Music Man

摘要

The scratchy violins and flatulent tubas of student orchestras are torment for parents. But they're a serenade to the ears of William (Bill) Everitt, 52. Everitt runs Dallas-based Brook Mays Music, a retail chain with 56 stores in eight states. Over the past few years he's assembled a $50 million portfolio of 140,000 rental instruments, probably the nation's largest student rental pool (statistics are scarce in this largely family-owned industry). On paper it's not a bad business. Parents pay about $30 a month in rent while their kids decide between the French horn and the clarinet. So the average instrument's $400 wholesale price is recouped in the second year, but it stays on the rent roll for more like seven years. If the student goes on to buy a horn (up to $1,200 retail), so much the better. An even bigger payday comes when Mom slaps down $10,000 for a piano.