DEBT-RIDDEN EMI, which prospered throughout the 20th century with manufacturing innovations at its Hayes factories, has been sold to a US bank.
The company was officially taken over by Citigroup on February 1, ending its 144 years in British hands.
Private equity firm Terra Firma bought the company for £4.2billion in 2007 using a loan from Citibank, but was forced to hand it over to the bank after defaulting. Citibank says it intends to sell EMI, which will probably lead to its final break-up.
The Hayes factories in and around Dawley Road were built in 1906, and some 14,000 people were employed there during EMI's heyday in the 1960s.
EMI became Thorn EMI in 1976, and it was during this period that its manufacturing arm was sold. The factories contributed to both war efforts, developing radar and guided missiles during the Second World War. In peacetime, a variety of electronic, broadcasting and radio equipment was manufactured there.
Former EMI engineer Sir Godfrey Hounsfield was honoured with a Nobel Prize in 1979 for developing the first CT scanner at the Hayes laboratories.
Hayes was also home to the music label's vinyl pressing plant, churning out some of the century's best-selling records from the likes of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
A temperature-controlled archive carrying some 150,000 priceless original recordings remains in Dawley Road.
Former buying clerk Sue Hulbert, 50, was fresh out of school when she started at EMI in 1977, staying for 11 years. She said: "It's been a long time since EMI was based in Hayes,but it is sad to hear where it is now.
"It really was a hub of the local community, and it was definitely the major employer in the area. When they moved the manufacturing out of the area in the early 1990s, Hayes lost something. It was the end of an era."
