Akai was founded by Masukichi Akai and his son, Saburo Akai (who died in 1973) as Akai Electric Company Ltd. (赤井電機株式会社, Akai Denki Kabushiki Kaisha), a Japanese manufacturer in 1929 or 1946.The company’s business eventually became troubled and it left the audio industry in 1991. At its peak in the late 1990s, Akai Holdings employed 100,000 workers and had annual sales of HK$40 billion (US$5.2 billion). The company filed for insolvency in November 2000, owing creditors US$1.1B. It emerged that ownership of Akai Holdings had somehow passed in 1999 to Grande Holdings, a company founded by Akai’s chairman James Ting. The liquidators claimed that Ting had stolen over US$800m from the company with the assistance of accountants Ernst & Young who had tampered with audit documents going back to 1994. Ting was imprisoned for false accounting in 2005, and E&Y paid $200m to settle the negligence case out of court in September 2009. In a separate lawsuit, a former E&Y partner, Christopher Ho, made a “substantial payment” to Akai creditors in his role as chairman of Grande Holdings.Now it is distributing various electronics products such as LED TV, washing machines, air conditioners and smart phones, collaborated with other electronics companies. On the other hand, inMusic Brands in United States also took over Akai’s Brand. It began Akai Professional brand, and is distributing high-end audio electronics products. (Wikipedia Source)