About

Fonior, or N.V. Fonior S.A., is a Belgian company from Brussels, founded by E.W. Pelgrims de Bigard in 1929, one year after he opened his gramophone shop. Fonior imported records since 1932 and obtained an exclusive contract for importing Decca records in Belgium in 1934. In 1973, E.W. Pelgrims started the "International Pelgrims Group" (IPG), a holding for which Fonior formed the core. Fonior was the Belgian affiliate of Decca. By means of the Belgian holding "Cidomega" it also controlled the Dutch label Dureco at that time. By 1980 the company went bankrupt due to various problems. Some parts of the repertoire were first sold to Music for Pleasure Belgium, an EMI company. Other parts of the catalog and the trademark were sold to the Fonior group.