anti terrorist commando based on current events . the company launched the successful transformers toy line along with a children s animated tv series two years later . with the toys and tv series being popular stephen hassenfeld posed with the toys for a people magazine cover photo . 8 in 1982 hasbro produced another successful toy franchise my little pony . citation needed in 1983 hasbro purchased glenco infant items a manufacturer of infant products and the world s largest bib producer and knickerbocker toy company a warner communications struggling subsidiary . hasbro paid warner with 37 percent of its own stock paid into a hasbro executive control voting trust and also received a cash infusion . in 1984 alan hassenfeld took over as president from his brother stephen who continued as ceo and chairman . that same year the company then the nation s sixth best selling toymaker acquired the milton bradley company then the nation s fifth bestselling toymaker bringing the game of life twister easy money and playskool into the hasbro fold and transforming hasbro into hasbro bradley . stephen hassenfeld became the merged company s president and ceo with milton bradley chief james shea jr. taking the chairman position . however the executives clashed and shea left after a few months and stephen and alan returned to their previous positions . 8 hasbro edit a selection of knockoff jumpstarters a variety of transformers a year later the company changed its name again to just hasbro inc. 8 the transformers jumpstarters toys were the subject of a lawsuit in 1985 when hasbro sued a toy manufacturer for selling toys based on their design . hasbro won the suit . 10 in the mid 1980s hasbro moved past mattel to become the world s largest toy company . hasbro then moved to outsell mattel s barbie in the fashion doll market with the 1986 introduction of jem a record producer rock musician dual identity fashion doll . initially posting strong sales jem plummeted and was withdrawn from the market in 1987 . hasbro followed up in 1988 with maxie a barbie sized blonde doll so barbie clothing and accessories would fit . maxie lasted until 1990 . 8 under alan s initiative in the late 1980s hasbro moved to increase international sales by taking us market failed toys overseas and selling them for as much as four times the original price . this increased international sales from 268 million in 1985 to 433 million in 1988 . 8 in 1988 hasbro purchased part of coleco industries indoor and outdoor children s furniture and ride on toy product lines for 21 million including two just closed manufacturing plants in amsterdam n.y. 11 in july 1989 hasbro acquired bankrupt coleco for 85 million . 12 stephen hassenfeld died later that year with the company having gone from sales of 104 million in the year he took control to 1989 sales of over 1.4 billion . 8 alan succeeded stephen as chairman and ceo . in 1991 hasbro purchased tonka corp. for 486 million along with its parker brothers unit the maker of monopoly and kenner products . milton bradley and parker brothers were merged into one division . alan moved to expand hasbro overseas with new units in greece hungary and mexico . 8 alan saw the far east as an important market in which to expand . in 1992 hasbro purchased nomura toys ltd. in japan and majority ownership of palmyra a southeast asian toy distributor . these increased the proportion of international sales from 22 % in 1985 to 45 % 1.28 billion in 1995 . in 1993 hasbro lost its bid for j. w. spear & sons a u.k. based game maker to mattel . 8 in the us hasbro s growth since 1980 were from acquisitions and the leveraging of the new assets . new product development was not as successful except for movie and tv tie in product lines with jurassic park and barney . thus us sales were stagnant in the early 1990s falling from 1993 to 1995 . to turn domestic performance around in 1994 hasbro merged the hasbro toy playskool playskool baby kenner and kid dimension units into the hasbro toy group . meanwhile mattel purchased fisher price and retook the top spot in the toy industry . 8 hasbro interactive was started in 1995 and released the monopoly game on cd rom . mattel also proposed a merger that year but was turned down by the hasbro board in 1996 due to antitrust issues and justice department investigation into exclusionary policies between toy manufacturers and toy retailers particularly toys r us . 8 in 1998 hasbro bought avalon hill for 6 million 13 14 and in 1999 wizards of the coast was