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Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Bank
|
[
"Buildings and structures in Nottingham",
"Banks established in 1834",
"Defunct banks of the United Kingdom",
"Companies based in Nottingham",
"Banks disestablished in 1919",
"History of Nottingham",
"1834 establishments in England"
] | 809 | 7,648 |
The Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Bank was a joint stock bank which operated from its headquarters in Nottingham from 1834 to 1919.
History
It was established in Nottingham as the Nottingham & Nottinghamshire Banking Company. The initial capital was £500,000 (). The bank began trading in Pelham Street in central Nottingham on 19 April 1834 under the management of Peter Watt, a Scottish banker. By the 1840s the bank's London agents were the London and Westminster Bank.
In 1841 the bank ran into difficulty but shareholders injected money and it survived.
A new head office building was constructed in Nottingham on Thurland Street in 1881. It was built to the designs of the architect Watson Fothergill.
In 1884 the bank assumed limited liability as Nottingham & Nottinghamshire Banking Co Ltd with a capital of £1.3 million ().
In 1891 the bank suffered an embarrassment when it was revealed that the manager of the Newark branch, Robert James Beard, had defrauded the bank of £25,000 () before drowning himself in the River Trent. The bank covered the loss from its reserves.
It was acquired by the London, County, Westminster & Parr's Bank in 1919.
Branches
The bank opened around 39 branches and sub-branches. In 1919, 20 branches and 18 sub-branches were operating. The following were the locations of the branches:
|
Sunanda Pushkar
|
[
"1962 births",
"2014 deaths",
"People from Sopore",
"Kashmiri Pandits",
"Canadian businesspeople",
"Indian emigrants to Canada",
"Canadian people of Kashmiri descent",
"Businesspeople of Indian descent",
"University of Kashmir alumni",
"Canadian expatriates in India",
"Canadian expatriates in the United Arab Emirates",
"Unsolved deaths in India",
"20th-century Canadian businesswomen",
"20th-century Canadian businesspeople",
"21st-century Canadian businesswomen",
"21st-century Canadian businesspeople",
"Shashi Tharoor"
] | 2,554 | 23,905 |
Sunanda Pushkar (27 June 1962 – 17 January 2014) was an Indian-born Canadian businesswoman. She was a sales director in the Dubai-based TECOM Investments, and a co-owner of the India-based Rendezvous Sports World (RSW), a cricket franchise in the Indian Premier League. Pushkar was the wife of former International diplomat serving under the UN and politician Shashi Tharoor.
Early life and education
Sunanda Pushkar (née Dass) was born on 27 June 1962 in a Kashmiri Pandit family of landlords and army officers native to Bomai, Sopore. She was the only daughter of Lt. Col. Pushkar Nath Dass and Jaya Dass. Her father retired from the army in 1983.
Pushkar has two brothers, one of whom works for a global software company in Dubai; the other is in the Indian Army. The family moved from Bomai to Jammu in 1990, after their house was set on fire by militants.
Pushkar studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Ambala, and Kendriya Vidyalaya, Jhansi. She then graduated from Govt. Women's College in Srinagar, where she studied during 1986–88.
Personal life
While studying at the Government College for women, where she was the president of the college, she married a fellow hotel management graduate Sanjay Raina. The couple divorced in 1988. Subsequently, Sunanda went to Dubai in 1989 and married Sujith Menon in 1991. Their son was born in November 1992. Sunanda was widowed when Sujith Menon died in an accident in 1997. In October 2009, she met Shashi Tharoor at a party organised by the billionaire Sunny Varkey. Tharoor had arrived in Dubai in 2007, with his Canadian wife Christa Giles. Sunanda married Shashi Tharoor in 2010, after he was elected to the Indian Parliament. The couple had a Malayali wedding ceremony in Tharoor's ancestral home at Elavanchery in Kerala, India. This was the third marriage for both of them.
Business career
In India, Sunanda's first job was as the front desk receptionist at the Centaur Lake View hotel in Srinagar, after doing a course in hotel management. After coming to Dubai. She started an event management business called Expressions, and became well known for her networking with sponsors and artists for fashion shows. Her company organised several model shows for product launches, featuring several Indian fashion designers and models, including Hemant Trivedi, Rhea Pillai, Vikram Phadnis and Aishwarya Rai. Later, she joined Bozell Prime Advertising as a marketing manager. She and her second husband Sujith Menon organised a show, which made a financial loss. Sujith returned to India, and died in an accident in Delhi in March 1997.
After Sujith's death she left her four-year-old son with her sister-in-law, and later with her parents. By the time she brought him back to Dubai, he had developed a communication disorder. She left Bozell Prime to spend time with her son. She then went on to open a joint retail business of artificial jewelry in Dubai, called Ravissant Trading. She spelled her name as "Sue P. Menon" on her business cards, and later, started using "Pushkar" (an alternative spelling of her father's name) as her last name. According to her, she faced financial troubles, as she had to repay Sujith's debts, support her parents and her brother through engineering college.
Impressed by the Canadian healthcare system, she emigrated to Canada in the 1990, as her son needed speech therapy. According to Sunanda, she became a partner in an IT firm called "Valley Resources" through sweat equity, after a San Francisco-based friend introduced her to the founders. Subsequently, she became wealthy during the dot-com bubble, managing to buy her own house and a BMW car. The business was impacted by the post-9/11 slowdown and closed in 2001. After four months of unemployment and financial difficulties, Sunanda did a course in emotional intelligence, and joined a company called Noble House International. She organised "Human Potential Reengineering" programmes for several banks in Miami, Amsterdam and Geneva.
Sunanda felt that she was not earning enough at Noble House. In August 2004, she moved to Dubai with a Canadian passport, working as a general manager for Best Homes. Later, she joined TECOM investments to work on the International Media Production Zone. She was financially successful, buying two 3-bedroom apartments at Palm Jumeirah, an apartment in Jumeirah Beach Residence and two more apartments in the Executive Towers.
Return to India
IPL controversy
When she was dating Tharoor, Sunanda started getting media attention in India, as it became known that she had been given sweat equity worth 700 million in Rendezvous Sports World. In 2010, the company bid for the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team Kochi Tuskers Kerala, which represented Tharoor's native state Kerala. The company was founded in 2009, while Sunanda was made a Director of the company on 25 February 2010, just 18 days before the IPL bid. There were allegations that Tharoor had misused his ministerial position to ask for a free stake in the company, and that Sunanda was acting as a proxy for him. In addition, the agreement guaranteed an additional 15% payout of topline revenue (not profits) for Sunanda Pushkar, which was clearly unreasonable, and was seen to be favouring Tharoor in a backhanded way. The controversy ultimately resulted in Tharoor's resignation as a minister. In her defence, Sunanda argued that she had been invited to join Rendezvous because of her "extensive international experience as a business executive, marketing manager and entrepreneur". She also stated that she had been given a similar offer by Karim Morani of Kolkata Knight Riders in the past. In April 2010, she announced that she had relinquished her stake in the company following the controversy. However, she continued to hold the stake, after she was told that there is no provision under the Board of Control for Cricket in India's IPL rules for surrender of shares at that stage.
Twitter incident
On 15 January 2014, a series of intimate messages, supposedly sent by the Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar to Tharoor, were posted on Tharoor's Twitter account. The messages proclaimed Tarar's love for Tharoor. Tarar tried to downplay the incident by stating that her account had been hacked. However, Sunanda later stated that the account had not been hacked and that she had posted the messages to expose what she believed to be Mehr's stalking of her husband. She accused Mehr of being an ISI agent. Later, she stated that she did not want to go public about the matter, especially in an election year.
The next day, a note titled as "Joint statement by Sunanda and Shashi Tharoor" was published on Shashi Tharoor's Facebook page. The note stated that the couple was happily married, and that some personal comments not intended for publication had been misrepresented after being posted to Twitter. The note also stated that Sunanda had been hospitalised after being ill, and was seeking rest. Sunanda Tharoor was being treated for Lupus erythematosus, a deadly immune disorder which damages healthy tissues.
Death
On 17 January 2014, a day after the Twitter controversy, Pushkar was found dead in room number 345 of the Leela Palace hotel in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, where the couple were temporarily living while their house was being renovated and painted. Tharoor discovered her body when she did not wake up from her sleep in the evening. He informed the Delhi Police, who recovered the body from the hotel and sent it for postmortem. According to initial reports, Pushkar was suspected to have committed suicide. Later reports stated that the cause of death was unnatural; the doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences gave a preliminary autopsy report that revealed injury marks on her body. They said that these injuries may or may not be the cause of death. The autopsy indicated that she died of drug overdose, most likely a combination of sedatives, other strong medicines and probably alcohol. An investigation was ordered by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate to examine the cause of poisoning and to ascertain if it was murder or suicide. Her body was cremated at Lodhi Crematorium in South Delhi.
Doctors at KIMS Hospital Trivandrum, who had examined her a few days earlier, said that Pushkar did not have serious health problems. However, she had hinted about her death in a Twitter reply hours before her body was recovered from the hotel.
On 1 July 2014, controversy over her death deepened when AIIMS doctor Sudhir Gupta claimed that he was pressured to give a false report in the case. On 10 October 2014, the medical team probing her death concluded that she died of poisoning.
On 6 January 2015, Delhi Police reported that Sunanda was murdered and filed a first information report in this regard. Pushkar's domestic help alleged that Pushkar had often fought with Tharoor on the phone, and days before her death had threatened Tharoor that she would "disclose everything" and as such, he would be "finished".
Subramanian Swamy, a BJP politician, tried to fight this case against Tharoor in January 2015. On 20 May 2015, a trial court allowed Delhi Police to conduct lie detector test on three suspects related to her death.
In May 2018, Tharoor was charged with abetment to suicide of his wife and marital cruelty under sections 306 and 498A of the Indian Penal Code. However Tharoor refuted all the charges.
On 18 August 2021, Special Court in Delhi discharged Shashi Tharoor from all charges for Pushkar's death.
See also
List of unsolved deaths
|
Proximic by Comscore
|
[
"Internet properties established in 2007",
"Internet search engines",
"Online advertising",
"Online advertising services and affiliate networks",
"Digital marketing companies of the United States"
] | 439 | 4,692 |
Proximic by Comscore is a division of Comscore that provides on programmatic targeting solutions for advertisers, agencies and publishers in the advertising industry.
History
Proximic launched for alpha testing in late 2007. In 2010, the company integrated with the real-time ad platform AppNexus and started to offer its contextual data services to the display advertisers and agencies.
The company was based in Palo Alto, with research and development facilities in Munich. The company's CEO Philipp Pieper co-founded the company with mathematician Thomas Nitsche. Thomas Nitsche and Elmar Henne, Proximic's chief architect, developed the Mephisto Chess Computer. Chief Scientist was Louis Monier, cofounder of the AltaVista search engine.
In 2015, Proximic was acquired by Comscore. In 2023, Comscore announced a rebrand of their programmatic targeting business under the name Proximic by Comscore utilizing the capabilities from the May 2015 Proximic acquisition. The company currently operates as a division of Comscore, Inc.
In 2023, Proximic by Comscore was named a Programmatic Power Player of the year by AdExchanger.
|
Industrial and General Insurance Company
|
[
"Insurance companies of Nigeria",
"Multinational companies based in Lagos",
"Financial services companies established in 1991",
"Nigerian companies established in 1991",
"Companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange"
] | 644 | 5,734 |
Industrial and General Insurance (IGI) is a Nigeria insurance company and is a major provider of insurance and risk management services in West Africa. It has subsidiaries, in Ghana, the Gambia, Rwanda and Uganda and a representative offices in London and Washington, DC.
The company's main focus is insurance services, but through subsidiary companies, it is also invested in a diverse array of other sectors, including: banking, construction, engineering, mining, real estate, telecommunications and waste management.
, the company's total assets were estimated at about US$338 million (NGN:53.1 billion), with shareholders' equity of about US$140 million (NGN:22 billion). At that time, IGI was the largest insurance company in Nigeria and the largest underwriter in West Africa.
History
Industrial and General Insurance Company Plc was founded as a limited liability company on 31 October 1991 by Oluremi (Remi) Olowude. The company commenced business in January 1992. Remi Olowude was both founder and CEO until he died in September 2014.
In January 2024, the Federal High Court of Nigeria stopped the company from holding its proposed Annual General Meeting pending the hearing of a suit filed by shareholders of the company.
Branch network
The company has a branch network in 45 urban locations in the majority of states in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Products and services
The products and services offered by IGI include the following classes of insurance and non-insurance services:
Individual Life Products
Group Life Products
Aviation Insurance
Engineering Insurance
General Business Insurance
Global Health Insurance Plan
Marine Insurance
Oil & Energy Insurance Services
Other investments
The company, either alone or together with other subsidiaries, is an investor in the following entities:
National Insurance Corporation – IGI is the majority shareholder (51%) in NIC, the largest insurance company in Uganda.
Global Trust Bank – IGI and its Ugandan subsidiary NIC, jointly owned 91% of Uganda's 15th largest bank by assets; the bank failed in 2014 and DFCU Bank acquired the deposits and viable assets.
DFCU Group – Through NIC, IGI is a minority shareholder in the holding company of DFCU Bank, the 5th largest bank in Uganda.
SONARWA – IGI owns a controlling majority interest in Rwanda's largest insurance company.
Industrial and General Insurance Company (Ghana) Limited.
IGI Life Assurance Ghana Limited – Accra, Ghana
Monarch Communications Limited – Lagos, Nigeria
Global Trust Savings and Loans Limited – Lagos, Nigeria
IGI Gamstar Insurance Company Limited, the Gambia – Banjul, the Gambia
All Crown Registrars Limited
IGI Pension Fund Managers Limited
International Health Management Services Limited.
Governance
The governing body of the company is the twelve-member board of directors. General Yakubu Gowon, one of the non-executive board members, is the chairman.
See also
National Insurance Company
Economy of Nigeria
|
Betty Klimenko
|
[
"1959 births",
"Living people",
"Businesspeople from Sydney",
"Australian adoptees",
"20th-century Australian women",
"21st-century Australian women",
"21st-century Australian businesspeople",
"Australian women in business",
"Australian motorsport people",
"Motorsport team owners",
"Supercars Championship",
"Members of the Order of Australia",
"Australian billionaires",
"Female billionaires"
] | 1,820 | 24,376 |
Betty Ann Saunders-Klimenko (born 1959) is an Australian businessperson and motorsport team owner who runs the Erebus Motorsport squad in the Supercars Championship. In 2017, she became the first female team owner to win the Bathurst 1000. Klimenko is a promoter of women in motorsport and is a global ambassador for the Australian arm of the Dare to be Different initiative.
Early life
Klimenko was the illegitimate child born to a police officer who served in the Vietnam War and the prostitute and former Miss West Australia Anne Neil in Sydney in 1959. She has three biological siblings. She was conceived drug-addicted in Kings Cross Police Station's Cell 3, and was abandoned at the adoption nursery of the former Crown Street Women's Hospital by her biological parents at seven weeks old. She has little knowledge of her biological mother, who died when Klimenko was aged five, and never met her parents. Klimenko was adopted by the Hungarian-Jewish, Westfield Group co-founder and Nazi concentration camp survivor John Saunders and his wife Eta. Klimenko was born a Catholic and was raised as Jewish (although never converted). She has a younger adopted brother, and was raised by nannies, due to Saunders' work commitments. Klimenko attended a Church of England school.
Career
At age 13, Klimenko began working for Saunders as a cleaner in the toilets and kitchens of his shopping centres every Saturday for half a decade. She also worked as a Santa's little helper in shopping centres before becoming the first female employee in the men's jeans department at Grace Bros. Saunders cut Kilmenko off from his life following her second marriage to a non-Jewish man in Las Vegas and she had to assume a working-class life in the suburb of Matraville, Sydney living on her husband's income. Saunders and she reconciled after Klimenko gave birth to her son and subsequently received a share of her adoptive fathers' fortune, following his death in 1997. She is joint deputy chairperson of the family-owned property development company Terrace Tower Group with her sister.
In 1999, Klimenko developed an interest for motor racing when her husband took her to a Porsche driving experience as a spectator. Working with her husband, she participated in amateur and semi-professional forms of motor racing, primarily Formula 3 and GT racing as a sponsor for 14 years. She also fielded a squad of SLS Mercedes GT cars in the GT3 category. In September 2012, Klimenko purchased the Stone Brothers Racing team and V8 Supercars Championship racing license from co-owners Ross Stone and Jimmy Stone starting from the 2013 season. She renamed the team Erebus Motorsport after the Greek god of darkness, and would lease the licence for two years until 1 January 2015. This made Klimenko the first female to own a V8 Supercars squad. She and the former head of Mercedes-Benz's motorsport activities Norbert Haug agreed to an engine supply deal for Erebus Motorsport and was a Mercedes team, despite Mercedes-Benz Australia-Pacific telling its head office in Germany that V8 Supercars "was a sport for yobbos."
To allow for the continuation of Erebus Motorsport, Klimenko financed the team from a family trust to service a loan after using up her personal income. The relationship between her and Mercedes-AMG and HWA strained because the German marque did not understand the V8 Supercars Championship and team principal Ross Stone and team manager David Stuart left Erebus Motorsport. Klimenko switched manufacturers Mercedes to Holden in 2016 and moved Erebus Motorsport's headquarters from Queensland to Victoria. She was the first woman team owner to win the Bathurst 1000 when Erebus Motorsport drivers David Reynolds and Luke Youlden finished first in the 2017 edition. In the 2018 championship, Klimenko's team finished fourth in the Teams' Championship. She sold 50 per cent of her share of the No. 99 Racing Entitlement Contract used by Erebus Motorsport, to the team's CEO Barry Ryan in June 2019.
Klimenko promotes women in motorsport. She led the nationwide Women in Auto Trades campaign opposite Auto Skills Australia and the Australian Government in 2014 visiting schools and aiming to get young girls into the motor trades industry. In March 2018, Klimenko joined the Australian arm of the Dare to be Different initiative as a global ambassador aiming to increase involvement of women at all levels of motor racing. She is an ambassador for the Blue Datto Foundation, and of the bereavement charity for children Feel the Magic. Klimenko featured on a November 2013 episode of 60 Minutes detailing her life and motor racing career.
Personal life
She is married to Daniel Klimenko with whom she has one child. Klimenko has two children from a previous marriage that lasted five years from 1981 to 1986. She was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours "for significant service to motorsport, and to charitable organisations".
Net worth
the Australian Financial Review estimated Klimenko's net worth as 3.10 billion as published in the 2025 Rich List, held jointly with her half-sister, Monica Saunders-Weinberg, and their family. Klimenko and Saunders-Weinberg first appeared in the 2019 Rich List.
Year Financial ReviewRich List Forbes Rank Net worth Rank Net worth 201932 $2.37 billion 2020 $2.73 billion 2021 $2.66 billion 2022 $2.70 billion 2023 $2.76 billion 2024 $2.88 billion 2025 $3.10 billion
Legend Icon DescriptionHas not changed from the previous yearHas increased from the previous yearHas decreased from the previous year
Personality
Klimenko is a non-comfortist; Jane Cadzow of The Age noted "She swears, she smokes, she has a lot of tattoos." Described as "…outspoken and unapologetic…" by Autosport, she is popular in Australian motorsport for "…her very personal brand of fan engagement plays very well indeed with the fans…" according to DailySportsCar.
|
Alexander Heron Jr.
|
[
"Ship owners",
"1810s births",
"1865 deaths",
"Businesspeople from Philadelphia",
"19th-century American businesspeople",
"American businesspeople in shipping"
] | 279 | 2,309 |
Alexander Heron Jr. ( 1818 - April 8, 1865) was a businessman involved in shipping in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the mid-19th century.
Formative years
Heron was born in Gosten, County Londonderry, Ireland around 1818. Sometime during his late teens or early 20s, he emigrated from Ireland, and arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania around 1835.
In 1851, he entered into a partnership with William J. Martin, forming Heron & Martin. Their ran a line of vessels between Philadelphia and Mobile, Alabama, Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, establishing the first line of steamships to the latter two cities. After his company failed, he later became agent of the Ocean Steam Navigation Company, owning several company ships. During the American Civil War (1861-1865), Heron sold three of his ships to the United States Navy, the most prominent of which was the Keystone State.
Death and interment
Heron died on April 8, 1865, at the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia. He was buried in Old Cathedral cemetery in Philadelphia.
Heron's sister, Matilda, became a noted actress.
|
Birla Corporation
|
[
"Aditya Birla Group",
"Manufacturing companies based in Kolkata",
"Indian companies established in 1910",
"Indian companies established in 1919",
"Companies listed on the National Stock Exchange of India",
"Companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange"
] | 1,547 | 14,561 |
Birla Corporation Limited is an Indian-based company of the M.P Birla Group, founded by Ghanshyam Das Birla in the late 1910s and carried on by Madhav Prasad Birla.
In the 1890s, Birla Corporation was a jute manufacturing company, but over time, it grew to operate four main divisions: cement, jute, linoleum, and auto trim. It is not a part of the Aditya Birla Group, a multinational conglomerate with products ranging from metals, cements, textiles, agricultural businesses, telecommunications, IT, and financial services. Formerly known as Birla Jute Manufacturing Company Limited, with the expansion of divisions, the company changed their name in 1998 to Birla Corporation Limited.
Before Birla Corporation Ltd.
Ghanshyam Das Birla’s grandfather, Shiv Narayana Birla, used his capital from a moneylending business and started a cotton business. With a successful venture, he went back to Pilani, his birthplace, and built a mansion for the family. Business boomed with World War I as the British Empire relied on Birla to provide for the war efforts. GD Birla inherited the family business and expanded into many industries, and by 1919, the Birla Brothers Limited was formed with his other three siblings. He ventured into the motor vehicle industry, tea, textiles, cement, chemicals, and by 1942, also organized the United Commercial Bank Limited, one of the first commercial banks of India. While still in the early years of the Birla Group, an inkling of the future of Birla Brothers Limited was depicted in GD Birla’s life.
Founding of Birla Corporation Ltd.
Born in 1918, Madhav Prasad of Bombay, son of RD Birla, was a part of the Birla Jute Manufacturing Company since the beginning. By the time he finished college, he was already in charge of Birla Jute which had suffered economic downturns and wars. Madhav changed the company from Birla Jute Manufacturing Company to a company with activities across a wide spectrum of industries. In MP Birla’s time, Birla Corporation and the other businesses under Birla Group gained significant power and stance in the cement, auto trims, steel, and building materials. When he died in 1990, his wife, Priyamvada Birla took over as the chairman of Birla in 1998 and changed the name to Birla Corporation Limited. Priyamvada was known for her active roles in the community, healthcare, and education.
Businesses
Birla Jute Supply Company Ltd - Operates in manufacturing and trading of jute products, focusing on sustainable packaging solutions.
Budge Budge Floorcoverings Ltd - Specializes in manufacturing and exporting eco-friendly jute floor coverings, rugs, and home décor products.
Hindustan Gums & Chemicals Ltd - Produces guar gum and derivatives, catering to industries like food, pharmaceuticals, textiles, and oil drilling.
Lok Cements Ltd - Focuses on manufacturing and distributing high-quality cement products for construction and infrastructure projects.
RCCPL Pvt Ltd - Manufactures and markets premium-grade cement for construction and infrastructure projects.
Recent Events
In 2013, Birla Corporation merged with its subsidiary company, Talavadi Cements Ltd as the firm could not meet requirements for raw materials due to a ban on the mines in Rajasthan. This caused a decrease in the Birla stock around the months of June and July.
Birla vs Lodha dispute
When Priyamvada died in 2004, she gave the Rs 5000 crore estate to her close accountant, Rajendra Singh Lodha, who was a co-chairman. Lodha eventually became chairman of Birla Corporation. This estate included key holdings in the East India Investments Co and Gwalior Webbing, Birla Corporation, Vidhya Telelinks, and Universal cables, among others. However, the Birla family challenged the Lodha family in court in 2008 about the contents of the will, and Priyamvada’s previous two wills. The case changed course with the sudden death of RS Lodha in October 2008. In her will, Priyamvada declared that after RS Lodha, his son, would inherit the estates. Since the will was written in 1999 and was not officially granted "probate," the Lodha family currently holds the MP Birla group.
Cement in 2011
In 2011, Birla Corporation faced problems with overproduction of cement during a long period of decreasing demand. Naturally, Harsh Lodha became worried for the corporation since cement is the largest revenue generator for Birla Corp. He is currently looking into other alternatives for growth in the coal industry. Meanwhile, Birla Corporation has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Assam Mineral Development for a cement plant in Assam where Birla will invest Rs 2500 crores over a time span of three years. In November 2017 it was announced that M.P Birla Cement had agreed to become the co-sponsor Mohun Bagan A.C for the period between December 2019.
Harsh Lodha indicted
Harsh Lodha and his brother, Aditya Lodha, were indicted in 2013 for malpractice. Three members of the Birla Corporation, Om Prakash Agarwal, Suresh Kumar Sharma, and Shashi Agarwal claimed there was malpractice in the firm and alleged misconduct in falsifying the information about the number of partners in the firm. This was a problem as Aditya Lodha had a part in the Chartered Accountant firm Lodha and Company. His brother, Harsh, was the chairman of Birla Corporation. At the time, Lodha and Company was the auditor of Birla Corporations. As a result, the ICAI suspended Harsh and Aditya Lodha for 3 months.
Removal and reinstatement of Harsh Vardhan Lodha
On 19 September 2020, the Calcutta High Court ordered the removal of Harsh Vardhan Lodha from all the directorships and other positions in the trust's and societies of the MP Birla Group of Companies.
In July 2021, The Supreme Court ruled that Harsh Vardhan Lodha can continue as director and chairman in Birla Corporation, Universal Cables, Vindhya Telelinks and Birla Cable. However the company has been a part of major controversies since the reinstatement of Harsh Vardhan Lodha.
Philanthropy
Healthcare
Birla Corporation is a supporter of health, education, and social welfare under the MP Birla Group. Priyamvada Birla showed an interest in health care, helping to build hospitals and funding research ranging from eye health to cardiology, oncology, neurology, and orthopedics. She also founded the Priyamvada Birla Cancer Research Institute and joined with Aravind Eye Care Center to build the Priyamvada Birla Aravind Eye Hospital. After the death of Priyamvada Birla, the healthcare units like hospitals and research centres under her leadership have reached a stagnant phase with no major improvements in research and development factor. Medical students train at these hospitals.
The MP Birla Foundation built many schools in India. These schools include institutions, industrial training in computers, mechanical and electrical studies, a Sanskrit school for students interested in Vedic studies. They also cater to children of employees at Birla with an education taught in Hindi and financial aid for students.
Chairpersons
Ghanshyamdas Birla
M. P. Birla (d. 1990)
Mrs. Priyamvada Birla (d. 3 July 2004)
R. S. Lodha (d. 3 October 2008)
See also
Birla family
|
Tandem Computers
|
[
"Fault-tolerant computer systems",
"Defunct computer hardware companies",
"Defunct computer systems companies",
"Defunct computer companies based in California",
"Minicomputers",
"Transaction processing",
"Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area",
"Companies based in Cupertino, California",
"American companies established in 1974",
"Computer companies established in 1974",
"Computer companies disestablished in 1997",
"1974 establishments in California",
"1997 disestablishments in California",
"Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area",
"Private equity portfolio companies",
"Compaq acquisitions",
"1997 mergers and acquisitions",
"Defunct computer companies of the United States"
] | 5,827 | 46,428 |
Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, 911 systems, and other similar commercial transaction processing applications requiring maximum uptime and no data loss. The company was founded by Jimmy Treybig in 1974 in Cupertino, California. It remained independent until 1997, when it became a server division within Compaq. It is now a server division within Hewlett Packard Enterprise, following Hewlett-Packard's acquisition of Compaq and the split of Hewlett-Packard into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Tandem's NonStop systems use a number of independent identical processors, redundant storage devices, and redundant controllers to provide automatic high-speed "failover" in the case of a hardware or software failure. To contain the scope of failures and of corrupted data, these multi-computer systems have no shared central components, not even main memory. Conventional multi-computer systems all use shared memories and work directly on shared data objects. Instead, NonStop processors cooperate by exchanging messages across a reliable fabric, and software takes periodic snapshots for possible rollback of program memory state.
Besides masking failures, this "shared-nothing" messaging system design also scales to the largest commercial workloads. Each doubling of the total number of processors doubles system throughput, up to the maximum configuration of 4000 processors. In contrast, the performance of conventional multiprocessor systems is limited by the speed of some shared memory, bus, or switch. Adding more than 4–8 processors in that manner gives no further system speedup. NonStop systems have more often been bought to meet scaling requirements than for extreme fault tolerance. They compete against IBM's largest mainframes, despite being built from simpler minicomputer technology.
Tandem Computers was founded in 1974 by James Treybig. Treybig first saw the market need for fault tolerance in OLTP (online transaction processing) systems while running a marketing team for Hewlett-Packard 's HP 3000 computer division, but HP was not interested in developing for this niche. He then joined the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and developed the Tandem business plan there. Treybig pulled together a core engineering team hired away from the HP 3000 division: Mike Green, Jim Katzman, Dave Mackie and Jack Loustaunou. Their business plan called for ultra-reliable systems that never had outages and never lost or corrupted data. These were modular in a new way that was safe from all "single-point failures" yet would be only marginally more expensive than conventional non-fault-tolerant systems. They would be less expensive and support more throughput than some existing ad-hoc toughened systems that used redundant but usually required "hot spares".
Each engineer was confident they could quickly pull off their own part of this complex new design but doubted that others' areas could be worked out. The parts of the hardware and software design that did not have to be different were largely based on incremental improvements to the familiar hardware and software designs of the HP 3000. Many subsequent engineers and programmers also came from HP. Tandem headquarters in Cupertino, California, were a quarter mile away from the HP offices. Initial venture capital investment in Tandem Computers came from Tom Perkins, who was formerly a general manager of the HP 3000 division.
The business plan included detailed ideas for building a unique corporate culture reflecting Treybig's values.
The design of the initial Tandem/16 hardware was completed in 1975, and the first system shipped to Citibank in May 1976.
The company enjoyed uninterrupted exponential growth through 1983. Inc. magazine ranked Tandem as the fastest-growing public company in America. By 1996, Tandem was a $2.3 billion company employing approximately 8,000 people worldwide.
Tandem NonStop (TNS) stack machines
Over 40 years, Tandem's main NonStop product line grew and evolved in an upward-compatible way from the initial T/16 fault-tolerant system, with three major changes to its top-level modular architecture or its programming-level instruction set architecture. Within each series, there have been several major re-implementations as chip technology progressed.
While conventional systems of the era, including large mainframes, had mean-time-between-failures (MTBF) on the order of a few days, the NonStop system was designed to failure intervals 100 times longer, with uptimes measured in years. Nevertheless, the NonStop was designed to be price-competitive with conventional systems, with a simple 2-CPU system priced at just over twice that of a competing single-processor mainframe, as opposed to four or more times of other fault-tolerant solutions.
NonStop I
The first system was the Tandem/16 or T/16, later re-branded NonStop I. The machine consisted of between two and 16 CPUs, organized as a fault-tolerant computer cluster packaged in a single rack. Each CPU had its own private, unshared memory, its own I/O processor, its own private I/O bus to connect to I/O controllers, and dual connections to all the other CPUs over a custom inter-CPU backplane bus called Dynabus. Each disk controller or network controller was duplicated and had dual connections to both CPUs and devices. Each disk was mirrored, with separate connections to two independent disk controllers. If a disk failed, its data was still available from its mirrored copy. If a CPU, controller or bus failed, the disk was still reachable through alternative CPU, controller, and/or bus. Each disk or network controller was connected to two independent CPUs. Power supplies were each wired to only one side of a pair of CPUs, controllers, or buses, so that the system would keep running without loss of connections if one power supply failed. The careful complex arrangement of parts and connections in customers' larger configurations were documented in a Mackie diagram, named after lead salesman David Mackie, who invented the notation. None of these duplicated parts were wasted "hot spares"; everything added to system throughput during normal operations.
Besides recovering well from failed parts, the T/16 was also designed to detect as many kinds of intermittent failures as possible, as soon as possible. This prompt detection is called "fail fast". The point was to find and isolate corrupted data before it was permanently written into databases and other disk files. In the T/16, error detection was by added custom circuits that added little cost to the total design; no major parts were duplicated to get error detection.
The T/16 CPU was a proprietary design. It was greatly influenced by the HP 3000 minicomputer. They were both microprogrammed, 16-bit, stack-based machines with segmented, 16-bit virtual addressing. Both were intended to be programmed exclusively in high-level languages, with no use of assembler. Both were initially implemented via standard low-density TTL chips, each holding a 4-bit slice of the 16-bit ALU. Both had a small number of top-of-stack, 16-bit data registers plus some extra address registers for accessing the memory stack. Both used Huffman encoding of operand address offsets, to fit a large variety of address modes and offset sizes into the 16-bit instruction format with good code density. Both relied heavily on pools of indirect addresses to overcome the short instruction format. Both supported larger 32- and 64-bit operands via multiple ALU cycles, and memory-to-memory string operations. Both used "big-endian" addressing of long versus short memory operands. These features had all been inspired by Burroughs B5500–B6800 mainframe stack machines.
The T/16 instruction set changed several features from the HP 3000 design. The T/16 supported paged virtual memory from the beginning. The HP 3000 series did not add paging until the PA-RISC generation, 10 years later (although via MPE V it had a form of paging using the APL firmware, in 1978). Tandem added support for 32-bit addressing in its second machine; HP 3000 lacked this until its PA-RISC generation. Paging and long addresses were critical for supporting complex system software and large applications. The T/16 treated its top-of-stack registers in a novel way; the compiler, not the microcode, was responsible for deciding when full registers were spilled to the memory stack and when empty registers were re-filled from the memory stack. On the HP 3000, this decision took extra microcode cycles in every instruction. The HP 3000 supported COBOL with several instructions for calculating directly on arbitrary-length BCD (binary-coded decimal) strings of digits. The T/16 simplified this to single instructions for converting between BCD strings and 64-bit binary integers.
In the T/16, each CPU consisted of two boards of TTL logic and SRAMs, and ran at about 0.7 MIPS. At any instant, it could access only four virtual memory segments (System Data, System Code, User Data, User Code), each limited to 128 KB in size. The 16-bit address spaces were already small for major applications when it shipped.
The first release of T/16 had only a single programming language, Transaction Application Language (TAL). This was an efficient machine-dependent systems programming language (for operating systems, compilers, etc.) but could also be used for non-portable applications. It was derived from HP 3000's System Programming Language (SPL). Both had semantics similar to C but a syntax based on Burroughs' ALGOL. Subsequent releases added support for Cobol74, Basic, Fortran, Java, C, C++, and MUMPS.
The Tandem NonStop series ran a custom operating system which was significantly different from Unix or HP 3000's MPE. It was initially called T/TOS (Tandem Transactional Operating System) but soon named Guardian for its ability to protect all data from machine faults and software faults. In contrast to all other commercial operating systems, Guardian was based on message passing as the basic way for all processes to interact, without shared memory, regardless of where the processes were running. This approach easily scaled to multiple-computer clusters and helped isolate corrupted data before it propagated.
All file system processes and all transactional application processes were structured as master/slave pairs of processes running in separate CPUs. The slave process periodically took snapshots of the master's memory state and took over the workload if and when the master process ran into trouble. This allowed the application to survive failures in any CPU or its associated devices, without data loss. It further allowed recovery from some intermittent-style software failures. Between failures, the monitoring by the slave process added some performance overhead but this was far less than the 100% duplication in other system designs. Some major early applications were directly coded in this checkpoint style, but most instead used various Tandem software layers which hid the details of this in a semi-portable way.
NonStop II
In 1981, all T/16 CPUs were replaced by the NonStop II. Its main difference from the T/16 was support for occasional 32-bit addressing via a user-switchable "extended data segment". This supported the next ten years of growth in software and was an advantage over the T/16 or HP 3000. Visible registers remained 16-bit, and this unplanned addition to the instruction set required executing many instructions per memory reference compared to most 32-bit minicomputers. All subsequent TNS computers were hampered by this instruction set inefficiency. As the NonStop II lacked wider internal data paths, it had to use additional microcode steps for 32-bit addresses. A NonStop II CPU had three boards, using chips and design similar to the T/16. The NonStop II also replaced core memory with battery-backed DRAM memory.
NonStop TXP
In 1983, the NonStop TXP CPU was the first entirely new implementation of the TNS instruction set architecture. It was built from standard TTL chips and Programmed Array Logic chips, with four boards per CPU module. It had Tandem's first use of cache memory. It had a more direct implementation of 32-bit addressing, but still sent them through 16-bit adders. A wider microcode store allowed a major reduction in the cycles executed per instruction; speed increased to 2.0 MIPS. It used the same rack packaging, controllers, backplane, and buses as before. The Dynabus and I/O buses had been overdesigned in the T/16 so they would work for several generations of upgrades.
FOX
Up to 14 TXP and NonStop II systems could now be combined via FOX, a long-distance fault-tolerant fibre optic bus for connecting TNS clusters across a business campus; a cluster of clusters with a total of 224 CPUs. This allowed further scale-up for taking on the largest mainframe applications. Like the CPU modules within the computers, the Guardian operating system could failover entire task sets to other machines in the network. Worldwide clusters of 4000 CPUs could also be built via conventional long-haul network links.
NonStop VLX
In 1986, Tandem introduced a third generation CPU, the NonStop VLX. It had 32-bit data paths, wider microcode, 12 MHz cycle time, and a peak rate of one instruction per cycle. It was built from three boards of ECL gate array chips (with TTL pinout). It had a revised Dynabus with speed raised to 20 MB/s per link, 40 MB/s total. Later, FOX II increased the physical diameter of TNS clusters to 4 kilometers.
Tandem's initial database support was only for hierarchical, non-relational databases via the ENSCRIBE file system. This was extended into a relational database called ENCOMPASS. In 1986 Tandem introduced the first fault-tolerant SQL database, NonStop SQL. Developed totally in-house, NonStop SQL includes a number of features based on Guardian to ensure data validity across nodes. NonStop SQL is known for scaling linearly in performance with the number of nodes added to the system, whereas most databases had performance that plateaued quite quickly, often after just two CPUs. A later version released in 1989 added transactions that could be spread over nodes, a feature that remained unique for some time. NonStop SQL continued to evolve, first as NonStop SQL/MP and then NonStop SQL/MX, which transitioned from Tandem to Compaq to HP. The code remains in use in both HP's NonStop SQL/MP, NonStop SQL/MX and the Apache Trafodion project.
NonStop CLX
In 1987, Tandem introduced the NonStop CLX, a low-cost less-expandable minicomputer system. Its role was for growing the low end of the fault-tolerant market, and for deploying on the remote edges of large Tandem networks. Its initial performance was roughly similar to the TXP; later versions improved to where they were about 20% slower than a VLX. Its small cabinet could be installed into any "copier room" office environment. A CLX CPU was one board, containing six "compiled silicon" ASIC CMOS chips. The CPU core chip was duplicated and lock stepped for maximal error detection. This added no additional fault tolerance but assured data integrity as each CPU included checking logic that made certain that the results of both CPU chips were identical. Other processors would provide fault tolerance. Pinout was a main limitation of this chip technology. Microcode, cache, and TLB were all external to the CPU core and shared a single bus and single bank of SRAM. As a result, CLX required at least two machine cycles per instruction.
NonStop Cyclone
In 1989, Tandem introduced the NonStop Cyclone, a fast but expensive system for the mainframe end of the market. Each self-checking CPU took three boards full of hot-running ECL gate array chips, plus memory boards. Despite being microprogrammed, the CPU was superscalar, often completing two instructions per cache cycle. This was accomplished by having a separate microcode routine for every common pair of instructions. That fused pair of stack instructions generally accomplished the same work as a single instruction of normal 32-bit minicomputers. Cyclone processors were packaged as sections of four CPUs each, and the sections joined by a fiber optic version of Dynabus.
Like Tandem's prior high-end machines, Cyclone cabinets were styled with much angular black to suggest strength and power. Advertising videos directly compared Cyclone to the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Mach 3 spy plane. Cyclone's name was supposed to represent its "unstoppable speed in roaring through OLTP workloads". Announcement day was October 17, 1989. That afternoon, the region was struck by the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake, causing freeway collapses in Oakland and major fires in San Francisco. Tandem offices were shaken, but no one was badly hurt on site.
Other product lines
Rainbow
In 1980–1983, Tandem attempted to re-design its entire hardware and software stack to put its NonStop methods on a stronger foundation than its inherited HP 3000 traits. Rainbow's hardware was a 32-bit register-file machine that aimed to be better than a Digital Equipment Corporation VAX. For reliable programming, the main programming language was "TPL", a subset of Ada. At that time, programmers barely understood how to compile Ada to unoptimized code. There was no migration path for existing NonStop system software coded in TAL. The OS, database and Cobol compilers were entirely redesigned. Customers would see it as a totally disjoint product line requiring all-new software from them. The software side of this project took much longer than planned. The hardware was already obsolete and outperformed by TXP before its software was ready, resulting in the Rainbow project being abandoned. All subsequent efforts emphasized upward compatibility and easy migration paths.
Development of Rainbow's advanced client/server application development framework called "Crystal" continued awhile longer and was spun off as the "Ellipse" product of Cooperative Systems Incorporated.
Dynamite PC
In 1985, Tandem attempted to grab a piece of the rapidly growing personal computer market with its introduction of the MS-DOS based Dynamite PC/workstation. Numerous design compromises (including a unique 8086-based hardware platform incompatible with expansion cards of the day and extremely limited compatibility with IBM-based PCs) relegated the Dynamite to serving primarily as a smart terminal. It was quietly and quickly withdrawn from the market.
The company in 1986 introduced the 6AT, an IBM PC AT-compatible computer. Tandem only sold the 6AT to existing customers; "we are not going to go out and innovate", it said.
Integrity
Tandem's message-based NonStop operating system had advantages for scaling, extreme reliability, and efficiently using expensive "spare" resources. But many potential customers wanted just good-enough reliability in a small system, using a familiar Unix operating system and industry-standard programs. Tandem's various fault-tolerant competitors all adopted a simpler hardware-only memory-centric design where all recovery was done by switching between hot spares. The most successful competitor was Stratus Technologies, whose machines were re-marketed by IBM as "IBM System/88".
In such systems, the spare processors do not contribute to system throughput between failures, but merely redundantly execute exactly the same data thread as the active processor at the same instant, in "lock step". Faults are detected by seeing when the cloned processors' outputs diverged. To detect failures, the system must have two physical processors for each logical, active processor. To also implement automatic failover recovery, the system must have three or four physical processors for each logical processor. The triple or quadruple cost of this sparing is practical when the duplicated parts are commodity single-chip microprocessors.
Tandem's products for this market began with the Integrity line in 1989, using MIPS processors and a "NonStop UX" variant of Unix. It was developed in Austin, Texas. In 1991, the Integrity S2 used TMR, Triple Modular Redundancy, where each logical CPU used three MIPS R2000 microprocessors to execute the same data thread, with voting to find and lock out a failed part. Their fast clocks could not be synchronized as in strict lock stepping, so voting instead happened at each interrupt. Some other versions of Integrity used 4x "pair and spares" redundancy. Pairs of processors ran in lock-step to check each other. When they disagreed, both processors were marked untrusted, and their workload was taken over by a hot-spare pair of processors whose state was already current. In 1995, the Integrity S4000 was the first to use ServerNet (a networked "bus" structure) and moved toward sharing peripherals with the NonStop line.
Wolfpack
In 1995–1997, Tandem partnered with Microsoft to implement high-availability features and advanced SQL configurations in clusters of commodity Microsoft Windows NT machines. This project was codenamed "Wolfpack" and first shipped as Microsoft Cluster Server in 1997. Microsoft benefited greatly from this partnership; Tandem did not.
TNS/R NonStop migration to MIPS
When Tandem was formed in 1974, every computer company designed and built its CPUs from basic circuits, using its own proprietary instruction set, compilers, etc. With each year of semiconductor progress with Moore's Law, more of a CPU's core circuits could fit into single chips and run faster and cheaper as a result. However, it became increasingly expensive for a computer company to design those advanced custom chips or build the plants to fabricate the chips. Facing the challenges of this changing marketplace and manufacturing landscape, Tandem partnered with MIPS and adopted its R3000 and successor chipsets and their advanced optimizing compiler. Subsequent NonStop Guardian machines using the MIPS architecture were known to programmers as TNS/R machines and had a variety of marketing names.
Cyclone/R
In 1991, Tandem released the Cyclone/R, also known as CLX/R. This was a low-cost mid-range system based on CLX components but used R3000 microprocessors instead of the much slower CLX stack machine board. To minimize time to market, this machine was initially shipped without any MIPS native-mode software. Everything, including its NonStop Kernel (NSK) operating system (a follow-on to Guardian) and NonStop SQL database, was compiled to TNS stack machine code. That object code was then translated to equivalent partially optimized MIPS instruction sequences at kernel install time by a tool called the Accelerator. Less-important programs could also be executed directly without pre-translation, via a TNS code interpreter. These migration techniques were successful and remain in use today. End-user software was brought over without extra work, the performance was good enough for mid-range machines, and programmers could ignore the instruction differences, even when debugging at machine code level. These Cyclone/R machines were updated with a faster native-mode NSK operating system in a follow-up release.
The R3000 and later microprocessors had only a typical amount of internal error checking, insufficient for Tandem's needs. So, the Cyclone/R ran pairs of R3000 processors in lock step, running the same data thread. This was for purposes of data integrity, and not fault-tolerance – fault tolerance was handled by the other mechanisms still in place. It used a variation of lock stepping. The checker processor ran 1 cycle behind the primary processor. This allowed them to share a single copy of external code and data caches without putting excessive pinout load on the system bus and lowering the system clock rate. To successfully run microprocessors in lock step, the chips must be designed to be fully deterministic. Any hidden internal state must be cleared by the chip's reset mechanism. Otherwise, the matched chips can go out of sync for no visible reason and without any faults, long after the chips are restarted. Chip designers agree that these are good principles because it helps them test chips at manufacturing time. But all new microprocessor chips seemed to have bugs in this area and required months of shared work between MIPS (the third-party manufacturer used by Tandem) and Tandem to eliminate or work around the final subtle bugs.
NonStop Himalaya K-series
In 1993, Tandem released the NonStop Himalaya K-series with the faster MIPS R4400, a native mode NSK operating system, and fully expandable Cyclone system components. These were connected by Dynabus, Dynabus+, and the original I/O bus, which by now were all running out of performance headroom.
Open System Services
In 1995, the NonStop Kernel was extended with a Unix-like POSIX environment called Open System Services. The original Guardian shell and ABI remained available.
NonStop Himalaya S-Series
In 1997, Tandem introduced the NonStop Himalaya S-Series with a new top-level system architecture based on ServerNet connections. ServerNet replaced the Dynabus, FOX, and I/O buses. It was much faster, more general, and could be extended to more than just two-way redundancy via an arbitrary fabric of point-to-point connections. Tandem designed ServerNet for its own needs but then promoted its use by others; it evolved into the InfiniBand industry standard.
All S-Series machines used MIPS processors, including the R4400, R10000, R12000, and R14000.
The design of the later, faster MIPS cores was primarily funded by Silicon Graphics Inc. But Intel's sixth generation Pentium Pro overtook the performance of RISC designs, and also SGI's graphics business shrank. After the R10000, there was no investment in significant new MIPS core designs for high-end servers. So Tandem needed to move its NonStop product line to another microprocessor architecture with competitive fast chips.
Acquisition by Compaq, attempted migration to Alpha
Jimmy Treybig remained CEO of the company he founded until a downturn in 1996. The next CEO was Roel Pieper, who joined the company in 1996 as president and CEO. Re-branding to promote itself as a true Wintel (Windows/Intel) platform was conducted by their in-house brand and creative team led by Ronald May, who later went on to co-found the Silicon Valley Brand Forum in 1999. The concept worked, and shortly thereafter the company was acquired by Compaq.
Compaq's x86-based server division was an early outside adopter of Tandem's ServerNet/InfiniBand interconnect technology. In 1997, Compaq acquired the Tandem Computers company and NonStop customer base to balance Compaq's heavy focus on personal computers (PCs). In 1998, Compaq also acquired the much larger Digital Equipment Corporation and inherited its DEC Alpha RISC servers with OpenVMS and Tru64 Unix customer bases. Tandem was then midway in porting its NonStop product line from MIPS R12000 microprocessors to Intel's new Itanium Merced microprocessors. This project was restarted with Alpha as the new target to align NonStop with Compaq's other large server lines. But in 2001, Compaq terminated all Alpha engineering investments in favor of the Itanium microprocessors, before any new NonStop products were released on Alpha.
Acquisition by Hewlett-Packard, TNS/E migration to Itanium
In 2001, Hewlett-Packard similarly made the choice to abdicate its successful PA-RISC product lines in favor of Intel's Itanium microprocessors that HP helped to design. Shortly thereafter, Compaq and HP announced their plan to merge and consolidate their similar product lines. This contentious merger became official in May 2002. The consolidations were painful and destroyed the DEC and "HP Way" engineer-oriented cultures, but the combined company did know how to sell complex systems to enterprises and profit, so it was an improvement for the surviving NonStop division and its customers.
In some ways, Tandem's journey from HP-inspired start-up to an HP-inspired competitor, then to an HP division was "bringing Tandem back to its original roots", but this was not the same HP.
The porting of the NSK-based NonStop product line from MIPS processors to Itanium-based processors was completed and was branded as "HP Integrity NonStop Servers". (This NSK Integrity NonStop was unrelated to Tandem's original "Integrity" series for Unix.)
Because it was not possible to run Itanium McKinley chips with clock-level lock stepping, the Integrity NonStop machines instead lock stepped using comparisons between chip states at longer time scales, at interrupt points and at various software synchronization points in between interrupts. The intermediate synchronization points were automatically triggered at every n'th taken branch instruction and were also explicitly inserted into long loop bodies by all NonStop compilers. The machine design supported both dual and triple redundancy, with either two or three physical microprocessors per logical Itanium processor. The triple version was sold to customers needing the utmost reliability. This new checking approach was called NSAA, NonStop Advanced Architecture.
As in the earlier migration from stack machines to MIPS microprocessors, all customer software was carried forward without source changes. "Native mode" source code compiled directly to MIPS machine code was simply recompiled for Itanium. Some older "non-native" software was still in TNS stack machine form. These were automatically ported onto Itanium via object code translation techniques.
Itanium migration to Intel X86
The next endeavor was to move from Itanium to the Intel x86 architecture. It was completed in 2014 with the first systems being made commercially available.
The inclusion of the fault-tolerant 4X FDR (Fourteen Data Rate) InfiniBand double-wide switches provided more than 25 times increase in system interconnect capacity.
Outlook, other
NSK Guardian also became the base for the HP Neoview OS, the operating system used in the HP Neoview systems that were tailored for use in Business Intelligence and Enterprise Data Warehouse use. NonStop SQL/MX was also the starting point for Neoview SQL, which was tailored to Business Intelligence use. The code was also ported to Linux and served as the basis for the Apache Trafodion project.
Corporate culture
Treybig's business plan included detailed ideas for building a corporate culture reflecting Treybig's values, such as paid six week sabbaticals every four years for all employees, an annual gift of 100 shares of Tandem stock to all employees, a weekly all-employee party known as Beer Bust Fridays, and a world-wide closed circuit monthly telecast ("First Friday") to keep employees informed.
User groups
ITUG (International Tandem User Group) now part of Connect (users' group)
OzTUG The Australia and New Zealand Tandem Users Group here:
See also
Jim Gray (computer scientist)
Thomas Perkins, longtime chairman of the board
List of compilers for a partial list of compilers, including Tandem compilers
NonStop
TACL (Tandem Advanced Command Language)
Stratus Technologies
|
Uganda Investment Authority
|
[
"Government finances in Uganda",
"Finance in Uganda",
"Government agencies established in 1991",
"Kampala District",
"1991 establishments in Uganda",
"Investment promotion agencies"
] | 624 | 5,693 |
The Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) is a semi-autonomous investment promotion and facilitation organisation in Uganda and is owned by the government of Uganda.
Location
The headquarters of UIA are located at Uganda Business Facilitation Centre, Plot 1, Baskerville Avenue, Kololo. The coordinates of the head office are:0.3291° N, 32.5988° E (Latitude:0.3291857; Longitude:32.598898). The agency maintains a national network of UIA District Focal Point Offices, throughout Uganda.
Overview
The UIA was created by the Ugandan Parliament in 1991. The mission of the UIA is to promote and facilitate investment projects, provide serviced land, and advocate for a competitive business environment. The UIA works with the government and the private sector to promote the economic growth of Uganda through investment and infrastructure development. UIA's parent ministry is the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.
Governance
The institution is governed by a seven-person board of directors. As of October 2024, the following individuals are members of the UIA Board:
Dr Robert Kyamanywa - Chairperson
Mr. Ramadhan Ggoobi - Member (also Permanent Secretary and Secretary to Treasury, Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development)
Dr Patrick Wakida Godfrey - Member (represents the Private Sector)
Ms. Beatrice Nambooze Musumba - Member (represents the Private Sector)
Dr Anna Nakanwagi-Mukwaya - Member (represents the Private Sector)
Ms. Namakoye Faith Jullie - Member (represents the Private Sector)
Ms. Lynette Bagonza - Member (also Permanent Secretary in Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Cooperatives)
UIA's Director General is Robert Mukiza, who heads the management team comprising the following members:
Mr Martin Muhangi - Ag. Deputy Director General
Mrs. Justine Kasigwa Agaba - Director, One-Stop Centre
Mrs. Robinah Nabwire Tegiike - Director, Finance and Administration
Ms. Patience Kabije - Director Legal & Corporate and Board Affairs
Mr. Richard Nuwenyesiga - Director, Domestic Investments Division
Mr. Peter Muramira - Ag. Director, Investment Promotion & Business Development
Ms. Christine Nagasha - Ag. Director, Industrial Parks Development
Mr. John K Bwambale - Chief Internal Auditor
See also
Economy of Uganda
Direct investment
Uganda Securities Exchange
|
Zia Mody
|
[
"1956 births",
"Living people",
"Parsi people from Mumbai",
"Businesspeople from Mumbai",
"Indian Bahá'ís",
"21st-century Bahá'ís",
"Harvard Law School alumni",
"Businesswomen from Maharashtra",
"Scholars from Mumbai",
"Alumni of Selwyn College, Cambridge",
"20th-century Indian businesswomen",
"20th-century Indian businesspeople",
"21st-century Indian businesswomen",
"21st-century Indian businesspeople",
"20th-century Indian lawyers",
"20th-century Indian women lawyers",
"21st-century Indian lawyers",
"21st-century Indian women lawyers"
] | 686 | 6,533 |
Zia Jaydev Mody (born 19 July 1956) is an Indian corporate lawyer and businesswoman. She is the oldest daughter of Soli Sorabjee, a former Attorney General of India, and has three brothers, Jehangir, Jamshed, and Hormazd.
Zia is one of the founding partners of AZB & Partners, an Indian premier law firms. She advises large private equity houses such as KKR, Bain Capital, and Warburg Pincus. She has been ranked No. 1 in Fortune India's India's 50 Most Powerful Women in Business list in 2018 and 2019.
Biography
Mody's initial education was at Elphinstone College, Mumbai. She studied law at Selwyn College, Cambridge, in 1978 and was enrolled as an Advocate with the Bar Council of Maharashtra & Goa in 1978. She secured a master's degree from Harvard Law School and was then admitted as a member of the New York State Bar in 1980.
She is dually licensed to practice law in India and the United States. She worked for five years with Baker McKenzie in New York City before returning to India. Her husband, business tycoon Jaydev Mody, is the chairman of Delta Corp. They live in Mumbai, Maharashtra, and have three daughters, Anjali, Aarti, and Aditi. She started her own practice, Chambers of Zia Mody, in Mumbai in 1984. She practiced in the Indian courts for over 10 years as a counsel. She then merged with other firms to form AZB & Partners.
Zia is a Baháʼí by religion. Her mother, Zena Sorabjee, who introduced her to the faith, was appointed by the governing institution of the religion as Counsellor for South Central Asia. Zia Mody has stated that her father is a Zoroastrian.
Memberships and affiliations
She is an Independent Director (2018–present), Member of Audit & Risk Committee (2018–present), and Member of Investment Committee (2019–present) of Ascendas Property Fund Trustee Pte. Ltd.
She has been or is a member of the Reserve Bank of India (2012), the Confederation of Indian Industry National Council (2015–present), the Committee on Corporate Governance formed by SEBI (2017), and Maharashtra's Economic Advisory Council (2023). She has been the Vice President and member of the London Court of International Arbitration (2010–2013).
Charitable work
She has contributed to the Jai Vakeel Foundation and the Baháʼí fund.
|
Revenue NSW
|
[
"Government agencies of New South Wales",
"State taxation in Australia",
"Revenue services",
"Economy of New South Wales",
"Government agencies established in 2017",
"2017 establishments in Australia"
] | 566 | 4,740 |
Revenue NSW is an administrative division of the Government of New South Wales that has responsibility for collecting New South Wales taxes. It was rebranded from the Office of State Revenue (OSR) and its fines division the State Debt Recovery Office (SDRO) on 31 July 2017. It was formerly an administrative division of the New South Wales Department of Customer Service until 6 July 2020, when it became a stand-alone division of the department.
Revenue NSW administers state taxation and revenue programs for and on behalf of the people of NSW. The agency manages fines and administers grants and subsidies to the community and businesses across NSW. They also recover debt to provide an equitable outcome for the community. The agency helps to develop policy, implement legislation, collect revenue, process and enforce outstanding fines and penalties. It administers state taxation laws, including the Land Tax Act 1956, Payroll Tax Act 2007 and the Stamp Duties Act 1920.
In 2016–2017, Revenue NSW collected more than 29.4 billion in revenue.
The chief executive officer of Revenue NSW is the Deputy Secretary, Chief Commissioner of State Revenue and Commissioner of Fines Administration, currently Scott Johnston. The agency reports to the Minister for Customer Service. Ultimately the minister is responsible to the Parliament of New South Wales.
Grants
On behalf of the NSW Government, the agency administers grants for:
First home – New Home Scheme
First Home Owner Grant (New Homes) scheme
New South Wales New Home Grant Scheme
Regional Relocation Grant
Small Business Grant
See also
Taxation in Australia
|
EaseMyTrip
|
[
"Travel ticket search engines",
"Indian companies established in 2008",
"Transport companies established in 2008",
"Internet properties established in 2008",
"Indian travel websites",
"Online travel agencies",
"Companies listed on the National Stock Exchange of India",
"Companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange",
"Travel and holiday companies of India"
] | 1,043 | 13,764 |
EaseMyTrip is an Indian multinational online travel company, headquartered in New Delhi. It was founded in 2008 by Nishant Pitti, Rikant Pitti, and Prashant Pitti. The company provides hotel bookings, air tickets, domestic and international holiday packages, bus bookings, and white-label services.
The idea for EaseMyTrip came when the brothers, Nishant Pitti and Rikant Pitti used to book air tickets for their father's frequent business trips, and saved money in the booking process. Initially based out of their home garage as a travel agency, the duo lost all of the initial investment within the first three months. Later on, references from family and friends helped and a major turnaround came when an airline noticed multiple bookings coming from a single email account and contacted the Pitti brothers to become its travel partner.
In 2019, EaseMyTrip had a network of more than 42,000 travel agents, 1,200 franchise outlets, 640 white-label solutions, and around 1,600 distributors.
In 2019, EaseMyTrip expanded its operations to international markets such as UAE, UK, US, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
In March 2021, EaseMyTrip went public with an initial public offering. It became the first online travel agency to be listed on the Indian stock exchanges.
In June 2021, EaseMyTrip collaborated with Oyo Rooms, Airbnb, and Yatra to form the Confederation of Hospitality, Technology and Tourism Industry (CHATT), an industry body for the tourism sector of India.
In September 2021, it became a unicorn after its market capitalisation crossed $1 billion. In December 2021, the organisation hired Vijay Raaz and Varun Sharma as their brand ambassadors.
EaseMyTrip acquired Spree Hospitality, a hospital management company established in 2011 by Keshab Baljee, for an undisclosed amount. The company announced the acquisition of travel marketplace Traviate in October 2021. EaseMyTrip acquired Yolobus, an intercity mobility platform, in 2021.
In August 2024, the platform signed on Jacqueline Fernandez as a brand ambassador.
On 17 September 2024, it announced its move into the medical tourism sector with the acquisition of a 49 per cent equity stake in Pflege Home Healthcare for ₹30 crore, and a 30 per cent stake in Rollins International for ₹60 crore.
In November 2024, EaseMyTrip acquired a 49% stake in Planet Education Australia. This move will expand its presence in international study tourism.
Controversies
On March 8, 2022, a consumer technology firm from Pune called udChalo filed a trademark infringement case against EaseMyTrip. Previously, MakeMyTrip also moved to Delhi High Court against the company and Google both for Trademark violation.
|
Edward Le Roy Rice
|
[
"1871 births",
"1938 deaths",
"19th-century American businesspeople",
"19th-century American journalists",
"19th-century American male actors",
"19th-century American male writers",
"19th-century people from New York (state)",
"20th-century American businesspeople",
"20th-century American journalists",
"20th-century American male actors",
"20th-century American male writers",
"20th-century people from New York (state)",
"American comedy musicians",
"American male journalists",
"American male stage actors",
"Blackface minstrel managers and producers",
"Blackface minstrel performers",
"Burials at Calvary Cemetery (Queens)",
"Businesspeople from Manhattan",
"Journalists from New York City",
"Male actors from Manhattan",
"Writers from Manhattan"
] | 539 | 4,882 |
Edward LeRoy Rice (August 24, 1871 – December 1, 1938) was an American performer in and producer of minstrel shows. He was the leading authority on the history of minstrel shows. He also bought and sold theatrical memorabilia.
Biography
He was born in Manhattan, New York City, on August 24, 1871, as the second son of William Henry Rice (1844–1907), a minstrel performer. He first performed on stage in Morristown, New Jersey, on July 18, 1890.
He married Emma Rodenberger in Brooklyn, New York City, on November 30, 1899.
Starting in 1907, he wrote a column, "Man in the Bleachers", which ran in the New York Evening World for five weeks.
His book Monarchs of Minstrelsy was published in 1911. He wrote a syndicated column for Press Publishing called "Anecdotes of Old-Time Actors, by 1913.
He died on December 1, 1938, in Manhattan. He was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Woodside, New York.
His archive is housed at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
Quote
"Let me begin by saying that I am not a "Monarch of Minstrelsy," not even ... I can remember, as a youngster even before my school days began, my father asking me if I wanted to be a minstrel."
|
Public wealth fund
|
[
"Accounting terminology",
"Finance",
"Public finance"
] | 479 | 3,698 |
A public wealth fund (PWF) is a centralised government ownership vehicle structured as a holding company that owns, manages and develop operational and real estate assets, based mainly within its jurisdiction. A public wealth fund at the national level is often called a national wealth fund. Examples include Temasek in Singapore, Solidium in Finland, ÖBAG in Austria, LCR in the United Kingdom, as well as Vasakronan and Jernhusen in Sweden.
A public wealth fund at the local level is characterized as an local wealth fund. Examples include Copenhagen By and Havn, Hamburg Hafen City, as well as Stockholms Stadshus AB in Sweden and MTRC in Hong Kong.
Operational assets often include utilities such as water and electric utilities, transportation assets such as airports, ports, subways, railways and other transport operations. Exploration and production of natural resources, such as oil, gas and minerals, as well as manufacturing and service enterprise, including financial institutions are also be included in some economies.
Real estate is often the largest segment in value terms as governments have been found to control at least half of the real estate market in its jurisdiction, with a value not seldom exceeding the economic output of the geographic entity. Due to the lack of proper asset registers and public sector accounting, the real estate segment is the least well understood, with considerable value hidden from being considered when formulating the government budget.
Public wealth fund versus sovereign wealth fund
A sovereign wealth fund and a public wealth fund differ in scope, purpose and objective. A sovereign wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund that invests in real and financial assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, or in alternative investments such as private equity funds or hedge funds. Most SWFs are funded by revenues from commodity exports or from foreign-exchange reserves held by the central bank. Sovereign wealth funds invest mainly globally outside of its own economy, in order to avoid the exchange rate difficulties often called the Dutch diseases.
A PWF is a holding company concerned with active management and the development of a portfolio of operational and real estate assets, mainly based and active in the local market.
|
Fanya Metal Exchange
|
[
"Pyramid and Ponzi schemes",
"Economic history of China",
"Fraud in China",
"2011 establishments in China",
"2015 disestablishments in China"
] | 1,772 | 17,073 |
The Fanya Metal Exchange fraud was a notorious financial scam in China (also known as China's Ponzi Scheme) that was operational from 2011 to 2015. The collapse of the exchange sparked a series of nationwide protests against the involvement of Chinese local governments in supporting fraudulent fundraising schemes.
The exchange was established in 2011 as a global trading platform for rare metals and promoted by Yunnan government officials. It advertised returns as high as 13.7% and zero risk for investors. In the three years after it was set up, the exchange raised up to $6.4 billion from 220,000 investors across the country.
In 2015, the exchange blocked the withdrawal of funds and froze its accounts, triggering large-scale protests by defrauded creditors in Shanghai, Beijing and other major cities. Victims gathered outside the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) to accuse the Fanya exchange and CSRC government officials of supporting financial fraud. Twenty-one Yunnan executives, including the founder, Shan Jiuliang, were charged with embezzlement and of sabotaging financial markets in the Kunming Intermediate People's Court in 2018. The company was fined 1 billion yuan ($149.04 million) for illegal fundraising, and Shan was sentenced to 18 years in jail.
Background
The Fanya Metal Exchange was a state-backed exchange that claimed to be the world's largest trading platform of rare metals, located in Kunming, Yunnan Province. The exchange focused on metals used in technologies promoted in the official Chinese strategic plan, including liquid crystal display (LCD) screens and solar panels. Its goal was to emulate the success of the London Metal Exchange and create an exchange dedicated solely to trading rare earths and other minor metals. It dealt in 14 rare nonferrous metals including indium, bismuth, antimony, and terbium, purchasing and storing them for resale. The exchange promised investors a fixed return of up to 13.7% per annum with the right to withdraw the principal at any time without penalty.
At its launch, Fanya was designated a "cooperation enterprise" of the National Bureau of Statistics of China. It was advertised on television as a government-endorsed and regulated safe investment product. A key product called "ri jin bao" (daily golden jewel) collected investors' money to be loaned to a third-party agency and invested in other rare metal products. The company's brochures claimed that major state-owned banks served as custodians for these investments. Because of ri jin bao's high returns and seemingly low risks, it rapidly became popular especially among middle-class investors.
Business model and collapse
The exchange announced early on that it held the world's largest stores of bismuth, iridium, and rare earth metals. However, demand for these metals is low, making the funds invested in the stores illiquid. For example, by 2014 the exchange held more than 3,400 tonnes of indium and 19,000 tonnes of bismuth, in each case enough to meet global annual demand for several years. Since only small amounts of the stockpiles could be sold in a short period, Fanya would inevitably face a liquidity crisis if any sizeable request for cash withdrawal was made. In addition, the promise of a 13.7% interest rate could only be met with rapidly increasing rare metal prices. The exchange inevitably started to cover the interest and principal owed to existing investors using funds from new investors, the definition of a Ponzi scheme. When global rare metal prices declined the exchange started to collapse.
In April 2015, Fanya stopped withdrawals and froze assets nominally worth approximately 43 billion yuan ($6.7 billion) belonging to 220,000 creditors across the country. In July 2015 all assets were frozen. A complaint filed with the Yunnan financial authorities was rebuffed. In late 2015, the exchange ceased operations.
Aftermath
The collapse of the Fanya Metal Exchange sparked months of nationwide protests, including protests in front of the Beijing and Shanghai offices of the CSRC that accused the regulator of "ignoring Fanya fraud". Hundreds of furious investors gathered outside the exchange in Kunming.
On July 15, 2015, Fanya announced that it would buy back 5 billion yuan's worth of metals from investors with funds from its partners.
On September 24, 2015, the exchange claimed that its liquidity problem was due to fluctuations in stock and commodity markets, as well as regulatory changes. It also attempted to blame the media for spreading "malicious rumors" and "deliberately inciting panic" in investors. The exchange proposed to sell its stocks of 6 rare metals and undergo extensive debt restructuring to resolve the crisis.
In October 2015 it was revealed that the "ri jin bao" financing scheme was never approved by the government. Fanya issued a statement claiming that ri jin bao was merely an internally circulated sales strategy.
Late in 2015 the exchange ceased operations and its building was taken over by "dozens" of investigators, following months of protests by investors outside government buildings in Kunming, Shanghai and Beijing. Early in 2016 Shan was arrested with 15 other suspects, and in March 2016 Kunming police announced that they had determined that the exchange acted illegally in its use of investors' funds. Investigators blamed regulatory failures for allowing the exchange to operate without proper supervision, but local authorities insisted they had done their job well. In June 2016 police announced that they had impounded more than 70,000 tonnes of rare metals and other assets of the exchange.
In August 2016, after a 7-month long investigation, the Kunming government announced 21 Fanya executives would be prosecuted for "illegal fundraising". Investors continued to seek to increase the visibility of the case, crowdfunding funds to support civil prosecution. A group of Fanya investors sent an open letter with 300 signatures and fingerprints to Cao Jianming, China's top prosecutor. Fanya investors organized to break out from behind the "Great Firewall" to protest on Twitter and press for attention from foreign media.
In July 2018, 21 executives involved in the exchange were charged in the Kunming Intermediate People's Court with embezzlement and sabotaging financial markets. Investors were not allowed to attend the trial, and some investors were asked to leave town before the trial began. The company was fined 1 billion yuan ($149.04 million) for illegal fundraising, and Shan was sentenced to 18 years in jail for crimes including embezzlement. Shan was also fined 500,000 yuan and had 50 million yuan of his personal property confiscated. Other executives charged included Yang Guohong, the former vice president of the exchange, who was accused of illegally appropriating property.
The Kunming Intermediate People's Court began selling off Fanya's assets in 2019. After initially attracting no bids on Fanya's indium stockpile, the sellers were forced to lower prices to complete the sale. Vital Materials eventually purchased the indium.
Regulatory failings
Both the Kunming and the Yunnan local governments approved the establishment of the exchange in 2011, although they had no right to do so, in a bid to draw investment to the province. Experts have argued that unless China undertakes sweeping regulatory reform, scams of this type are almost certain to occur.
Allegations of corruption
Analysts have suggested that Fanya was designed to swindle investors from its inception. At the time of Shan's arrest, he was reported to have given investigators a list of 400 individuals and companies who had "borrowed" from Fanya's funds. Defrauded investors have alleged that these individuals include government officials or people with ties to the government, and that the list has disappeared. It has also been alleged that the investigation of Fanya's collapse was delayed because local government officials who were members of the ruling Chinese Communist Party were involved in a "Promotional Work Leadership Group" that popularized Fanya as an investment vehicle.
Protests
The scale and scope of protests against the government resulting from Fanya's collapse have been unusual, fueled both by the scale of the losses suffered by investors and by outrage at the apparent support of a financial scam by local governments. Protestors are consciously risking jail to draw attention to their losses, and thousands of petitioners have been detained by the Chinese government. Many of Fanya's creditors came from the well-educated middle class. They have used social media extensively to organize their protests, and have collaborated to break through China's "Great Firewall" to flood Twitter with protest messages. More than 300 Fanya investors have become active Twitter users.
|
Ibukun Awosika
|
[
"1962 births",
"Living people",
"Nigerian bankers",
"Businesspeople from Ibadan",
"Nigerian women writers",
"Obafemi Awolowo University alumni",
"Nigerian television personalities",
"Nigerian motivational speakers",
"20th-century Nigerian businesswomen",
"20th-century Nigerian businesspeople",
"Lagos Business School alumni",
"21st-century Nigerian businesswomen",
"21st-century Nigerian businesspeople",
"Methodist Girls' High School alumni",
"Nigerian self-help writers",
"Nigerian manufacturing businesspeople",
"Nigerian business writers",
"Women business writers",
"Nigerian chairpersons of corporations",
"Women corporate directors",
"University of Navarra alumni",
"Nigerian chief executives"
] | 858 | 9,435 |
Ibukunoluwa Abiodun Awosika (born Bilkisu Abiodun Motunrayo Omobolanle Adekola on December 24, 1962) is a Nigerian businesswoman and author. She is the first female Chairperson of First Bank of Nigeria. She was appointed as a member of Binance Global Advisory Board in September 2022.
Early life and education
Born as the third child of seven children in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, Ibukun completed her primary and secondary school education at St. Paul's African Church Primary School, Lagos and Methodist Girls' High School, Yaba respectively before she proceeded to the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) where she graduated with a BSc in Chemistry although she had initially wanted to study Architecture at the University of Navarra.
Career
While on her compulsory one-year National Youth Service Corps service (NYSC) in Kano State, Ibukun Awosika worked as an audit trainee at Akintola Williams & Co. which later became Deloitte, but she returned home after the service and joined Alibert Nigeria Ltd., a furniture company, as showroom manager.
Media personality
Television
In 2008, Ibukun Awosika was among five Nigerian entrepreneurs who appeared in the first African version of the Dragon's Den. She also hosts a T.V programme called Business His Way. She then starred in the 2020 Citation alongsideTemi Otedola produced by Kunle Afolayan.
Books
The "Girl" Entrepreneurs
Business His Way
The 'Girl' Entrepreneurs: Our Stories So Far Kindle Edition
Awards and recognition
YearAward ceremonyPrizeResult2005THISDAY Newspaper Annual Merit AwardEntrepreneur of the YearSuccess Digests Magazine's Annual Enterprise AwardFemale Entrepreneur of the Year2006Financial Standard and Pan-African Organisation for Women RecognitionBest Female Entrepreneur of the YearFATE Foundation AwardsFATE Model Entrepreneur Award of the Year2007International Women Society AwardGolden Heart Award2008International Women Entrepreneurial Challenge Award2015YNaija Person of the Year2020Africa Forbes Woman Awards 2020Forbes Woman Africa Chairperson Award
Personal life
Ibukun Awosika is married to Abiodun Awosika with whom she has three children.
See also
Folorunso Alakija
Grace Alele-Williams
Omobola Johnson
|
Merlin Entertainments
|
[
"Merlin Entertainments Group",
"Entertainment companies established in 1998",
"British companies established in 1998",
"Leisure companies of the United Kingdom",
"Companies based in Poole",
"Private equity portfolio companies",
"Amusement park companies",
"Blackstone Inc. companies",
"CVC Capital Partners companies",
"Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange",
"2005 mergers and acquisitions",
"2013 initial public offerings",
"2019 mergers and acquisitions",
"Legoland"
] | 3,491 | 35,171 |
Merlin Entertainments Limited is a global entertainment company based in London, England, which operates a number of theme park resorts and other visitor attractions. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until November 2019. It was then privately acquired by the consortium Motion JVCO Ltd, which includes Kirkbi A/S (the investment arm of the Kristiansen family that also controls the Lego Group and BrainPop).
History
In December 1998, Nick Varney, Andrew Carr and the senior management team of Vardon Attractions (Vardon plc) completed a management buyout of the company to form Merlin Entertainments Group Ltd., with the backing of the private equity firm Apax Partners. Apax sold the company in 2004 to another financial investor, Hermes Private Equity.
In May 2005, the company was acquired from Hermes by a division of The Blackstone Group, which later started a major expansion. Between 2005 and 2010, Merlin acquired the Legoland parks, Gardaland, The Tussauds Group, Cypress Gardens, and various attractions from Village Roadshow Theme Parks and Living and Leisure Australia. The company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2013 but returned to private ownership in 2019.
Major acquisitions (2005–2012)
After the sale of Merlin to Blackstone Group, the company negotiated to buy control of the Legoland theme parks in 2005 for about £250 million, then merged it with Merlin. As part of the deal, Kirkbi A/S, the investment arm of LEGO's owners, took a share in Merlin Entertainments.
In 2006, Merlin acquired Gardaland theme park resort in northeastern Italy.
In May 2007, Blackstone purchased The Tussauds Group, owner of the Madame Tussauds wax museums, for US$1.9 billion, to merge the company with Merlin. After the Tussauds acquisition, Dubai International Capital, the previous owner, received a 20% stake in the combined entity as well as £1.03bn in cash.
On 17 July 2007, as part of the financing for the Tussauds deal, the freeholds of Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Warwick Castle and Madame Tussauds were sold to private investor Nick Leslau and his investment firm Prestbury, with a 35-year leaseback agreement.
On 15 January 2010, Merlin Entertainments bought Cypress Gardens, a defunct theme park in Winter Haven, Florida. It was reopened as Legoland Florida theme park.
In late 2010, it was announced that Merlin would purchase approximately A$116 million worth of entertainment attractions located in Australia and New Zealand from Village Roadshow Theme Parks. The sale would include Sydney Aquarium, Sydney Wildlife World, Oceanworld Manly, Sydney Tower and the Koala Gallery in Australia, in addition to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World in New Zealand. On 3 March 2011, the deal was finalised. This was followed by the $140 million acquisition of Living and Leisure Australia which owned several attractions in the Asia-Pacific region including UnderWater World, Melbourne Aquarium, Falls Creek Alpine Resort, Hotham Alpine Resort, Otway Fly, Illawarra Fly, Busan Aquarium and Siam Ocean World.
Public listing (2013–2019)
Merlin had planned to go public in the early 2000s, but market turbulence postponed those plans. Instead, Blackstone sold 20% of the company to the private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, reducing Blackstone's holding to 34%. CVC acquired another 8% from the Dubai investment fund which is no longer involved with the company, giving it 28% in all. Kirkbi, a Danish family trust that owns LEGO, also increased its stake, emerging as the largest shareholder, with 36%. CVC paid a price that valued Merlin at £2.25 billion – more than six times what Merlin and Legoland together were worth when Blackstone acquired them five years earlier. Blackstone's investment was by that point worth more than three and a half times what it had paid.
On 8 November 2013, Merlin floated 30% of the company on the London Stock Exchange, valuing the private equity-backed company at almost £3.4bn.
In 2015, the company opened the Orlando Eye Ferris wheel attraction in Orlando. It then sold the wheel in 2018 but repurchased it in 2024.
Reports in early October 2017 indicated that Merlin Entertainments was considering a takeover of Sea World in Orlando, but on 11 October, the company said it was no longer involved in such discussions.
Return to private ownership (2019–present)
In June 2019, the company's board agreed to recommend a takeover offer of £4.8 billion from a consortium consisting of Kirkbi A/S, CPP Investment Board and The Blackstone Group. The takeover was approved by the high court in November 2019.
Merlin opened its first Peppa Pig Theme Park in Winter Haven, Florida in 2022, with future sites planned for Texas and Günzburg, Germany.
Nick Varney left the company at the end of 2022, along with longtime Chief Development Officer, Mark Fisher. Varney was replaced by Scott O'Neil, who arrived from a media and sports management background.
By the end of 2024, both Little Big City sites in Berlin and Beijing and the Bear Grylls Adventure in Birmingham, UK were closed.
O'Neil left the company at the end of 2024, with Chief Operating Officer, Fiona Eastwood, taking over as CEO. At the same time, the company began a group-wide restructuring to merge its Resort Theme Parks, Legoland Parks and Gateway Attractions divisions on a regional basis, which Merlin stated would bring them into "one united business" going forwards.
In February 2025, it was revealed that Merlin were considering selling many of its Sea Life Centres. In June, it was also announced that the majority of Merlin's attractions in Blackpool would hand operations back to Blackpool Council from August, including the Blackpool Tower, Blackpool Dungeon and Madame Tussauds Blackpool.
Resort theme parks
Name Location Year Opened Year Acquired Notes Alton Towers Resort Alton, Staffordshire, UK 1980 2007 Operator; Acquired in Tussauds Group deal. Gardaland Resort Castelnuovo del Garda, Italy 1975 2006 Owner and operator; Purchased in 2006 under Blackstone. Heide Park Resort Soltau, Lower Saxony, Germany 1978 2007 Operator; Acquired in Tussauds Group deal. Thorpe Park Chertsey, Surrey, UK 1979 2007 Operator; Acquired in Tussauds Group deal. Chessington World of Adventures Resort Chessington, Greater London, UK 1987 2007 Owner and operator; Acquired in Tussauds Group deal.
LEGOLAND parks
Name Location Year Opened Year Acquired Notes Legoland Billund Resort Billund, Denmark 1968 2005 Acquired in Blackstone deal. Legoland Windsor Resort Windsor, UK 1996 2005 Acquired in Blackstone deal. Legoland California Resort Carlsbad, California, U.S. 1999 2005 Acquired in Blackstone deal. Legoland Deutschland Resort Günzburg, Germany 2002 2005 Acquired in Blackstone deal. Legoland Florida Resort Winter Haven, Florida, U.S. 2011 Formerly Cypress Gardens. Legoland Malaysia Resort Johor Bahru, Malaysia 2012 - New-build theme park. Legoland Dubai Resort Jebel Ali, Dubai, United Arab Emirates 2016 - Franchised to Dubai Parks and Resorts Legoland Japan Resort Nagoya, Japan 2017 - New-build theme park.Legoland New York Resort Goshen, New York, U.S.2021 -New-build theme park. Legoland Korea Resort Chuncheon, South Korea 2022 - New-build theme park. Legoland Shanghai Resort Jinshan, Shanghai, China 2025 - New-build theme park.
Peppa Pig parks
Name Location Year Opened Year Acquired Notes Peppa Pig Theme Park Florida Winter Haven, Florida 2022 -New-build theme park. Peppa Pig Park Günzburg Günzburg, Bavaria 2024 -New-build theme park. Peppa Pig Theme Park Dallas-Fort Worth North Richland Hills, Texas 2025 -New-build theme park.
Gateway attractions
Name Location(s) Year Opened Year Acquired Notes Australian Treetop Adventures Australia 2005 2010 Canopy walkways acquired in MFS Living and Leisure dealBlackpool Tower Circus Blackpool, UK 1894 2011 Cadbury World Birmingham, UK19902022Operation and brand licences from summer 2023 The Dungeons Blackpool London York Edinburgh Berlin Hamburg Amsterdam 2011197419862000201320002005 1999 (London & York) Brand & pre-1999 sites acquired in management buyout of Vardon Attractions. Eye Brand Blackpool London Sydney Orlando 1894200019812015 2011200720112024 The Gruffalo & Friends Clubhouse Blackpool 2023 DreamWorks Tours: Shrek's Adventure! London 2015 - Uses characters from the Shrek franchise, licensed from DreamWorks Animation.LEGOLAND Discovery Centres Birmingham at Arena Birmingham Manchester at the Trafford Centre Berlin at the Sony Center Hamburg Oberhausen Phoenix at Arizona Mills Atlanta at Phipps Plaza Bay Area (San Jose) at Great Mall of the Bay AreaBoston Chicago at The Streets of Woodfield Columbus at Easton Town Center Dallas Fort Worth at Grapevine Mills Kansas City at Crown Center Michigan at the Great Lakes Crossing Outlets New Jersey at American Dream Meadowlands Philadelphia at the Plymouth Meeting Mall Westchester (New York) at Westchester's Ridge Hill Washington at Springfield Town Center San Antonio at the Shops at Rivercenter Toronto at Vaughan Mills Melbourne at the Chadstone Shopping Centre Beijing Shanghai Shenyang Hong Kong Osaka
Tokyo Istanbul Scheveningen Brussels Madame Tussauds London Blackpool Prague Vienna Berlin Amsterdam Budapest Hollywood Las Vegas Nashville New York Orlando Sydney Beijing Shanghai Wuhan Hong Kong Tokyo Singapore Bangkok Dubai Brand & pre-2007 sites acquired in Tussauds Group merger.Peppa Pig World of Play Shanghai Auburn Hills, Michigan Grapevine, Texas Chicago, Illinois Leidschendam20182019201920202022Peter Rabbit: Explore and Play Blackpool2022Sea Life Birmingham Blackpool Brighton Great Yarmouth Castelnuovo del Garda Gweek Hunstanton
Manchester London Scarborough Weymouth Loch Lomond Blankenberge Berlin Hanover Königswinter Konstanz Munich Oberhausen Speyer Timmendorfer Strand Helsinki Jesolo The Hague Porto Benalmadena Istanbul Paris Arizona Orlando New Jersey San Antonio Melbourne Mooloolaba (Sunshine Coast) Sydney Auckland Shanghai Nagoya Iskandar Puteri Busan Bangkok Brand & pre-1999 sites acquired in management buyout of Vardon Attractions.Warwick Castle United Kingdom19782007 Acquired in Tussauds Group merger.
Future locations
+NameLocationPlanned Opening YearLegoland Sichuan Resort Chengdu, Sichuan, China2026Legoland Shenzhen Resort Shenzhen, China2027Legoland Beijing Resort Fangshan District, Beijing, China2028
Former locations
Name Location Year Opened Year Acquired Fate Year Closed/Sold Notes Abenteuer Park Oberhausen Oberhausen, Germany 1996 2011 Closed 2015 Formerly known as CentrO.Park (1996–2011) & Sea Life Abenteuer Park (2013) The Bear Grylls Adventure Birmingham, UK 2018 Closed 2024 Earth Explorer Ostend, Belgium 2004 - Sold 2013 Falls Creek ski resort Victoria, Australia 1946 2011 Sold 2019 Acquired in MFS Living and Leisure deal, sold to Vail Resorts in 2019. Hotham Alpine Resort Victoria, Australia 1925 2011 Sold 2019 Ski resort acquired in MFS Living and Leisure deal, sold to Vail Resorts in 2019. Little Big City Berlin, Germany Beijing, China 20172018 Closed 2024 Legoland Discovery Centre Duisburg Duisburg, Germany 2007 - Closed 2013 Moved to Oberhausen after a few years. Legoland Discovery Centre Hotham Mt Hotham, AZ at Hotham Alpine Resort 2018 - Closed 2018 London Planetarium London 1958 2007 Closed 2010 Acquired in Tussauds Group deal as it shares the same site as Madame Tussauds London. Closed and the space is now used by Madame Tussauds London for exhibitions & other attractions. Madame Tussauds Delhi New Delhi 2017 - Closed 2020 Closed after COVID-19 pandemic, relocated to Noida in 2022.Madame Tussauds Washington DC Washington D.C.2007 -Closed2021Closed after COVID-19 Pandemic, never re-opened. Madame Tussauds India Noida 2022 - Closed 2023 Relocated from Madame Tussauds Delhi. Madame Tussauds San Francisco San Francisco 2014 - Closed 2024 Madame Tussauds Istanbul Istanbul 2016 - Closed 2024 Madame Tussauds Chongqing Chongqing 2016 - Closed 2025 The San Francisco Dungeon San Francisco2014 -Closed2022Closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, never re-opened.The Shanghai Dungeon Shanghai2018 -Closed2024 Sea Life Hastings Hastings, England 2008 - Sold 2012 Now belongs to the Blue Reef Aquarium chain. Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary Oban, Scotland 1979 - Closed 2018 Sea Life St. Andrews St. Andrews, Scotland 1999 TBA Sold TBA Now operates as the St. Andrews Aquarium. Manly Sea Life Sanctuary Manly, Australia 1965 2010 Closed 2018 Sea Life Bray Aquarium Bray, Ireland 1998 - Closed 2023 -
Cancelled locations
Name Location Year Planned To Open Year Cancelled Notes Legoland Belgium Gosselies, Belgium 2027 2023 Was planned to be built on the former site of Caterpillar's Gosselies factory and to be opened in 2027, but the project was cancelled on 24 March 2023.
|
Aozora Bank
|
[
"Cerberus Capital Management companies",
"Banks of Japan",
"Banks established in 1957",
"Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange",
"Companies in the Nikkei 225",
"Financial services companies based in Tokyo",
"1957 establishments in Japan"
] | 1,059 | 9,483 |
is a Japanese commercial bank that offers service in 19 branches in Japan and in 2 overseas representative offices (as of July 2012). Originally based on the Japanese operations of the Bank of Chōsen, it was known from 1957 to 1977 as Nippon Fudosan Bank and from 1977 to 2001 as Nippon Credit Bank (NCB).
Nippon Fudosan Bank was founded in 1957 to manage the remaining assets of the Bank of Chōsen in Japan. It received a special government trust banking license similar to that of the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan (LTCB), established in 1952. In 1977, it was renamed the Nippon Credit Bank.
In December 1998, NCB was brought under government control in order to deal with its extraordinary amount of bad debt left over from the crash of the Japanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s: at the time, the bank was approximately ¥270 billion in debt.
An investor group led by Softbank, Orix and Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co. purchased NCB in 2000 for ¥80 billion. As part of this deal, the government included a to the effect that NCB could demand within the next three years that the government purchase any claims which had fallen by twenty percent or more from value. A similar provision had controversially been offered to the purchasers of LTCB, which had recently been similarly purchased from the government and renamed Shinsei Bank. Aozora applied this provision conservatively in order to write off ¥400 billion in bad debts owed by about 100 companies, in contrast to Shinsei Bank, the contemporaneous successor of the Long-Term Credit Bank, which wrote off nearly three times as much and was criticized in political circles for doing so.
The sale of NCB to Softbank was viewed as a precedent for the licensing of Sony Bank, Seven Bank and other new banking platforms in Japan.
The bank was renamed "Aozora" in 2001. Softbank initially planned to make Aozora an investment bank for internet-related companies. However, Softbank was unsuccessful in obtaining the cooperation of the Financial Services Agency, and sold its 49% stake to Cerberus Capital Management in September 2003 for ¥101 billion. Aozora launched operations as a retail bank on April 1, 2006, and opened its first new branch in Nihonbashi on November 20.
Aozora Bank was listed as the No. 1 unsecured creditor to Lehman Brothers with about US$463 million in bank loans to the investment bank as it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2008. By comparison, the second largest unsecured creditor was Mizuho Bank with $289 million, and third largest Citibank (Hong Kong branch) with $275 million.
On December 16, 2008, Aozora Bank announced that it had ¥12.4 billion exposure to the Bernard L. Madoff ponzi scheme.
On April 25, 2009, Aozora Bank and Shinsei Bank announced negotiations to integrate their operations in the summer of 2010, with an eye toward an eventual merger. Banks had been hit by losses in the US subprime market. The talks collapsed in May 2010 amid disputes over capitalization and business strategy, as well as the abatement of the 2008 financial crisis.
Aozora acquired Japan Wealth Management Securities in 2011, merging it with existing subsidiary Aozora Securities in 2012.
In January 2013, Cerberus announced that it would sell most of its stake in Aozora, cutting its total share from 58 percent to 7.7 percent. Cerberus sold this last portion of its stake to Barclays for distribution to other investors in August 2013, ending Cerberus's shareholding in Aozora.
Locations
Aozora's head office is located in the Kudan area of Chiyoda City, Tokyo, near Yasukuni Shrine.
The bank has retail branches in Chiba, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Nagoya, Osaka (Namba and Umeda), Sapporo, Sendai, Takamatsu, Tokyo (Ikebukuro, Jiyugaoka, Nihonbashi, Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ueno) and Yokohama.
Aozora also has representative offices in New York, Singapore, Seoul, Jakarta and Shanghai, and financing subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and the United States.
See also
List of investors in Bernard L. Madoff Securities
List of banks
List of banks in Japan
|
Cerent Corporation
|
[
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"1999 disestablishments in California",
"1999 mergers and acquisitions",
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"American companies disestablished in 1999",
"Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq",
"Cisco acquisitions",
"Companies based in Sonoma County, California",
"Computer companies established in 1997",
"Computer companies disestablished in 1999",
"Defunct computer companies of the United States",
"Defunct computer hardware companies",
"Networking companies of the United States",
"Fiber-optic communications",
"Petaluma, California",
"Defunct networking companies",
"Networking hardware companies"
] | 727 | 5,349 |
Cerent Corporation was an optical equipment maker based in Petaluma, California. It was founded in 1997 as Fiberlane Communications with funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Vinod Khosla as the managing VC. The company was founded with three divisions: Systems in Petaluma, Chip Design in Mountain View, California and Network Management Systems in Burnaby, British Columbia. In early 1998 the company split into two companies with the Petaluma branch becoming Cerent and the Burnaby and Mountain View branches becoming Siara Systems (Acquired by Redback Networks in 1999).
The Cerent 454
Cerent's first product was the Cerent 454 (later the Cisco 15454). The Cerent 454 was a second generation SONET ADM (Add-Drop Multiplexor) that also supported TCP/IP data switching. When operating as a pure ADM, the 454 could add and drop circuits from OC-192 down to Digital Signal 1 (DS1) -- later it would support wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). Unlike the ADMs that preceded it, a transport signal did not have to be terminated outside the box to switch or route the TCP/IP packets. "Data cards" could be inserted into the chassis which would terminate the circuits then switch or route the packets between those terminated circuits. This capability meant carriers no longer had to purchase two boxes (e.g. an ADM and a router) just to move TCP/IP packets around its telecom network.
Other advantages of the Cerent 454 included: smaller form factor, higher port density, greater chip integration, and lower power consumption than competitors at the time. The unit also was one of the first network elements to utilize TCP/IP and a web server on its management interface (the first TCP/IP management network was Ditech Communications in its DWDM system, marketed in 1996) meaning it could be managed over a standard TCP/IP network as opposed to a more restrictive OSI network interface which was the standard in telecom networks at the time. This decision, while initially controversial, was promoted by Chip Roberson, for two pragmatic reasons: first, a TCP/IP stack came packaged with the embedded operating system from Wind River Systems and, second, the cost to acquire, test and support an OSI stack and associated network was comparatively cost-prohibitive for a young startup.
Founding Team
The primary founders of the company were: Raj Singh, Jay Sethuram, Ajaib Bhadare and Paul Elliott. The rest of the founding team (as of funding by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) consisted of:
Petaluma - Systems (Cerent)
Mike Hatfield
Tom Corker
Ajaib Bhadare
Paul Elliott
Chip Roberson
David Scott
Mountain View - Chip Design (Siara)
Raj Singh
Jay Sethuram
Mike Iriarte
Anu Nigam
Burnaby - Network Management System (Siara)
Alnoor Shivji
Sigfried Luft
The founding board of directors was: Raj Singh, Vinod Nair and Don Green (often referred to as "The Father of Telecom Valley").
Mike Hatfield soon after joined the team as CEO, replacing Raj Singh.
Purchase by Cisco Systems
In August 1999, the company was sold to Cisco Systems for $7.2 billion and became the foundation of Cisco's Optical Transport Business Unit. The Cerent 454 was rebranded the Cisco 15454 and became the fastest product (at that time) to hit the $1B annual sales rate by selling $250 million in its second quarter as a Cisco business unit.
In November 1999, Redback bought Siara Systems for $4.3 billion.
|
Lúcio Mauro Vinhas de Souza
|
[
"Living people",
"20th-century Brazilian economists",
"20th-century Portuguese economists",
"Year of birth missing (living people)",
"21st-century Portuguese economists"
] | 2,055 | 17,525 |
Lúcio Vinhas de Souza is a Brazilian-born Portuguese economist. His main research areas are global macroeconomics, development economics, monetary economics, finance and country risk, with extensive work experience at the developed economies of the European Union and the US, and in several emerging market regions, from the former Soviet Union to East Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Born in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, he has B.A. and M.Sc. degrees in economics by the Faculdade de Economia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (FE/UNL) in Lisbon, Portugal, and a Ph.D. in economics by the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Dr. Vinhas de Souza is currently the Chief Economist and Director of the Economics Department of BUSINESSEUROPE and he is also a Board Member of the National Economists Club in Washington, D.C.. Previously he was Visiting Professor at Brandeis University and a Fellow at Harvard University. Between 2021 and 2023 he was an Advisor to the leadership of the European External Action Service or EEAS, the EU's joint Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Defense (U.S. analog would be the Department of State and the Department of Defense), where he dealt with international economic and financial matters, EU sanctions and the EU's international energy policy . Before that, he led the Economics Department of the European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC), an internal advisory body to the European Commission President (the U.S. analog would be the Council of Economic Advisers). In this position, he coordinated analysis and supported the definition and implementation of all matter of economic and financial policies for the EC President and his Cabinet, including among others, "EU-Asia Connectivity" , the predecessor of the "Global Gateway" EU policy, the EU's Banking Union and Capital Markets Union, the EU Budget -known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), and the so-called ‘5 Presidents’ report on the reform of the euro area. Prior to that, Dr. Vinhas de Souza was between 2011 and 2015 the first Sovereign Chief Economist of Moody's Investors Service (MIS), the second largest rating agency in the world. There, he helped define the analytical response of MIS to the global sovereign debt crisis, and interacted with public and private counterparts in the 140-plus Moody’s rated sovereigns and multilateral bodies around the world.
Before joining Moody’s, Dr. Vinhas de Souza was a World Bank official based in its Washington, D.C. headquarters, where he worked in several subjects, from the euro area to China and Kazakhstan. Prior to that, he was between 2005 and 2010 the Head for Russia and Belarus and coordinator for the Western countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States at the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG-ECFIN) of the European Commission (EC). Previously, between 2002 and 2005, he was Coordinator of Research Area at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) in Kiel, Germany. Dr. Vinhas de Souza also held the position of Economist at the United Nations Secretariat between 1995 and 1997. He was also a Fellow at the ECARES-Free University of Brussels, a Visiting Researcher at the Central Banks of Estonia and Germany, and a member of the Managing Board of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) between 2003 and 2006.
Dr. Vinhas de Souza is also currently a member of the advisory board of the John F. Welch College of Business at the Sacred Heart University in the United States and a fellow at several research centers. He also has over a hundred different publications in several languages.
Dr. Vinhas de Souza is married and has one daughter.
Publications
2024 “A Century of Global Economic Crises”, Palgrave Macmillan, Summer 2024.
2024 “Global Trends to 2040” , ESPAS, spring 2024.
2024 “Crescimento e Convergência em Portugal: Experiência Histórica e Políticas a Nível Nacional e Metropolitano” , Position Paper n. 5/24, SEDES, Lisbon, Portugal.
2024 “Ensaio: Crescimento e Convergência em Portugal: Experiência Histórica e Políticas a Nível Nacional e Metropolitano” , O Observador, Lisbon, Portugal.
2024 “Unhappy anniversary: Missed opportunities for growth and convergence in Portugal” , VoxEU, CEPR, London, 11 March 2024.
2024 “A Noite dos Mortos-Vivos: o retorno de políticas industriais” , in Conjuntura Econômica, 78(3):22-27, FGV/IBRE.
2024 “Unresolved Business: Enlarging the EU towards Moldova and Ukraine (and perhaps Georgia)” , VoxEU, CEPR, London, 5 Feb 2024.
2023 “O que pode a UE oferecer ao Brasil?” , CEBRI-Revista, Spring 2023.
2021 “Energy Transition, Resources and Climate Change Investment Policy in the EU”, in Handbook on the Sustainable Politics and Economics of Natural Resources , Edward Elgar.
2020 “Models of banking sectors integration: The Experience of the Baltics and Central Eastern Europe”, in Does EU membership facilitate convergence? The experience of the EU's eastern enlargement , Palgrave Macmillan.
2018 “Reviving convergence: making EU member states fit for joining the euro area”, in Structural Reforms for Growth and Cohesion: Lessons and Challenges for CESEE Countries and a Modern Europe , Edward Elgar.
2016 "Towards a Positive Euro Area Fiscal Stance", European Commission.
2016 "Engaging China at a Time of Transition: Capitalising on a New Era of Chinese Global Investment and Foreign Policy Initiatives" , European Commission.
2016 "The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI): Maximising its Potential" , European Commission.
2015 "Regaining Citizens’ Trust, Safeguarding Banks’ Stability: Towards a European Deposit Insurance Scheme" , European Commission.
2015 "Strengthening the EU’s Financial System: Bridge Financing Options for the Single Resolution Fund" , European Commission.
2015 "Severing the ‘Doom Loop’: Further Risk Reduction in the Banking Union" , European Commission.
2015 “The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: A New Multilateral Financial Institution or a Vehicle for China’s Geostrategic Goals?” , European Commission.
2014 “Global Oil Price Volatility: Oil Exporting Sovereigns with Limited Policy Tools Are Most Exposed”, Moody’s.
2014 “Monetary Policy Tightening in the US and its Consequences”, Moody’s.
2014 “Population Ageing Will Dampen Economic Growth over the Next Two Decades”, Moody’s.
2014“Financial Markets (Re) Segmentation in the Euro Area”, author and guest editor, Comparative Economic Studies, Volume 56, Issue 3, September 2014, Palgrave.
2014 “Brazil & Mexico: Gaps in Infrastructure Investment Uneven across Sectors”, Moody’s.
2014 “Commodity-Exporting Sovereigns: Fiscal Practices and Exchange Rate Regime Determine Resilience to Price Shocks”, Moody’s.
2014 “CIS Economies: Growth Slowdown Driven by Structural rather Than Cyclical Factors”, Moody’s.
2014 “Russia & the EU: EU Economies Would Be Resilient to a Russian Recession”, Moody’s.
2014 “Structural and Cyclical Components in Emerging Markets’ Growth Slowdown”, Moody’s.
2014 “The GCC in 2020: Oil price scenario of $90pb would be negative for some GCC economies, neutral for others”, Moody’s.
2014 “QE Tapering: Impact Differs Amongst Emerging Markets”, Moody’s.
2013 “US Monetary Policy and the Road to Normalization”, Moody’s.
2013 “Sub-Saharan Africa: Steeply Rising House Prices Have Limited Sovereign Credit Impact”, Moody’s.
2013 “US Fed Tapering: Effects Likely to be Relatively Limited and Temporary”, Moody’s.
2013 “Limited GDP benefits of Basel III expected for developing economies”, Moody’s.
2013 “Private leverage trends in developed and developing economies”, Moody’s.
2013 “Update on Structural Reforms in the Euro Area Periphery”, Moody’s.
2013“Sub-Saharan Africa: Commodity Price Vulnerability Balanced by Favorable Economic Outlook and Gradual Structural Transformation”, Moody’s.
2012 “Euro Area Periphery: Structural Reforms Have Significantly Improved External Imbalances, But Full Resolution May Still Take Years”, Moody’s, New York, USA.
2012 “Counter-cyclical Central Banking Policies and their Longer-Term Implications”, Moody’s, New York, USA.
2012 “Sub-Saharan Africa: Despite Risks, Banking Sector Exposures to Euro Area are Mitigated by Structural Factors”, Moody’s, New York, USA.
2012 “China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative High-Income Society”, World Bank, Washington, D.C., and Development Research Center of the State Council, People’s Republic of China, Beijing.
2011 “Optimum Currency Area Criteria”, in “The Regional Integration Handbook”, de Lombaerde, P., Flores, R., Iapadre, L. and Shulz, M. (eds), Routledge, pp. 179–197, United Kingdom.
2011 “Global Economic Prospects Summer 2011 Issue”, World Bank, Washington, D.C.
2011 “An Initial Estimation of the Economic Effects of the Creation of the EurAsEC Customs Union on Its Members”, Economic Premise n° 47, January 2010, World Bank, Washington, D.C.
2011 “Global Economic Prospects 2011”, World Bank, Washington, D.C.
2009 “The EU’s Eastern Neighbours and the Crisis”, in European Economy Research Letter, 3(2), European Commission, Brussels.
2009 “The Impact of the Global Crisis on Neighbouring Countries of the EU”, in ECFIN Occasional Papers n° 40, European Commission, Brussels.
2009 "Trade Relations between an Enlarged EU and the Russian Federation, and its Effects in Belarus", in Economic Change and Restructuring, 42(1), pp. 1–24.
2008 "Economic Aspects of the Energy Sector in CIS Countries" (editor), ECFIN Economic Papers n° 327, European Commission, Brussels.
2008 "Russia: A Different Country", CEPS Paperback Books Series, CEPS, Brussels, May 2008.
2008 "Foreign Investment in Russia", in Country Focus, Volume V, Issue 1, European Commission, Brussels.
2007 "The Effect of Capital Requirement Regulation on the Transmission of Monetary Policy: evidence from Austria", in Empirica, 34(5), pp. 411–425.
2007 "The Effects of Energy Price Shocks on Growth and Macroeconomic Stability in Selected Energy-Importing CIS Countries", in Economic Review of EU Neighbour Countries, Occasional Paper n° 30, June 2007, European Commission, Brussels, pp 2–22.
2006 "From Transition Crises to Macroeconomic Stability? Lessons from a Crises Early Warning System for Eastern European and CIS Countries", in Comparative Economic Studies, 2006(48), pp;410–434.
2006 "A Wider Europe: Trade Relations between an Enlarged EU and the Russian Federation", in Problems of Economic Transition, 49(2), pp;6–33.
2006 Return to Growth in CIS Countries, Vinhas de Souza, L. and Havrylyshy, O. (eds.), Springer Verlag, Germany.
2006 "Financial Liberalization and Business Cycles: The Experience of the New EU Member States in The Baltics and Central Eastern Europe", in Batten, J. and Kearney, C. (eds.) Emerging European Financial Markets, International Finance Review 2006(6), pp. 235–259, Elsevier, Netherlands.
2006 "Beyond the euro area: An introduction", in Research in International Business and Finance, 20(2), pp;127–130 (also guest editor of this RIBAF issue).
2006 "The Periphery of the Euro: Monetary and Exchange Rate Policy in CIS Countries",Vinhas de Souza, L. and De Lombaerde, P. (eds), Ashgate Publishing, United Kingdom.
2005 "Macro and Monetary Policies in Latin America", co-editor, Springer Verlag, Germany.
2004 "Transition and Growth in Belarus", in Ofer, G. and Pomfret, R. (eds.), The Economic Prospects of the CIS, Edward Elgar, United Kingdom, pp;57–75.
2003 The Euroarea and the New EU Member States (editor, with van Aarle, B.), Palgrave Macmillan Press, United Kingdom.
2003 "A Primer on Budgetary Questions on the New EU Members States", in The Journal of European Affairs, 1(1), 2003, pp. 15–18.
2002 "Trade and Monetary Integration in Large, Mature Economies: A Primer on the European Monetary Union", IfW Working Papers Series, n° 1137, Germany.
2002 "The Political Business Cycles of EU Accession Countries", in European Union Politics, 3(2), 2002, pp. 231–250.
2002 "Monetary Institutions and the Politics of the Macro-economy in EU Accession Countries", in Linden, R. (ed.), Norms and Nannies: The Impact of International Organisations on Central and East European States, Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 341–368, USA.
2001 "Exchange Rate Strategies of New EU Entrants", in Pentecost, E. and Poeck, A. (eds.), European Monetary Integration: Past, Present and Future, Edward Elgar, UK, pp 185–203.
2001 "Exchange Rates Links and Strategies of New EU Entrants", in The Journal of European Integration, 23(1), 2001, pp. 1–28.
1999 "EMU and Enlargement: A Review of Policy Issues", Economic Affairs Series, Working Paper ECON 117 EN, Directorate General for Research, European Parliament, Luxembourg.
|
Light & Wonder
|
[
"Companies listed on the Nasdaq",
"Gambling companies of the United States",
"Companies based in Las Vegas",
"Slot machine manufacturers",
"Companies in the S&P 400"
] | 1,828 | 21,820 |
Light & Wonder, Inc., formerly Scientific Games Corporation (SG), is an American corporation that provides gambling products and services. The company is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Light & Wonder's gaming division provides products such as slot machines, table games, shuffling machines, and casino management systems. Its brands include Bally, WMS, and Shuffle Master.
History
The company traces its history to Autotote, a manufacturer of totalizator systems for parimutuel wagering at racetracks. The history of Autotote dates to 1917, when George Julius founded Automatic Totalisators Limited in Australia to build the totalizator system he had invented.
Automatic Totalisators opened its U.S. office in New York City in 1953, and then moved it to Wilmington, Delaware in 1956. It moved again to Newark, Delaware in 1972. In 1978, the U.S. division was renamed as Autotote Ltd., to reflect its diversification into businesses other than totalizators, such as lottery systems, off-track betting, and slot machine accounting.
In 1979, Autotote Ltd. was acquired for $17 million by a group led by Thomas H. Lee Co.
In 1989, United Tote, another leading totalizator company, purchased Autotote for $85 million. Before the companies' operations could be integrated, the merger was challenged by federal antitrust regulators. A 1991 court ruling forced the company to split back up. The former United Tote assets were sold back to that company's founders, the Shelhamer family, and what remained of the company was renamed as Autotote Corporation, now a publicly traded company.
In 2000, Autotote bought Scientific Games Holdings Corp., a maker of instant lottery equipment, for $308 million. Scientific Games was founded in 1973, and introduced the first secure instant lottery ticket in 1974. The combined company changed its name from Autotote to Scientific Games Corporation in 2001.
By 2002, two-thirds of the $20 billion wagered annually on racing in North America was tracked by Autotote computers. Autotote supplied parimutuel wagering systems worldwide. These were automated, computerized off-track and on-track systems for betting on horse races and greyhound racing. It was an integrated system for off-track betting, keeping track of race results and winning tickets, and race simulcasting. The security of Autotote software for the racing industry garnered media attention in 2002 when one of their software developers, Chris Harn, attempted to steal $3 million during the 2002 Breeders' Cup betting scandal through a hole in their software and processes described as "an example of a very simple exploitation of a rather stupid design flaw."
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association took swift action in the face of a growing outcry once the nature of the scam emerged. It required all tote companies to modify their software to transmit betting information immediately after the bet has closed. It also pressured its member tracks into not doing business with parlors that did not have the ability to record wagers taken over the phone.
In 2007, the New York Times credited Scientific Games and Gtech for transforming what was known "historically [as] an underground operation run by mobsters" into "a lucrative, state-sponsored corporate enterprise." Autotote's racing division, the core of the original Autotote, was sold to Sportech in 2010.
In March 2017, Scientific Games acquired rights to use the James Bond franchise through a deal with Eon Productions and MGM Interactive.
SG launched its social gaming division, SciPlay, as a publicly traded company in 2019, selling a minority share in the business through an initial public offering.
In 2020, SG began a strategic review with the aim of deleveraging its balance sheet, as it struggled under $9.2 billion of debt. The company ultimately decided to sell its lottery and sports betting businesses, to focus on its casino gaming business. In 2021, SG agreed to sell its sports betting division to Endeavor Group Holdings for $1.2 billion, and to sell its lottery division (the core of the original Scientific Games) to Brookfield Business Partners for $6.1 billion. As the divested lottery business took the Scientific Games name, the company announced in March 2022 that it would rebrand as Light & Wonder.
In May 2022, Light & Wonder listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Subsidiaries
Wholly owned subsidiaries of Light & Wonder include The Global Draw, Barcrest, Bally Technologies, WMS Industries, MDI Entertainment, LLC, and NYX Gaming Group Limited.
In 2006, the company acquired the lottery operations of the Swedish firm EssNet, as well as The Global Draw which provides server-based gambling machines to betting shops in the UK. Another UK-based gaming company Barcrest was acquired from IGT in 2010. Barcrest is the owner of Deal Games and a producer of betting and gambling terminals.
In October 2013, the company bought WMS Industries, the third largest manufacturer of slot machines, for $1.5 billion. Scientific Games later acquired another slot machine maker, Bally Technologies, in November 2014, for $3.3 billion plus $1.8 billion in assumed debt.
In 2016, the company acquired DEQ Systems, a Canadian table-game maker. The mobile bingo app maker Spicerack Media Inc. was acquired in April 2017 to expand the Scientific Games social gaming division. Scientific Games also announced the $631 million acquisition of NYX Gaming Group Limited in September 2017. When NYX acquisition was completed, the company gained the sports-betting platform OpenBet which handles about 80% of all sports betting in the UK as of 2018. In November 2021, SG acquired Authentic Gaming, a provider of live streaming casino games.
In May 2022, after previously reaching an exclusive distribution agreement with the company in Europe and North America, Light and Wonder acquired Playzido.
|
Voyageurs
|
[
"American frontier",
"Canadian folklore",
"History of the Thirteen Colonies",
"Hudson's Bay Company",
"People of Louisiana (New France)",
"Fur trade",
"Pemmican War",
"History of foreign trade of the United States",
"17th century in economic history",
"18th century in economic history",
"19th century in economic history",
"British North America",
"French North America"
] | 5,413 | 38,728 |
Voyageurs (; ) were 18th- and 19th-century French and later French Canadians and others who transported furs by canoe at the peak of the North American fur trade. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places (New France, including the and the ) and times where that transportation was over long distances, giving rise to folklore and music that celebrated voyageurs' strength and endurance. They traversed and explored many regions in what is now Canada and the United States.
Despite their fame, their lives were arduous and not nearly as glamorous as folk tales made out. For example, they had to be able to carry two bundles of fur over portages. Some carried four or five, and there is a report of a voyageur carrying seven bundles for half a mile. Hernias were common and frequently caused death. Most voyageurs started working in their early twenties and continued working until they were in their sixties. They never made enough money to consider early retirement from a physically grueling lifestyle.
Fur trading was done by canoe and largely by French Canadians. In the fur trade context, the word also applied, to a lesser extent, to other fur trading activities. Voyageurs were part of a licensed, organized effort, a distinction that set them apart from the . Additionally, they differed from (hired men, actually indentured servants), who were much smaller-scale merchants and general laborers. Mostly immigrants, the were men required to go anywhere and do anything their masters told them as long as their indentureship was still in place. Until their contract expired, were servants of their masters, who were most often voyageurs. Fewer than fifty percent of remained in New France when their contracts ended. The others either returned to France or died while indentured. After the French presence in Canada ended following the British conquest during the Seven Years' War, fur trade was still continued by their descendants.
The early European fur trade with Indigenous peoples was not limited to beaver pelts. Beavers were not particularly valued and people preferred "fancy fur" or "fur that is used with or on the pelt". The fur trade was viewed as secondary to fishing during this era. The earliest North American fur trading did not include long-distance transportation of the furs after they were obtained by trade with the First Nations; it started with trading near settlements or along the coast or waterways accessible by ship. Soon, achieved business advantages by travelling further inland to trade. By 1681, the King of France decided to control the traders by publishing an edict that banned fur and pelt trading in New France.
As the trading process moved deeper into the wilderness, transportation of the furs (and the products to be traded for furs) became a larger part of the fur trading business process. The authorities began a process of issuing permits (). Those travellers associated with the canoe transportation part of the licensed endeavour became known as voyageurs, a term which literally means "traveller" in French. The fur trade was thus controlled by a small number of Montreal merchants. New France began a policy of expansion in an attempt to dominate the trade. French influence extended west, north, and south. Forts and trading posts were built with the help of explorers and traders. Treaties were negotiated with native groups, and fur trading became very profitable and organized. The system became complex, and the voyageurs, many of whom had been independent traders, slowly became hired laborers.
By the late 17th century, a trade route through and beyond the Great Lakes had been opened. The Hudson's Bay Company opened in 1670. The North West Company opened in 1784, exploring as far west and north as Lake Athabasca. By the late 18th century, demand in Europe grew substantially for marten, otter, lynx, mink and especially beaver furs, expanding the trade and adding thousands to the ranks of voyageurs. The American Fur Company, owned and operated by John Jacob Astor, was founded in 1808. By 1830, the American Fur Company had grown to monopolize and control the American fur industry.
From the beginning of the fur trade in the 1680s until the late 1870s, the voyageurs were the blue-collar workers of the Montreal fur trade. At their height in the 1810s, they numbered as many as three thousand. For the most part, voyageurs were the crews hired to man the canoes that carried trade goods and supplies to trading locations where they were exchanged for furs, and "rendezvous posts," such as Grand Portage at the western end of Lake Superior. They then transported the furs back to Lachine near Montreal, and later also to points on the route to Hudson Bay. Some voyageurs stayed in the back country over the winter and transported the trade goods from the posts to farther away French outposts. These men were known as the (winterers). They also helped negotiate trade in indigenous communities. In the spring they would carry furs from these remote outposts back to the rendezvous posts. Voyageurs also served as guides for explorers such as Pierre La Vérendrye. The majority of these canoe men were French Canadian; they were usually from Island of Montreal or seigneuries and parishes along or near the Saint Lawrence River; many others were from France.
Voyageurs were mostly illiterate and therefore did not leave many written documents. The only known document left behind for posterity by a voyageur was penned by John Mongle who belonged to the parish of Maskinongé. He most likely used the services of a clerk to send letters to his wife. These chronicle his voyages into mainland territories in quest of furs.
Three major influences molded the lives of voyageurs. First, their background of French-Canadian heritage as farmers featured prominently in their jobs as voyageurs. Working as a voyageur was seen as a temporary means of earning additional income to support their families and expand their farms. Most voyageurs were born in New France. However, fur trading was not an everyday experience for most of the colonial population. Roughly two thirds of the population did not have any involvement in the fur trade. The second influence came from indigenous communities. Voyageurs learned from indigenous people how to survive in the regions they travelled and adopted many traditional methods and technologies. Voyageurs also brought Western materials and techniques that were valued by the communities they encountered. The final influence was the social structure of the voyageurs life. Since this group was limited to men , it was highly masculine. These men engaged in activities such as gambling, drinking, fighting; interests which were reserved for men of this trade.
Types: voyageurs, , and
The terms voyageur, , and have had broad and overlapping uses, but their meanings in the context of the fur trade business were more distinct. Voyageurs were canoe transportation workers in organized, licensed long-distance transportation of furs and trade goods in the interior of the continent. were entrepreneurial woodsmen engaged in all aspects of fur trading rather than just transportation of furs and trade goods. The came before the voyageurs, and were partially replaced by them. For those who continued, the term picked up the additional meaning of "unlicensed". Another name sometimes given to voyageurs is , indicating a hired wage-earner.
There were several types of voyageurs, depending on the job that they carried out. Because of their diet, which consisted largely of salt pork, voyageurs who travelled only between Montreal and Grand Portage were known as (pork eaters) a derogatory term. These men were seasonal workers employed mostly during the summer months to transport goods which could weigh as much as four tonnes by canoe. Up to ten men could be required to safely navigate with so much on board. They would travel to the western end of Lake Superior to drop off their goods. Those who overwintered were called (northern men) or (winterers). Those who were neither primarily traveled the interior (beyond Grand Portage) without wintering in it. They would pick up the goods from Lake Superior and transport them inland over large distances. Because of their experience, approximately one-third of the became .
Value to the fur trade industry
The voyageurs worked for trading companies such as the North West Company (NWC) and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). They retrieved furs from all over North America but were especially important in the rugged Athabasca region. Athabasca was one of the most profitable fur-trade regions in the colonies because pelts from further north were thicker and of superior quality to those trapped further south.
Originally the HBC was content to stay close to its trading posts along the shores of Hudson Bay and have indigenous trading partners bring the pelts to them. However, once the NWC began sending voyageurs into Athabasca it became easier for indigenous trappers to simply trade with them than to make the long trek to Hudson Bay. As a result, Colin Robertson sent a message to the HBC London Committee in 1810 suggesting that they begin hiring French Canadian voyageurs of their own:
I would warmly recommend to your notice the Canadians; these people I believe, are the best voyageurs in the world; they are spirited, enterprising, & extremely fond of the Country; they are easily commanded; never will you have any difficulty in setting a place with them Men; however dismal the prospect is for subsistence, they follow their Master wherever he goes.
By 1815, the HBC took his advice and began hiring substantial numbers of French-Canadian voyageurs for trading expeditions into Athabasca. Colin Robertson led the first of these HBC expeditions and claimed to have difficulty hiring voyageurs in Montreal because of NWC efforts to thwart him. The NWC realized how important the voyageurs were to their success and were unwilling to give them up easily. This competition for experienced labour between the HBC and the NWC created the largest demand for voyageurs in Montreal since before the merger of the XY Company and the NWC.
James H. Baker was once told by an unnamed retired voyageur:I could carry, paddle, walk and sing with any man I ever saw. I have been twenty-four years a canoe man, and forty-one years in service; no portage was ever too long for me, fifty songs could I sing. I have saved the lives of ten voyageurs, have had twelve wives and six running dogs. I spent all of my money in pleasure. Were I young again, I would spend my life the same way over. There is no life so happy as a voyageur's life!
British era
After the British conquered Canada in 1763, management of the Montreal trade was taken over by English speakers, while the trapping and physical labour continued to be done by French Canadians. The independent continued to be replaced by hired voyageurs. Since the west country was too far for a round trip in one season, each spring when the ice broke up, boats set out from Montreal and winterers started east. They exchanged their goods at Grand Portage on Lake Superior and returned before the rivers froze five months later. To save the cost of hauling food from Montreal, Métis around Winnipeg began large-scale production of pemmican. The Hudson Bay trade was diverted southwest to the edge of the prairie, where pemmican was picked up to feed the voyageurs on their journey northwest to the Athabasca country. Competition from the NWC forced the HBC to build posts in the interior. The two companies competed for a while then merged in 1821. Management was taken over by the capital-rich HBC, but trading methods were those of the Montreal-based NWC voyageurs.
Fading and end of the voyageur era
After the merger of the NWC and HBC, much trade shifted to York Factory (the Hudson Bay route) and later some went south to Minnesota. After 1810, the western posts were linked to British bases on the Oregon coast. By mid-century the HBC ruled an inland empire that stretched from Hudson Bay to the Pacific. The Carlton Trail became a land route across the prairies. HBC land claims were transferred to Canada by the Rupert's Land Act 1868. From 1874 the North-West Mounted Police began to extend formal government into the area. The fur trade routes grew obsolete starting in the 1880s, with the coming of railways and steamships.
Several factors led to the end of the voyageur era. Improved transportation methods lessened the need to transport of furs and trade goods by canoe. The presence and eventual dominance of the Hudson Bay York boat-based entry into the fur trade areas eliminated a significant part of the canoe travel, reducing the need for voyageurs.
Completion of the Canadian Pacific rail line in 1882 finally eliminated the need for long-distance transportation of furs by voyageurs. Also, the volume of the North American fur trade declined, although it continues to this day. Fur animals became less plentiful, and demand for furs dropped. Products such as silk became popular and replaced beaver fur, reducing the fur trade further. With the completion of the railway and the closure of Fort William as a rendezvous point, both occurring in 1892, that year is considered by some to mark the end of the voyageur era. Later, many French Canadians stayed in the bush for the prospecting and mineral exploration trades that grew from the middle of the 19th century into viable industries, especially in Northern Ontario.
Nonetheless, the voyageurs enjoyed one prominent revival in the minds of the British public – at the end of 1884, Field Marshal Garnet Wolseley was dispatched to Khartoum with the Nile Expedition to relieve Major General Charles George Gordon, who had been besieged by the Islamist Mahdist movement. Wolseley demanded the services of the voyageurs and insisted that he could not travel up the Blue Nile without the voyageurs to assist his men as river pilots and boatmen. The demand for the voyageurs, however, slowed down the British response, and ultimately the relief of Khartoum came two days too late.
The voyageur's routes were longer distance fur trade water routes that ships and large boats could not reach or could not travel. The canoes travelled along well-established routes. These routes were explored and used by Europeans early in the history of the settlement of the continent. Most led to Montreal. Later many led to Hudson Bay. Hudson Bay and Montreal routes joined in the interior, particularly at Lake Winnipeg. The 1821 merger of the NWC and HBC resulted in a shift towards using the route with direct access to the ocean, the Hudson's Bay route, away from the Great Lakes route.
Both shores of Lake Superior had been explored by the 1660s. By the late 17th century Europeans had wintered on Rainy Lake west of Lake Superior, and by the 1730s regular routes led west from Lake Superior. Montreal was a main origination point for voyageur routes into the interior. From Montreal the route divided in two routes. The main trade route from Montreal went up the Ottawa River, then through rivers and smaller lakes to Lake Huron. The other followed the Saint Lawrence River and Lake Erie to Lake Huron. Grand Portage on the northwest shore of Lake Superior was the jumping-off point into the interior of the continent. It was reached with a very long portage, (nine miles) hence its name. By 1803, the NWC had moved its rendezvous point from Grand Portage slightly farther east to Fort William. In the late 18th century, Fort William supplanted Grand Portage. The trunk from Grand Portage followed what is now the U.S./Canada border, and in fact the border was largely defined by that route. The route from Fort William was slightly farther north. The two routes led to and joined at Lac La Croix. Each was a rendezvous point of sorts for the routes that reached into the interior.
The other main route started at York Factory where the Hayes River empties into Hudson Bay. It led to Norway House on Lake Winnipeg. Later, the downstream portion of this route was traversed by York boats rather than canoes.
A significant route led from Lake Winnipeg west to Cumberland House on Cumberland Lake, a hub with routes leading in four different directions. Most routes ended at the limits of what could be travelled in a round trip from a major transfer point (such as Grand Portage) in one season.
Canoes
Voyageur canoes typically were made from the bark of large paper birch trees, stretched over a frame of white cedar. The Maître canoe, or (master's canoe), was used on the Great Lakes and the Ottawa River. It was about long and wide, weighed about and carried three tons of cargo or 65 standard packs called . Their crew was 6–12; 8–10 was average. On a portage they were usually carried inverted by four men, two in front and two in the rear, using shoulder pads. When running rapids they were steered by the standing in front and the standing in the rear. The northern canoe or was used west of Lake Superior. It was about long and wide with about of draft when fully loaded, and weighed about . Its cargo was half or less of that of a Maître canoe, about 25–30 , and its crew was 4–8, with 5–6 being average. It was carried upright by two men.
The (hybrid canoe) was between the Maître canoe and north canoe in size. The canoes used by Native Americans were generally smaller than the freight canoes used by the voyageurs, but could penetrate smaller streams. The express canoe was not a physical type, but a canoe used to rapidly carry messages and passengers. They had extra crew and carried no freight.
Culture and daily life
Voyageurs often rose as early as 2 am or 3 am. Provided that there were no rapids (requiring daylight for navigation) early in the day, they set off very early. They would stop for a few minutes each hour to smoke a pipe. Distance was often measured by "pipes", the interval between these stops. Between eight and ten in the evening, travel stopped and camp was made. Voyageurs were expected to work 14 hours per day and paddle at a rate of 55 strokes per minute. Few could swim. Many drowned in rapids or in storms while crossing lakes. Portages and routes were often indicated by lob trees, or trees that had their branches cut off just below the top of the tree.
Canoe travel included paddling on the water with all personnel and cargo, carrying the canoes and contents over land (this is called portaging). In shallow water where limited water depth prevented paddling with the cargo in the canoe but allowed canoes to be floated, methods that combined these were used, such as pulling by hand, poling, or lining with ropes. Circumstances where only an empty canoe could be floated were called a . Those where the cargo could be floated in the canoe if split into two trips were called a . There is a report of a voyageur named La Bonga, a freed slave carrying 7 bales (630 lbs.) for one-half mile when applying to become a voyageur, a feat which trumped the usual requirement that voyageurs be short.
Being a voyageur was dangerous, not just because of exposure to outdoor living, but also because of the rough work. Drowning was common, along with broken limbs, compressed spines, hernias, and rheumatism. Outdoor living also added to the hazards to life and limb with swarms of black flies and mosquitoes, often kept away by sleeping with a smudge fire that caused respiratory, sinus and eye problems. It was dangerous work, despite their expertise. David Thompson's narrative describes an attempt to run the Dalles des Morts rapids: They preferred running the Dalles; they had not gone far, when to avoid the ridge of waves, which they ought to have kept, they took the apparent smooth water, were drawn into a whirlpool, which wheeled them around into its Vortex, the Canoe with the Men clinging to it, went down end foremost, and [they] all were drowned; at the foot of the Dalles search was made for their bodies, but only one Man was found, his body much mangled by the Rocks.
When traveling, the voyageurs did not have time for hunting or gathering. They carried their food with them, often with re-supply along the route. A northern canoe with 6 men and 25 standard 90-pound packs needed about four packs of food per 500 miles. A voyageur's day was long, rising before dawn and travelling before their first meal. Voyageurs typically ate two meals a day. Most of their diet consisted of a few items from a short list of food used for provisioning voyageurs. One was pemmican, consisting primarily of dried meat (pounded into small pieces) mixed with fat. Another was rubaboo or other dishes made from dried peas. Salt pork was more prevalent on the eastern routes.
Montreal-based voyageurs could be supplied by sea or with locally grown crops. Their main food was dried peas or beans, sea biscuit and salt pork. In the Great Lakes area, some maize and wild rice could be obtained locally. By the time trade reached what is now Winnipeg, the pemmican trade developed. Métis would go southwest onto the prairie in Red River carts, slaughter bison, and convert the meat into pemmican, which they carried north to trade at NWC posts. For people on the edge of the prairie, the pemmican trade was as important a source of trade goods as the beaver trade was for First Nations further north. This trade was a major factor in the emergence of a distinct Métis society. Packs of pemmican would be shipped north and stored at the major fur posts Fort Alexander, Cumberland House, Île-à-la-Crosse, Fort Garry, Norway House and Edmonton House.
Music was a part of everyday life for the voyageur. Voyageurs sang songs while paddling and working, as well as during other activities and festivities. Many who travelled with the voyageurs recorded their impressions from hearing the voyageurs sing, and that singing was a significant part of their routine. But few wrote down the words or the music. As a result, records of voyageur songs tend to be skewed towards those that were also popular elsewhere in Canada. Examples of voyageur songs include "", "", "", "", and "". Another such song is titled "C'est l'aviron qui nous mène". It goes as follows:
To this day, school children learn this song as part of French Canadian culture. These songs served a dual purpose for the voyageurs. Not only were they entertaining on long voyages, but their rhythm helped synchronize their paddling. One fur trader, Edward Ermatinger, had the forethought to record some of these songs. This is how eleven voyageur's songs came to be known today. Ermatinger travelled for the HBC from 1818 to 1828 as a clerk and learned these songs firsthand. These came to light only in 1943 when the Ermatinger family archives gave them to the Public Archives of Canada so that they may be copied.
The , also known as "The Bewitched Canoe" or "The Flying Canoe," is a popular French-Canadian tale of voyageurs who made a deal with the devil in order to visit their sweethearts during the night, who are located a long distance away. It is a variant of the Wild Hunt. Its most famous version was written by Honoré Beaugrand, and was published in The Century Magazine in August 1892.
For voyageur-based fur trade, that main route was divided into two (occasionally three) segments, each traversed by a different set of voyageurs. Once or twice a year a larger gathering took place to transfer furs and trade goods among these groups of voyageurs. The largest gatherings occurred at transfer points on the shore of Lake Superior at Grand Portage or Fort William. A rendezvous was also a time for rest and revelry.
Since most voyageurs began their careers in their early 20s, the majority of them were not married while they were working. Those who did marry continued to work while leaving their family behind in Montreal. Few voyageurs are recorded as having married later in their lives in New France. There are a variety of explanations possible for this (including the higher than normal death rates for voyageurs and the opportunity to marry native and Métis women at the rendezvous through local custom weddings). However, it is likely that many voyageurs left for Mississippi or settled in the Canadian West.
Francophone communities across Canada
As French-Canadian voyageurs engaged and brought the fur-trade West, they established multiple settlements in the North-West Territories, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Yukon. These French/Francophone settlements and communities still exist and thrive today. The Métis Nation (Indigenous/Michif), Franco-Manitobans, Fransaskois, Franco-Albertans, Franco-Columbians, Franco-Ténois and Franco-Yukonais all have origins heavily linked to voyageurs. Franco-Manitobans celebrate their history and heritage with the Festival du Voyageur, and Franco-Albertans celebrate with the Festival du Canoe Volant. Additionally, French and Francophone communities across Canada wear the as part of their traditional clothing and cultures. The or "arrowed sash" was an important part of the voyageur uniform.
See also
Canadian canoe routes
York Factory Express
Portage La Loche Brigade
Hudson's Bay Brigade Trail
Company of One Hundred Associates
|
Isaac de Pinto
|
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Isaac de Pinto (10 April 1717 – 13 August 1787) was a Dutch merchant and banker of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin who was one of the main investors in the Dutch East India Company, as well as a scholar and philosophe who concentrated on Jewish emancipation and national debt. Pinto published mainly in French and once in Portuguese. According to historian Richard Popkin, Pinto "was one of the very few Jews of the eighteenth century, before Moses Mendelssohn, able to operate and express himself in the mainstreams of European culture."
Life
Pinto had his brit milah on 18 April 1717; this likely means he was born on 10 April and received his Bar Mitzvah in 1730. On 29 December 1734, the 17-year-old Pinto was married to Rachel Nuñes Henriques; the couple never had any children. In 1748, Pinto helped William IV of Orange, sending or lending him money to defeat the French at Bergen op Zoom. In return he asked for the removal of measures against Jewish merchants forbidding them to sell clothes, gherkins or fish on the street. He proposed opening the guilds to Jews, and sending the poorest to Surinam. In 1750, he was appointed president of the Dutch East India Company by the stadtholder. In 1755 he was visited by Frederick the Great, travelling incognito through the Netherlands; together they visited Gerrit Braamcamp.
Pinto was a man of broad learning, but he did not begin to write until nearly forty-five, when he acquired a reputation by defending his co-religionists against Voltaire. His first known published work is the Patriotic Tribute from 1747-1748, which consists of three essays in which De Pinto reflects on the public finances of the eighteenth century Dutch Republic. In 1762, he published his Essai sur le Luxe at Amsterdam. In the same year, Pinto published Apologie pour la Nation Juive, ou Réflexions Critiques and sent a manuscript copy of this work directly to Voltaire. Antoine Guenée reproduced the Apologie at the head of his Lettres de Quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands et Polonais, à M. de Voltaire.
In 1761, Isaac and his brother Aron went bankrupt, potentially as a result of raising loans of around 6 million guilders for the British government in either 1759 or 1761; his brother sold his house on Nieuwe Herengracht. Pinto moved to Paris, where he met with James Cockburn, Lord Hertford, Mattheus Lestevenon, David Hume John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford and Denis Diderot. Then he moved to The Hague and lived in a mansion at Lange Voorhout; he and his family were invited to the palace when the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his sister Nannerl performed. In 1767, he went to London, meeting with Lord Bute and receiving a pension for his advice on the Treaty of Paris (1763), as the British had gained influence over the French in India through his suggestion. In 1768, Pinto sent a letter to Diderot on Du Jeu de Cartes. His Traité de la Circulation et du Crédit, in which he convinced many people that England was not on the verge of bankruptcy, was published in Amsterdam in 1771.
Pinto opposed Raynal after the publication of Raynal's book on global colonization L'Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (The Philosophical and Political History of the Two Indies). He disagreed with Hume, Vivant de Mezague and Mirabeau. His treatise was twice reprinted, besides being translated into English by Philip Francis (politician) and into German by Carl August von Struensee, the Prussian minister of finance. His Précis des Arguments Contre les Matérialistes was published at The Hague in 1774. He seems also to have had Jean-Paul Marat pushed from the stairs and ordered to leave his house.
In 1776, he published pamphlets denouncing the American Revolution, which he asserted subverted order in both the New World and the Old. Around 1780, he wrote against an alliance of the Dutch Republic with France, although this alliance was later realized in the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1785).
Legacy
Various authors, both contemporary and later, commented on Pinto's writings. One of them, Karl Marx, derisively referred to Pinto - whom he regarded as a major exponent of the free-market liberalism he criticized - as the "Pindar of the Amsterdam stock exchange" for his glorification of the Dutch financial system.
Sources
Didot, Nouvelle Biographie Générale, p. 282;
Barbier, Dictionnaire des Anonymes;
Dictionnaire d'Economie Politicale, ii.;
Hay, M.E. (ed.) (2025), Isaac de Pinto's Patriotic Tribute. Three Essays on Dutch Public Finances ()
Quérard, La France Littéraire, in Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung, 1787, No. 273.
Nijenhuis, I.J.A.(1992) Een joodse "philosophe". Isaac de Pinto (1717-1787) en de ontwikkeling van de politieke economie in de Europese Verlichting.
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Henry Farber
|
[
"American labor economists",
"1951 births",
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"Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations alumni",
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"Fellows of the Econometric Society"
] | 544 | 4,800 |
Henry Stuart Farber (born January 29, 1951) is an American economist and the Hughes-Rogers Professor of Economics at Princeton University. His research revolves around different topics related to labor economics, econometrics, law and economics, and industrial relations.
Henry Farber obtained a B.Sc. in economics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1972, a M.Sc. in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University in 1974, followed by a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1977. Farber has stated that he became interested in labor economics because he was interested in studying the behavior of labor unions and the effects thereof.
Academic career
After graduating from Princeton University in 1977, Henry Farber joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as an assistant professor of economics, being promoted to associate professor in 1981 and gaining full professorship in 1986. Farber then left MIT in 1991 in order to return to Princeton University as a professor of economics before being endowed with the Hughes-Rogers professorship in 1995. At Princeton Farber, is also an associate of the Industrial Relations section, which he directed several times, as well as an associate of different other programs. Additionally, Farber has had affiliations with a number of institutions throughout his career, including the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Last, Farber has acted in different editorial functions at research publications in economics such as the Economic Policy Review, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, American Economic Review, and Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Farber's research interests focus on unemployment, liquidity constraints and labor supply, labor unions, worker mobility, wage dynamics, and the analysis of the litigation process.
American Economic Association
American Law and Economics Association
American Statistical Association
Society of Labor Economists (Fellow)
Econometric Society (Fellow)
|
Marion Kent
|
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"1500 deaths",
"Year of birth missing",
"15th-century English businesspeople",
"15th-century English women",
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"People from York",
"English women in business",
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"15th-century businesswomen"
] | 585 | 4,913 |
Marion Kent (died 1500) was an English businesswoman and property manager from York. She belonged to the elite of her craft and sat on the council of the mercers guild in 1474–1475, a position highly unusual for a woman in that period.
Life
She was married to former mayor John Kent. Together, the couple joined the Mistery of Mercers in 1447. When her husband died in June 1468, their children were still minors and thus she took over the management of his merchant business. The business dealt in a variety of goods, including cloth, oil, iron and timber through the Port of Hull. Kent was a supplier of iron and other materials to York Minster and sold timber to the guild of Corpus Christi. She also invested in at least sixteen business ventures exporting lead and cloth. Kent continued to maintain the businesses until her son Henry came of age in the late 1470s. Unusually for a woman at the time, she was a member of several guilds, including the prestigious St Christopher and St George guild, the Corpus Christi guild and held a seat on the council of the mercer's guild between 1474 and 1475.
She also owned various properties in York and its surrounding regions, including a messuage in Hertergate, which she rented at an annual rate of 1 mark in 1468–1469. In 1468, Kent received a license to have an oratory in her house.
When she wrote her will in 1488, her household included only female servants. Also in her will, she expressed a wish to be buried at All Saints' Church, Pavement, York, the same church where her husband was interred. She also left her son Henry and his children £30. Kent died twelve years later in 1500.
|
Quaker Oats Company
|
[
"Quaker Oats Company",
"PepsiCo subsidiaries",
"Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1881",
"Food and drink companies established in 1901",
"1901 establishments in New Jersey",
"Food product brands",
"Breakfast cereal companies",
"Oats",
"2001 mergers and acquisitions",
"American corporate subsidiaries",
"Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange",
"Articles containing video clips"
] | 4,418 | 36,589 |
The Quaker Oats Company, known as Quaker, is an American food conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois. As Quaker Mill Company, the company was founded in 1877 in Ravenna, Ohio. In 1881, Henry Crowell bought the company and launched a national advertising campaign for Quaker Oats.
In 1911, the company acquired the Great Western Cereal Company. The iconic cylindrical package was introduced in 1915. Although Quaker Oats Company states that the "Quaker man" is not meant to resemble or represent an actual person, the company identified the Quaker man as William Penn in advertising dating back to 1909.
In 1983, Quaker acquired Stokely-Van Camp, Inc., the maker of Van Camp's and Gatorade. In 2001, PepsiCo bought Quaker Oats for $14 billion, primarily to acquire the Gatorade brand.
History
Precursor miller companies
In the 1850s, Ferdinand Schumacher and Robert Stuart founded oat mills. Schumacher founded the German Mills American Oatmeal Company in Akron, Ohio, and Stuart founded the North Star Mills in Hearst, Ontario, then part of Rupert's Land. In 1870, Schumacher ran his first known cereal advertisement in the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper. In 1877, the Quaker Mill Company of Ravenna, Ohio, was founded.
According to some accounts, Quaker Mill partner Henry Seymour came up with the brand name after discovering an encyclopedia article about Quakers. He stated that the qualities describing Quakers, such as integrity, honesty, and purity, were traits that he wanted customers to associate with the company's product. According to the company, William Heston also said that he had selected the name. Quaker Mill Company held the trademark on the Quaker name. In Ravenna, Ohio, on September 4, 1877, Henry Seymour of the Quaker Mill Company applied for the first trademark for a breakfast cereal — "a figure of a man in 'Quaker garb'".
In 1879, John Stuart and his son Robert joined with George Douglas to form Imperial Mill and set up their operation in Chicago, Illinois. In 1881, Henry Parsons Crowell bought the Quaker Mill Company; the following year, he launched the first national magazine advertising campaign for breakfast cereal, introducing a cereal box that made it possible to buy in quantities other than bulk. He also bought the bankrupt Quaker Oat Mill Company in Ravenna and held the key positions of general manager, president and chairman of the company from 1888 until late 1943, becoming known as the cereal tycoon. He donated more than 70% of his wealth to the Crowell Trust.
In 1888, the American Cereal Company was formed by the merger of seven major oat millers. Ferdinand Schumacher became president, Henry Crowell the general manager, and John Stuart the secretary-treasurer. In 1889, the American Cereal Company introduced the half-ounce trial size and, as a promotion, distributed one to every home in Portland, Oregon, via boys on bicycles. Later, this promotion was extended to other cities. A second promotion involved placing dinner plates within the then-regular (not round) boxes of oats.
Quaker Oats Company
In 1901, the Quaker Oats Company was founded in New Jersey with headquarters in Chicago, by the merger of four oat mills: the Quaker Mill Company in Ravenna, Ohio, which held the trademark on the Quaker name; the cereal mill in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, owned by John Stuart, his son Robert Stuart, and their partner George Douglas; the German Mills American Oatmeal Company in Akron, Ohio, owned by Schumacher; The Rob Lewis & Co. American Oats and Barley Oatmeal Corporation. Formally known as "Good For Breakfast" instant oatmeal mix. In the same year, the whole merged company was acquired by Crowell, who also bought the bankrupt Quaker Oat Mill Company, also in Ravenna.
In 1908, Quaker Oats introduced the first in a series of cookie recipes on the box. In 1911, Quaker Oats purchased the Great Western Cereal Company. The iconic cylindrical package made its first appearance in 1915. Later that year, Quaker offered the first cereal box premium to buyers. By sending in one dollar and the cutout picture of the "Quaker Man", customers received a double boiler for the cooking of oatmeal.
In the 1920s, Quaker introduced "Quaker Quick Oats", an early convenience food, and also offered a crystal radio set built in the same cylindrical canister as Quick Oats, with the same label, for US$1 plus two trademarks cut from Quaker Oats packages. In the 1930s, Quaker was one of the many companies using the Dionne Quintuplets for promotional purposes. The Quaker Oats mill in Cedar Rapids was photographed during the 1930s by Theodor Horydczak, who documented the building, operations, and factory workers at the plant.
During World War II, the company, through its subsidiary the Q. O. Ordnance Company, operated the Cornhusker Ordnance Plant (six miles west of Grand Island) as a government-owned, contractor-operated 11,960-acre site. Construction began in March 1942, and production ended in August 1945. The plant manufactured millions of pieces of various artillery munitions.
In 1946, artist Jim Nash was commissioned to produce a head portrait of the Quaker Man, which became the basis for Haddon Sundblom's famous version of 1957.
In 1968, a plant was built in Danville, Illinois, which now makes Pearl Milling Company pancake mixes, Oat Squares, Life Cereals Quaker Oh's, Bumpers, Quisp, King Vitamin Natural Granola Cereals, and Chewy granola bars, as well as Puffed Rice for use as an ingredient for other products in other plants.
In 1969, Quaker acquired Fisher-Price, a toy company. In 1991, Quaker Oats spun off its Fisher-Price division.
In 1971, the company financed the making of the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, based on the children's novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl. In return the company obtained a license to use a number of the product names mentioned in the film for candy bars. The film was considered a box office disappointment at the time of release, and the film’s original distributor Paramount eventually sold the rights back to Quaker Oats, who then sold the rights to Warner Bros. because the company had no involvement in the film business. The film became extremely popular in the 1980s via repeated television airings and home video sales.
In 1972, Quaker Oats purchased Louis Marx and Company, a company that created one quarter of all toys and trains manufactured in the mid-1950s. It sold the business after four years.
In 1982, Quaker Oats purchased US Games, a company that created games for the Atari 2600. It went out of business after one year. That same year, Quaker Oats acquired Florida-based orange juice plant Ardmore Farms, which it would own until selling it to Country Pure Foods in 1998.
In 1983, Quaker bought Stokely-Van Camp, Inc., makers of Van Camp's and Gatorade.
Quaker bought Snapple for $1.7 billion in 1994 and sold it to Triarc in 1997 for $300 million. Triarc sold it to Cadbury Schweppes for $1.45 billion in September 2000. It was spun off in May 2008 to its current owners, Dr Pepper Snapple Group.
In 1996, Quaker spun off its frozen food business, selling it to Aurora Foods (which was bought by Pinnacle Foods in 2004).
In August 2001, Quaker Oats was acquired by PepsiCo for $14 billion, primarily for the Gatorade brand.
Starting in 1987 through the 1990s, actor Wilford Brimley appeared in television commercials for Quaker. In the commercials, he extolled the virtues and healthfulness of oat consumption, sometimes to a young child. "It's the right thing to do" was a common slogan during the commercials.
Major facility
The major Canadian production facility for Quaker Oats is located in Peterborough, Ontario. The factory was first established as the American Cereal Company in 1902 on the shores of the Otonabee River during that city's period of industrialization. At the time, the city was known as "The Electric City" due to its hydropower resources, attracting many companies to the site to take advantage of this source. The Trent–Severn Waterway also promised to provide an alternate shipping route from inland areas around the city. On December 11, 1916, the factory all but completely burned to the ground. When the smoke had settled, 23 people had died and Quaker was left with $2,000,000 in damages. Quaker went on to rebuild the facility, incorporating the few areas of the structure that were not destroyed by fire.
When PepsiCo purchased Quaker Oats in 2001, many brands were consolidated from facilities around Canada to the Peterborough location, which assumed the new QTG (Quaker Tropicana Gatorade) moniker. Local production includes Quaker Oatmeal, Quaker Chewy bars, Cap'n Crunch cereal, Pearl Milling Company instant pancake mixes and pancake syrups, Quaker Oat Bran and Corn Bran cereals, Gatorade sports drinks, the Propel fitness water sub-brand, Tropicana juices, and various Frito-Lay snack products. Products are easily identified by the manufacturer by address on the packaging. The Peterborough facility supplies the majority of Canada and exports limited portions to the United States. The Quaker plant sells cereal production byproducts to companies that use them to create fire logs and pellets.
Until 2022, Quaker Oats had a major R&D facility located in Barrington, Illinois. After numerous acquisitions the site was renamed, but retained its research and development focus.
Land giveaways in cereal boxes
Starting in 1902, the company's oatmeal boxes came with a coupon redeemable for the legal deed to a tiny lot in Milford, Connecticut. The lots, sometimes as small as 10 feet by 10 feet, were carved out of a 15-acre, never-built subdivision called Liberty Park. A small number of children (or their parents), often residents living near Milford, redeemed their coupons for the free deeds and started paying the extremely small property taxes on the "oatmeal lots". The developer of the prospective subdivision hoped the landowners would hire him to build homes on the lots, although several tracts would need to be combined before building could start. The legal deeds created a large amount of paperwork for town tax collectors, who frequently couldn't find the property owners and received almost no tax revenue from them. In the mid-1970s, the town put an end to the oatmeal lots with a "general foreclosure" condemning nearly all of the property, which is now part of a BiC Corporation plant.
In 1955, Quaker Oats again gave away land as part of a promotion, this one tied to the Sergeant Preston of the Yukon television show in the United States. The company offered in its Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice cereal boxes genuine deeds to land in the Klondike.
2023–2024 product recalls
In 2023, concentrations of chlormequat, a pesticide known to cause reproductive and developmental issues in animals, in oat-based foods, including popular brands like Cheerios and Quaker Oats, were notably higher in 2023 compared to previous years. Quaker Oats Company issued numerous recalls of over 60 products starting from December 15 due to potential contamination with salmonella bacteria, affecting various cereals such as Cap'n Crunch and Oatmeal Squares, as well as Gatorade protein bars and batches of Quaker Chewy granola bars and Quaker granola cereals. The latest recall, involving the Quaker Chewy Dipps Llama Rama bars, was announced on January 31, 2024.
Starting in 1877, the Quaker Oats logo had a figure of a Quaker man depicted full-length, sometimes holding a scroll with the word "Pure" written across it, resembling the classic woodcuts of William Penn (founder of the Province of Pennsylvania), the 17th-century philosopher and early Quaker. Quaker Oats advertising dating back to 1909 did, indeed, identify the "Quaker man" as William Penn, and referred to him as "standard bearer of the Quakers and of Quaker Oats".
In 1946, graphic designer Jim Nash created a black-and-white head-and-shoulders portrait of the smiling Quaker Man, and Haddon Sundblom's now-familiar color head-and-shoulders portrait (using fellow Coca-Cola artist Harold W. McCauley as the model) debuted in 1957. In 1965, a new advertising slogan was introduced: "Nothing is better for thee, than me". The monochromatic 1970 Quaker Oats Company logo, modeled after the Sundblom illustration, was created by Saul Bass, a graphic designer known for his motion picture title sequences and corporate logos. In 2012, the company enlisted the firm of Hornall Anderson to give the "Quaker man" a slimmer, somewhat younger look. The man is now sometimes referred to as "Larry" by insiders at Quaker Oats.
The company states that its current "Quaker man" logo "does not represent an actual person. His image is that of a man dressed in Quaker garb, including a Quaker hat, chosen because the Quaker faith projected the values of honesty, integrity, purity and strength".
The company has never had any ties with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). When the company was being built up, Quaker businessmen were known for their honesty (truth is often considered a Quaker testimony). The Quaker man was the first registered trademark for breakfast cereal in the United States; the character was registered on September 4, 1877.
Members of the Religious Society of Friends have occasionally expressed frustration at being confused with the Quaker Oats representation. Friends have twice protested the Quaker name being used for advertising campaigns seen as promoting violence. In 1990, some Quakers started a letter-writing campaign after a Quaker Oats advertisement depicted Popeye as a Quaker who used violence against aliens, sharks, and Bluto. Later in that decade, more letters were sparked by Power Rangers toys included in Cap'n Crunch cereal.
Research on children
From 1946 to 1953, researchers from Quaker Oats Company, MIT and Harvard University carried out experiments at the Walter E. Fernald State School to determine how the minerals from cereals were metabolized. Fernald was a residential institution housing mostly boys with disabilities. The school asked parents of its students for permission to let their children be members of a Science Club. Members of the Science Club would participate in research and get special privileges, including trips to baseball games. The school informed parents that the children would be fed with a diet high in nutrients. They were not told that the food their children were fed contained radioactive calcium and iron, and the consent form contained no information indicating this. The information obtained from the experiments was to be used as part of an advertising campaign. The company was later sued because of the experiments. The lawsuit was settled on 31 December 1997 when MIT and Quaker Oats Company agreed to pay $1.85 million to the children who had been subjected to the experiments.
Trans fat content and litigation
In 2010, two California consumers filed a class action lawsuit against the Quaker Oats Company. The plaintiffs alleged that Quaker marketed its products as healthy even though they contained unhealthy trans fat. Specifically, Quaker's Chewy Granola Bars, Instant Oatmeal, and Oatmeal to Go Bars contained trans fat, yet their packaging featured claims like "heart healthy", "wholesome", and "smart choices made easy". The plaintiffs' complaint cited current scientific evidence that trans fat causes coronary heart disease and is associated with a higher risk of diabetes and some forms of cancer. In 2014, Quaker agreed to remove trans fats from its products, at a cost of $1.4 million, although the company denied false or misleading labelling.
US brands
these are the product brands marketed under the Quaker Oats name in the US:
Breakfast cereals
Cap'n Crunch
Life cereal
Quisp
Mother's Natural Foods
Quaker 100% Natural Granola
Kretschmer Wheat Germ
Mr. T Cereal
Muffets ("The round shredded wheat")
Quaker Oatmeal Squares
Quaker Toasted Oatmeal
Quaker Oh's (sold to Post in 2014 and re-branded Honey Ohs!)
Quaker Corn Bran
Quaker Oat Bran
Quaker Grits
Quaker Oatmeal
Quaker Instant Oatmeal
Quaker Puffed Rice
Quaker Puffed Wheat
Quaker Oatmeal with Dinosaur Eggs
Graham Bumpers
Coco Bumpers
King Vitaman
Other breakfast foods
Quaker Oatmeal To Go (re-branded from Breakfast Squares in 2006)
Pearl Milling Company (re-branded from Aunt Jemima in 2021)
Quaker Breakfast Cookies
Quaker Crispy Minis (Rice Chips and Rice Cakes) (known as Snack-a-Jacks in the UK)
Quakes Rice Snacks
Quaker Soy Crisps
Quaker Snack Bars
Chewy Granola Bars
Quaker Mini Delights
Yogurt bars
Quaker Oatmeal Cookies
Greek Yogurt
Mixes
Quaker Tortilla Mix
Rice-A-Roni
Pasta Roni
Near East
Drinks
Milk Chillers
Tropicana fruit Juices
Sunbolt (defunct)
UK brands
these are the product brands marketed under the Quaker Oats name in the UK:
Breakfast cereals
Sugar Puffs (sold in 2006 to Big Bear t/a Honey Monster Foods)
Hot cereals
Quaker Oats
Oatso Simple (various flavours)
Quaker Oats Super Goodness Porridge
Quaker Oats Protein Porridge
Scott's Porage Oats
Scott's So Easy
(the Scott's brand, previously a rival, is now also owned by Quaker)
Ready to eat cereal
Harvest Crunch
Quaker Wholesome Granola
Quaker Oat Granola
Quaker Oat Muesli
Quaker Oat Crisp
Cereal bars
Harvest Bar
Oat Bars (Original with golden syrup or Mixed berry flavors)
Snacks
New Quaker Fruit & Oat Squeeze
New Quaker Porridge to Go
Snack-a-Jacks
The Netherlands brands
These are the product brands marketed under the Quaker Oats name in the Netherlands:
Hot cereals
Quaker Oats
Quaker Oats Express
Ready to eat cereal
Quaker Cruesli
Quaker Cruesli Zero Sugar
Quaker Cruesli Colours
Quaker Granola & Muesli
Cereal bars
Oat Bars (Original with golden syrup or chocolate flavors)
The Philippines brands
Quaker Instant Oatmeal
Quaker Oatmeal Cookies
Quaker Instant Oats Caldo
General references
D'Antonio, Michael. The State Boys Rebellion. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.
|
Silas C. Hatch
|
[
"1821 births",
"1890 deaths",
"Bangor City Council members",
"State treasurers of Maine",
"Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Bangor, Maine)",
"Businesspeople from Maine",
"19th-century American businesspeople",
"19th-century members of the Maine Legislature"
] | 274 | 2,465 |
Silas Clinton Hatch (March 28, 1821, Bangor, Maine – July 27, 1890) was an American businessman and politician. He served as Maine State Treasurer from 1874 until 1876.
Life
Hatch was born in Bangor, Maine, the son of Silas Hatch and Mary Curry. He attended the school in Bangor and then studied at the Gorham Seminary.
He opened a trade store in Bangor in 1845 and ran it until 1870. Hatch served the city government for fourteen years, serving on the Common Council and the Board of Aldermen for seven years apiece. For eight years he was a city councilor and he belonged to the executive council in the years 1871, 1872 and 1878. In the presidential election of 1856, he worked for the campaign of Millard Fillmore. He served in the Maine House of Representatives from 1873 to 1874 and from 1881 to 1882, chairing the Financial Affairs and Ways and Means committees in 1881.
Hatch died on July 27, 1890, in Bangor. His grave is located at the Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor.
Archives and records
at Baker Library Special Collections, Harvard Business School.
|
Scott Simplot
|
[
"1947 births",
"Living people",
"Businesspeople from Idaho",
"University of Idaho alumni",
"Wharton School alumni",
"American billionaires",
"20th-century American businesspeople",
"21st-century American businesspeople"
] | 968 | 8,678 |
Scott Simplot (born 1947) is the American chairman and chief executive officer of the J.R. Simplot Company and formerly the wealthiest man in Idaho.
Early life and education
Simplot is the youngest son of J.R. Simplot, the founder of the diversified agriculture company J.R. Simplot Company, and his first wife Rudy Rosevear. He received a Bachelor of Science in Business from the University of Idaho in 1968 and went on to earn a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1973.
Career
Simplot first obtained a seat on the J.R. Simplot Company board of directors in 1970 and was hired as the company's director of planning and information technology in 1973, following his graduation from Wharton. He was quickly promoted to more senior positions and became chairman of the board of directors in 2001 after he reportedly "pushed out" his father, J.R.; the two adopted different approaches to management.
During his time at J.R. Simplot Company, Simplot has been credited with engineering the company's lucrative early-stage investment in Micron Technology, which grew to 22-percent of that company by 1996. He is also responsible for the company's 2003 purchase of the Australian arm of John West Foods.
In addition to his seat on the J.R. Simplot Company board, he also serves on the boards of directors of nearly a dozen other companies. In 2016, Forbes named him the wealthiest man in Idaho, with an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion.
Personal life
Bloomberg News described Simplot as being "unassuming, with a thoughtful, almost professorial air," a marked contrast to his gregarious father, which was reflected in their different management styles with J.R. acting on hunches and Scott preferring detailed analysis of potential business actions. He is divorced and has two daughters. His sister, Gay Simplot, is also a billionaire and works with Scott in running the J.R. Simplot company. Gay is divorced from the former Governor of Idaho, Butch Otter.
In 2004 Simplot received an honorary doctorate in Administrative Science from the University of Idaho in recognition of "lifelong achievement, public service, and significant contributions to the state of Idaho and the nation."
|
Gregory Cahill
|
[
"Living people",
"1982 births",
"Writers from Boston",
"Businesspeople from Massachusetts",
"Businesspeople from Los Angeles",
"21st-century American businesspeople",
"21st-century American male actors",
"21st-century American writers",
"American male screenwriters",
"American male film actors",
"American film editors",
"Male actors from Boston",
"Male actors from Los Angeles",
"Boston College High School alumni",
"Tisch School of the Arts alumni",
"Film directors from Los Angeles",
"Screenwriters from California",
"Screenwriters from Massachusetts"
] | 790 | 6,359 |
Gregory Cahill (born January 21, 1982) is an American director, producer, and screenwriter known for The Golden Voice and Two Shadows. He is also the production coordinator for The Talk and assistant directed Hell and Back. He won the Audience Award at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival for his film Two Shadows and is currently working on his upcoming film Metalheads. Cahill has his own production company, Rising Falcon Cinema, as well.
Early life
Cahill grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts.
Career
In an interview for Cahill's film Two Shadows, he discussed how The Golden Voice led him to the film. "I was really taken with that music and got really interested in one the singers, this female Cambodian rock singer named Ros Sereysothea. I read that she was murdered by the Khmer Rouge. And that all the musicians from that time were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. So that’s when I thought [that] there must have been quite a story behind that. So I researched that and made a short film about that singer…called The Golden Voice. Then in doing research to develop that into a feature, I went to Cambodia a few times, really fell in love with the country, and started hearing peoples’ stories there. That's what led to Two Shadows, which is based on a friend of mine's real-life story."
Filmography
Year Film Director Producer Writer Other Notes 2004 Wolves of Chechnya 2004 Off Islanders Assistant director 2005, 2007–11 Medium Actor - Episode: Light Sleeper (2005)Miscellaneous Crew (2007–11) 2006 The Golden Voice 2007 Dead Tired Assistant director, Music 2012 Mad Men Miscellaneous Crew 2012 Two Shadows Editor 2014 24: Solitary Miscellaneous Crew 2015 Hell and Back Assistant director 2015 Any Day Miscellaneous CrewTBA Metalheads
Awards and nominations
Year Award Category Title Result2012 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Audience Award - Narrative FeatureTwo Shadows Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Grand Jury Prize - Best Narrative Feature
|
Bank of Georgia
|
[
"Banks of Georgia (country)",
"Banks established in 1994",
"Companies based in Tbilisi",
"Brands of Georgia (country)",
"Companies listed on the Georgian Stock Exchange"
] | 1,214 | 12,923 |
Bank of Georgia JSC () is a Georgian universal bank and financial services, company founded in 1994, with its headquarters in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Bank of Georgia is Georgia's second largest bank by total assets after TBC Bank. It is considered to be a systemically important bank by the National Bank of Georgia.
Bank of Georgia is a subsidiary of the Lion Finance Group plc, a UK incorporated Georgian financial services holding company, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
History
The bank was established in 1903, nationalized by the communists and became known as Binsotsbank, before it was privatized again and renamed the Bank of Georgia in 1994. In the late 20th century, it was owned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the German Investment Corporation and the Georgian physicist, Vitaly Gelarani.
Bank of Georgia was first listed on the Georgian Stock Exchange in 2001. It merged with Tbiluniversalbank in 2004.
Starting from 2004, Bank of Georgia completed a number of strategic acquisitions, introduced a series of packaged retail products and initiated major infrastructure upgrades.
This is when the Bank launched its private banking, placed debut corporate bonds on the Georgian Stock Exchange.
In 2007, Bank of Georgia listed its shares on the London Stock Exchange in the form of global depositary receipts, the first international IPO from Georgia. The period following the listing was marked by the issuance of the first Eurobond, further acquisitions, and new international partnerships, including with American Express.
A new holding company Bank of Georgia Holdings (now Lion Finance Group) was established in October 2011 and secured a listing on the main market of the London Stock Exchange in April 2012.
In 2014, Bank of Georgia acquired Tao Private Bank, the 9th largest bank in Georgia at the time of acquisition.
In 2020, the European Investment Bank signed a €50 million loan deal with the Bank of Georgia for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and mid-caps. The Bank of Georgia typically lends the funds to local businesses, such as the Swiss Agricultural School Caucasus.
Products and operations
Bank of Georgia has one of the largest distribution networks in Georgia, comprising 211 branches, 989 ATMs, 3,134 self-service terminals and a call center.
Bank of Georgia business consists of three key business segments: Retail Banking (RB) operations in Georgia, comprising subsegments that serve mass retail (Mass Retail), and mass affluent and high-net-worth clients (Premium Banking); SME Banking (SME) operations in Georgia, serving small and medium-sized businesses; and Corporate Banking (CB) operations in Georgia, serving corporate and institutional customers.
Bank of Georgia has firmly established itself as one of the key players in the domestic banking sector, accounting for around 40% of total banking sector assets in Georgia.
Retail banking
Retail Banking (RB) is divided into two sub-segments that serve mass retail (Mass Retail), and mass affluent and high-net-worth clients (Premium Banking). The Retail Banking products include consumer loans, mortgage loans, overdrafts, credit cards and other credit facilities, funds transfers and settlement services, and handling of customers’ deposits.
Small and medium-sized enterprises
SME Banking serves small and medium-sized businesses providing financial and value-added services including business loans, payments processing, and financial advisory. The Bank was awarded Best SME Banking in Central and Eastern Europe by Global Finance in 2022.
Corporate Banking
Bank of Georgia’s Corporate Banking segment serves large businesses in Georgia. It mainly provides loans and other credit facilities, funds transfers and settlement services, trade finance services, documentary operations support and handles saving and term deposits for corporate and institutional customers.
In the field of education, Bank of Georgia sponsors students through various scholarship programs, including international ones such as the Fulbright Graduate Student Programme, the Chevening Scholarship Programme and Miami ad School of Europe scholarship program.
Bank of Georgia is the general sponsor of the Georgian National Olympic and Paralympic Committees, Georgian Football Federation and the main sponsor of the Georgian Basketball Federation.
|
The Cigna Group
|
[
"Health insurance companies of the United States",
"Pharmacy benefit management companies based in the United States",
"Health care companies based in Connecticut",
"Companies based in Hartford County, Connecticut",
"Bloomfield, Connecticut",
"1792 establishments in Connecticut",
"Financial services companies established in 1792",
"Financial services companies established in 1982",
"American companies established in 1982",
"Health care companies established in 1982",
"Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange",
"American companies established in 1792"
] | 3,056 | 31,075 |
The Cigna Group is an American multinational for-profit managed healthcare and insurance company based in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Its insurance subsidiaries are major providers of medical, dental, disability, life and accident insurance and related products and services, the majority of which are offered through employers and other groups (e.g., governmental and non-governmental organizations, unions and associations). Cigna is incorporated in Delaware.
The company ranked #15 in the 2023 Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. corporations by total revenue and in the 2023 Forbes Global 2000 ranking the company took 68th place.
The company has been embroiled in controversies, including engaging in automatic denials of insurance claims without reviewing them.
History
Cigna was formed by the 1982 merger of the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (CG) and INA Corporation (the parent corporation of Insurance Company of North America, the first stock insurance company in America). The company name, Cigna, is a mix of letters from the merging companies, CG and INA. Insurance Company of North America was formed in 1792, while CG was created in 1865 by a special act of the Governor of Connecticut. In October 1871, the great Chicago Fire burned for two days, destroyed 2,000 acres, and left 100,000 people in Illinois homeless. INA paid $650,000, one of only 51 insurance companies (out of a total of 202) to pay claims in full.
Cigna sold the majority of its life insurance operations to Lincoln National Corporation in 1997.
In October 2011, Cigna agreed to buy HealthSpring Inc. for $3.8 billion to jump-start its business selling Medicare plans from 46,000 Medicare Advantage members to almost 400,000 Medicare Advantage members. The payment would come from an issue of new equity to cover about 20 percent of the value, with the rest funded by additional cash and debt. In 2013, Cigna operated in 30 countries, had approximately 35,800 employees and managed around US$53.734 billion in assets.
In June 2015, U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc. announced that it would acquire Cigna for $47 billion in cash and stock. Anthem confirmed it had reached a deal to buy Cigna on July 24, 2015. On July 21, 2016, the US Justice Department filed an antitrust suit to block the proposed merger, and a District Court ruling on February 8, 2017, blocked the merger on anticompetitive grounds. That month, Cigna Corp. called off its $48 billion merger agreement with Anthem Inc., with Anthem stating it would "continue to enforce its rights under the merger agreement and remains committed to closing the transaction." After exhausting federal appeals of the antitrust merger block, the companies turned on each other in Delaware's Court of Chancery. The legal saga came to an end with an August 31, 2020 decision denying both companies claims for compensation from the other for the failed merger.
On March 7, 2018, it was announced that Cigna would acquire Express Scripts in a $67 billion deal and on August 24, 2018, the shareholders of Cigna and Express Scripts approved the deal.
In June 2020, Cigna formed a strategic alliance with Priority Health to make comprehensive health care coverage more affordable and accessible to Michigan employers and customers.
In September 2020, Cigna rebranded its health services portfolio under the name Evernorth, which included Express Scripts, Accredo, and eviCore.
In October 2020, it was announced that Cigna and Envision Healthcare had renewed their agreement to include Envision's clinicians as in-network providers for Cigna's members. In 2021, Molina Healthcare acquired Cigna's Medicaid contracts in Texas for US$60 million.
On February 13, 2023, Cigna renamed its holding company The Cigna Group, its health benefits provider business unit Cigna Healthcare, and its Evernorth business unit Evernorth Health Services.
In January 2024, the company agreed with the Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) to sell Cigna Group's Medicare Advantage, Cigna Supplemental Benefits, Medicare Part D, and CareAllies businesses. The total value of the transaction is about $3.7 billion. The deal also included a four-year service agreement under which Evernorth Health Services, a subsidiary of the Cigna Group, will continue to provide pharmacy benefits to Medicare beneficiaries. With all necessary approvals in place, the deal is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2025.
Cigna Global Health Benefits
Cigna Global Health Benefits is a business unit within Cigna. The company is headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, close to Philadelphia. Additional Cigna Global Health Benefits operations are located in Visalia, California, and Greenock, Scotland and Shanghai, China and Antwerp, Belgium. Sales offices are located in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Products and services
CGHB global health plans typically include medical, dental, behavioral, and disability coverage, as well as business travel and life insurance components. Expatriates are defined as employees of multinational companies who work outside their home country on short- or long-term international assignments. CGHB maintains its own, in-house international claims platform, and offers a network of physicians and hospitals for its members (including 550,000 in the U.S. and more than 141,000 outside the U.S.).
Public relations and lobbying
Cigna spent more than $4.4 million from 2005 to 2009 on lobbying to attain legislation that the company favors. This includes $720,000 spent in 2009 alone, when it had 20 lobbyists at five firms working on its behalf.
In 2008, the head of Cigna's public relations, Wendell Potter, resigned, becoming a whistleblower who gave testimony in 2009 to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in favor of reform of the health care industry.
Automatically rejecting claims with no review
In 2023, Cigna was criticized for allowing company doctors to reject claims even if they had not opened the patient's file. The company was found to be using a system, "PXDX," that, according to ProPublica, "saved money in two ways. It allowed Cigna to begin turning down claims that it had once paid. And it made it cheaper to turn down claims, because the company's doctors never had to open a file or conduct any in-depth review. They simply denied the claims in bulk with an electronic signature." The speed with which denials were placed was termed internally as "click and close."
Nataline Sarkisyan liver transplant case
In December 2007, Cigna refused to pay for a liver transplant of a California teenage girl, Nataline Sarkisyan, coming under scrutiny as a result. There was a liver ready and waiting to be transplanted, and doctors estimated she had a 65% chance of surviving at least six months. In response to much protest and public scrutiny, Cigna reversed its decision, though Ms. Sarkisyan died awaiting the transplant.
Even though liver transplants have been performed since 1963 and are a well-accepted treatment option for end-stage liver disease and acute liver failure, Cigna defended its actions by claiming that there was insufficient data to show that a transplant for a patient in Sarkisyan's condition would be safe and effective. The California court agreed with Cigna's position that the Sarkisyans’ claims regarding Cigna's decision-making were preempted by federal ERISA law. On April 16, 2009, the United States District Court for the Central District of California dismissed all of the claims against Cigna related to the coverage determination.
The UK newspaper Guardian in their Esc and Ctrl videoblog about control of the Internet by corporations, documented the incident with Nataline Sarkisyan and the former vice president of Cigna talking about astroturfing, the practice of creating fake blogs by interested groups, e.g. health insurance companies, to push claims that are profitable for said company into media, e.g. dismissing universal health care.
Other controversies
In 2002, it was alleged in violation of the Securities Exchange Act for earnings manipulation. Its common stock price plummeted significantly as a result.
In 2015, the American Consumer Satisfaction Index named Cigna as one of the most hated companies in the U.S. Cigna's name returned on the ACSI's most hated list in 2018.
In August 2020, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Cigna alleging that the company defrauded Medicare Advantage, Medicare, and Medicaid for $1.4B by submitting diagnostic codes for health conditions that patients did not have.
In November 2020, investors sued Cigna's CEO and board, alleging that they had used "black-ops-style" tactics to "blow up" the potential merger with Anthem in 2017. One pension fund accused Cigna CEO David Cordani of seeking to poison the deal after he had failed to secure the top post in the resulting company. The fund claimed he had utilized lawyers and public relations specialists to set up a "Trojan Horse" campaign. The merger would have produced the largest U.S. health insurer in 2017.
Evaluations
Cigna received gold in the 2009 Gartner & 1to1 Customer Experience Excellence Award. The awards are given to the companies that "most clearly demonstrate exemplary customer relationship strategy and an unrivaled level of excellence in delivering the customer experience".
In January 2010, Cigna received the JD Power award for customer service for all of its call centers for the fourth time in a row.
In 2011, the California Nurses Association determined that Cigna denied roughly 39.6% of all claims (compared to competitors such as Aetna, who denied about 5.9% of all claims in the same time frame).
Strategic alliances
On April 16, 2010, Cigna announced an alliance with Humana group to offer a streamlined Medicare Advantage offering through employer clients for retirees. In November 2023, Reuters reported that Cigna and Humana were in talk to merge, in a deal totalling $60 billion. In December 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that merger talks ended.
In November 2011, Cigna and TTK Group, an Indian business conglomerate focused on healthcare, formed a joint venture called Cigna TTK to develop a health insurance business in India, subject to obtaining government approvals.
See also
List of United States insurance companies
|
Bank of the Philippine Islands
|
[
"Banks of the Philippines",
"Companies listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange",
"Companies based in Makati",
"Spanish colonial infrastructure in the Philippines",
"Banks established in 1851",
"1851 establishments in the Philippines",
"Ayala Corporation subsidiaries",
"Companies in the PSE Composite Index"
] | 2,626 | 24,530 |
The Bank of the Philippine Islands (; , commonly known as BPI; ) is a universal bank in the Philippines. It is the oldest bank in both the Philippines and Southeast Asia. It is the fourth largest bank in terms of assets, the second largest bank in terms of market capitalization, and one of the most profitable banks in the Philippines.
The bank has a network of over 900 branches in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Europe, and more than 3,000 ATMs and CDMs (cash deposit machines).
BPI was founded during the Spanish colonial era of the Philippines as El Banco Español Filipino de Isabel II. It provided credit to the National Treasury and printed and issued the Philippine peso fuerte, a precursor to today's Philippine peso.
Colonial period
BPI was established on August 1, 1851, as the "El Banco Español Filipino de Isabel II" (), named after the Queen of Spain, Isabella II, the daughter of King Ferdinand VII. It was the first government bank in the Philippines and the third Philippine bank during the Spanish era. The first managing directors of Banco Español-Filipino were Jose Maria Tuason and Fernando Aguirre. They took turns serving as managing director every year. One of the founders and primary shareholders at that time was José Joaquín de Ynchausti of Ynchausti y Cía, a prominent Philippine multi-national conglomerate who also founded Tanduay Distillery and built the Puente Colgante. José was the managing director of the bank from 1868 to 1873 and 1876 to 1884.
The royal decree establishing the Banco Español-Filipino also gave it the power to print Philippine currency, the first time the Philippine peso was printed in the country; before 1851, a multitude of currencies were used, most notably the Mexican peso. They were originally called Philippine peso fuerte (PF), or "strong pesos". First printed on May 1, 1852, they were redeemable at face value for gold or silver Mexican coins just to circulate the first Philippine currency. The first deposit with the bank was also done on that day by a man named Fulgencio Barrera with silver and gold. Three days later, a Chinese man named Tadian became the first borrowing client of the bank after the bank discounted to him an initial and foremost promissory note amounting to ten thousand pesos fuertes.
On September 3, 1869, following a revolution which overthrew Isabella II, the name was changed to Banco Español-Filipino. In January 1892, the bank moved from the Royal Custom House in Intramuros to the new business district of Binondo after it found out that Intramuros was becoming "economically inactive". It moved to 4 Plaza Cervantes corner Juan Luna Street which was at that time a prime property owned by the Dominican friars.
The first branch of Banco Español-Filipino outside Manila was opened in Iloilo City on March 15, 1897. However, the idea to set up branches outside Manila was formulated as far back as the 1850s, with the first branch planned to be opened in Bacolor, the capital of Pampanga at the time. However, by then, Iloilo and other provinces in Panay had become more productive than Pampanga in the sugar industry, hence the move to open the first branch in Iloilo.
Following the cession of the Philippines to the United States with the signing of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the bank changed from a Spanish institution to a Philippine one. On January 1, 1912, a decision by the shareholders of Banco Español-Filipino changed the name to the present Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) or Banco de las Islas Filipinas in Spanish. The basis for the name change was Act No. 1790, passed on October 12, 1907, which permitted the bank to change its name. The bank was also fully privatised during the American colonial period.
Following World War II, BPI was actively involved in the post-war reconstruction of the Philippines. In 1949, with the establishment of the Central Bank of the Philippines (now the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas), BPI completely lost the right to issue Philippine pesos, a right it had since the Spanish colonial era and during the American colonial period – up until 1934.
Contemporary history
On December 31, 1969, Ayala Corporation, which had been affiliated with BPI since its establishment in 1851, became the dominant shareholder of BPI, and eventually made BPI into the flagship of Ayala's financial entities.
Starting in the 1970s, BPI has been involved with many mergers and acquisitions. The first merger occurred in 1974 with BPI's acquisition of the People's Bank and Trust Company. Major notable acquisitions include Commercial Bank and Trust Company in 1981, CityTrust Banking Corporation in 1996, Far East Bank and Trust Company in 2000, Prudential Bank in 2005, BPI's subsidiary BPI Family Savings Bank in early-2022 and Robinsons Bank in early-2024.
In 1982, BPI became a universal bank and inaugurated its new headquarters building at the intersection of Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas in the Ayala-developed Makati Central Business District. In 2000, it became the Philippines' first bank assurance firm, being the first Philippine bank to offer insurance services after acquiring the insurance companies of the Ayala Corporation, the parent company of BPI. Within that year, BPI also founded the BPI Direct Savings Bank, an Internet bank.
On February 14, 1986, BPI established its own interbank network, Expressnet.
In October 2015, BPI launched their "Make the Best Things Happen" campaign.
In the second quarter of 2019, BPI began constructing its new headquarters in Makati, replacing the old headquarters building on its place. BPI has tapped Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for its design. It relocated its head offices from the old building to nearby locations, including the Insular Life Building, Ayala North Exchange, Makati Stock Exchange building, and BPI Buendia Center in Makati, while other offices moved to Vertis North in Quezon City and in Alabang, Muntinlupa. Its head offices were subsequently relocated to the adjacent Insular Life Building, Ayala North Exchange, Makati Stock Exchange building, and BPI Buendia Center in Makati, while other offices moved to Vertis North in Quezon City and to Alabang, Muntinlupa.
BPI launched its new logo in August 2019 and its Do More tagline in August 2023. In June 2023, BPI completed the transfer of its various head office units to Ayala Triangle Gardens Tower 2, reducing its headquarters to two locations: the tower and the BPI Buendia Center.
2017 system glitch
On the morning of June 7, 2017, a data processing glitch affected BPI clients making their account balances incorrect. Some clients had either a negative balance or an increased amount of money in their account. The error was fixed in the evening, but the next day, June 8, BPI suspended electronic services because incorrect balances occurred again. The services were restored once more on the evening of the same day upon fixing the defect.
BPI Direct BanKo, Inc., A Savings Bank (operating as BPI BanKo) is a wholly owned subsidiary of BPI established through the merging of BPI Direct Savings Bank (the first internet-based bank in the country, allowing expatriate Filipinos and overseas workers in countries like Bahrain or Hong Kong to access and manage their bank accounts at any time) and the BPI Globe Banko.
BPI Globe BanKo's predecessor BPI Direct Savings Bank, was incorporated and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 26, 1986, primarily as a subsidiary meant to engage in the general business of savings and mortgage banking.
In 2000, BPI Direct underwent a major image change as it became the first Philippine bank designed around the telephone and online banking channels. Two years later, BPI Direct realigned its business strategy towards the Overseas Filipino community.
As the result of BPI Direct and with BPI Globe BanKo (another thrift bank unit of BPI) merging in December 2016 forming BPI Direct BanKO Inc. (BPI BanKo).
BPI's consolidation of its two subsidiaries forming BPI Direct BanKo, is its answer to the growing microfinance-small and medium enterprise finance industry sector in the Philippines, competing directly with notable SME/Microfinance institution in the country - ASA Philippines, Card Bank (CardBank and Card SME Bank), and LifeBank MFI.
Subsidiaries and partners
BPI is divided into the following subsidiaries and affiliates:
BPI Asset Management and Trust Corporation
BPI Capital Corp.
BPI Computer Systems Corp.
BPI Family Savings Bank (Savings bank of BPI)
BPI BanKo (merged BPI Direct Savings Bank and BPI Globe BanKO Savings Bank) (Small and medium enterprise and microfinance oriented rural-savings bank of BPI)
BPI Forex Corp.
BPI Foundation, Inc.
BPI International Finance Ltd.
BPI Investment Management. Inc.
BPI Leasing Corp.
BPI Operations Mgt. Corp.
BPI Rental Corp.
BPI Securities Corp.
BPI/MS Insurance Corp.
Legazpi Savings Bank
On September 30, 2022, BPI and Robinsons Bank disclosed their merger expected to complete by December 31, 2023, with BPI as the surviving entity.
Ownership
PCD Nominee Corporation: 34.8533%
Mariano Castro II: 28.7396%
Liontide Holdings1: 15.6146%
Robinsons Retail Holdings, Inc.: 5.4557%
JG Summit Capital Services Corp.: 3.5735%
Archdiocese of Manila2: 6.7771%
Michigan Holdings: 1.9156%
While the Philippine Central Depository is listed a major shareholder, it is more of a trustee-nominee for all shares lodged in the PCD system rather than a single owner/shareholder.
1 Includes DBS Bank.
2 Voting powers vested ex officio in the Archbishop of Manila.
See also
Ayala Corporation
BancNet (the BPI ATM network)
List of Philippine companies
List of banks in the Philippines
|
Lindsay Tarpley
|
[
"Living people",
"1983 births",
"American women's soccer players",
"United States women's international soccer players",
"Soccer players from Michigan",
"Sportspeople from Kalamazoo, Michigan",
"North Carolina Tar Heels women's soccer players",
"Olympic gold medalists for the United States in soccer",
"Footballers at the 2004 Summer Olympics",
"Footballers at the 2008 Summer Olympics",
"Chicago Red Stars players",
"Saint Louis Athletica players",
"Boston Breakers players",
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"Women's association football forwards",
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"Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics",
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"American women business executives",
"American business executives",
"New Jersey Wildcats players",
"Portage Central High School alumni",
"United States women's youth international soccer players",
"21st-century American sportswomen"
] | 3,209 | 39,857 |
Lindsay Ann Tarpley Snow (; born September 22, 1983) is an American former professional soccer forward and midfielder. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, winning gold at the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, and was a member of the United States national team that finished third at the 2007 Women's World Cup in China.
Early life
Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Tarpley grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and attended Portage Central High School from 1998 to 2002. During her freshman season, she helped her school's women's soccer team reach the state semi-finals. In the following spring, she led her team to an undefeated season and the state championship. Against Bishop Foley Catholic High School in the final match, she scored her team's first goal and assisted on her team's other two, including the winning shot in the penalty shootout. She received several honors during her time there, including being named the 2002 Michigan Gatorade Player of the Year and the 2002 U.S. Soccer Chevrolet Young Female Player of the Year, in addition to being a 1999 NSCAA All-American and a Parade All-American in 2001 and 2002. She also played varsity basketball for Portage Central, starting at point guard during all four of her seasons.
While in high school, Tarpley played for W-League side Kalamazoo Quest in 1998 and 1999.
North Carolina Tar Heels
In the autumn of 2002, Tarpley enrolled at the University of North Carolina. While there, she majored in communications and minored in coaching. She was a student-athlete, and competed with the university's North Carolina Tar Heels women's soccer team. In her first season with the team, she was named ACC Rookie of the Year and the Soccer America and Soccer Buzz National Freshman of the Year.
During her sophomore season, Tarpley led the nation in total points (goals and assists) while leading the Tar Heels to the 2003 NCAA Women's Soccer Championship. Against Connecticut Huskies in the finals, she scored two goals and had two assists en route to winning the title. She received numerous honors for her performance throughout the 2003 season, including ACC Player of the Year and Player of the Tournament, National Player of the Year, and several All-America team honors.
Injuries interfered with Tarpley's junior and senior seasons, which reduced her playing time. Tarpley still managed to be named to the All-ACC and NSCAA All-America teams in both seasons.
Tarpley finished her North Carolina career with 59 goals and 59 assists. Her number 25 jersey was retired by the school in February 2006 during the halftime of a North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball game.
Club career
Tarpley played for the New Jersey Wildcats in 2005, where she played alongside Tobin Heath, Christine Latham, Karina LeBlanc, Heather O'Reilly, Cat Whitehill, Rachel Yankey, and a number of other international players. She played in five games (374 minutes) for the club, and scored two goals with two assists.
Women's Professional Soccer
Upon the creation of a new top-flight women's league in the United States, Tarpley agreed to join Women's Professional Soccer. She was allocated to Chicago Red Stars along with USWNT players Carli Lloyd and Kate Markgraf. In the inaugural 2009 Women's Professional Soccer season, Tarpley appeared in 17 games (16 starts, 1321 total minutes) and scored four goals and four assists.
On January 15, 2010, Lindsay was traded to the Saint Louis Athletica in exchange for goalkeeper Jillian Loyden. With the Athletica, she joined former North Carolina Tar Heel standouts Lori Chalupny, Kendall Fletcher and Kristina Larsen.
She became a free agent on June 1, 2010, with the dissolution of the Saint Louis Athletica. On June 3, it was announced by the Boston Breakers that they had signed Tarpley. She then signed for magicJack ahead of the 2011 Women's Professional Soccer season.
Following her ACL injury in 2011, Tarpley was selected by the Chicago Red Stars in the 2013 NWSL Supplemental Draft but waived by the team in March 2014.
International career
Tarpley began her international career representing the United States on the U-16 Girls National Team. From there, she successfully moved to the United States U-19 team in 2002. She played in the 2002 FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship, the first FIFA-sanctioned youth tournament for women, and scored the title-clinching goal in extra time against Canada. She made 26 total appearances and scored 24 goals.
Tarpley soon moved to the United States U-21 team, where she made 8 appearances and scored 4 goals. Half of her goals were scored at the 2003 Nordic Cup, while the other half was at the 2005 Nordic Cup.
Tarpley first appeared for the senior team on January 12, 2003, against Japan. Her first (and second) goal came a little over a year later on January 30, 2004, against Sweden. She appeared in the 2004 and 2008 editions of the Olympic Games, winning a gold medal on each trip. She has also played in the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup, in which the United States finished third. She earned her 100th cap on July 16, 2008, against Brazil in the last game before the 2008 Olympics, the 23rd player in USWNT history to reach this feat.
A torn anterior cruciate ligament sustained in a warm-up match with Japan saw Tarpley ruled out of the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup.
International goals
goalDateLocationOpponentLineup#MinAssist/passScoreResultCompetition2004-01-30Shenzhen, China2.151Abby WambachFour Nations Tournament2.266Kate Markgraf2004-02-03Shenzhen, ChinaStart1.113Shannon MacMillanFriendly2004-02-27Heredia, Costa Rica1.163unassistedOlympic qualification2004-03-05Heredia, Costa Rica1.145Cindy ParlowOlympic qualification2004-03-14Ferreiras, Portugal1.147Cindy ParlowAlgarve Cup2004-03-20Faro, Portugal1.142Abby WambachAlgarve Cup2004-08-26Athens, Greece1.139Brandi ChastainOlympics: final2006-03-13Faro, Portugal1.150unassistedAlgarve Cup2006-09-13Rochester, United States1.122Aly WagnerFriendly2006-10-01Carson, United States2.122unassistedFriendly2.227Aly Wagner2006-11-02Suwon, South Korea1.127Natasha KaiPeace Queen Cup: Group B2007-04-14Foxborough, United States1.133unassistedFriendly2007-05-12Frisco, United States1.113Heather MittsFriendly2007-08-12Chicago, United States1.157unassistedFriendly2007-08-25Carson, United StatesStart1.168Christie RamponeFriendly2008-01-16Guangzhou, China2.171Heather O'ReillyFour Nations Tournament2.278Amy Rodriguez2008-01-18Guangzhou, ChinaStart2.137Abby WambachFour Nations Tournament2.239Abby Wambach2008-03-05Albufeira, Portugal1.15Carli LloydAlgarve Cup: Group B2008-03-07Alvor, Portugal1.16Lauren CheneyAlgarve Cup: Group B2008-05-03Birmingham, United States2.128unassistedFriendly2.242Natasha Kai2008-05-10Washington, United States1.123Abby WambachFriendly2008-07-02Fredrikstad, Norway1.14Abby WambachFriendly2008-08-12Shenyang, ChinaStart1.156unassistedOlympics: Group G2008-11-01Richmond, United StatesStart1.148Aly WagnerFriendly2009-05-25Toronto, Canada1.177unassistedFriendly2011-01-23Chongqing, China1.170CheneyFour Nations Tournament2011-03-04Santo Antonio, PortugalStart1.133Amy RodriguezAlgarve Cup: Group A
Honors and awards
United States
Olympic Games Gold Medal: 2004, 2008
FIFA Women's World Cup:Third Place: 2007 China
North Carolina Tar Heels
NCAA Women's Soccer Championship: 2003
National Freshman of the Year: 2002
NCAA Division I Scoring Leader: 2003
College Soccer Player of the Year: 2003
Personal life
Tarpley married B.J. Snow in 2008. In 2011, Snow was hired as the head coach for the UCLA Bruins women's soccer team. In July 2012, Tarpley and Snow had their first child, a son.
Match report
|
Belle of Baton Rouge
|
[
"Casinos in Louisiana",
"Hotels in Louisiana",
"Boxing venues in Louisiana",
"Riverboat casinos in Louisiana",
"Tourist attractions in Baton Rouge, Louisiana",
"Buildings and structures in Baton Rouge, Louisiana",
"1994 establishments in Louisiana",
"Hotel buildings completed in 2001",
"Casino hotels in Louisiana"
] | 2,379 | 35,613 |
The Belle of Baton Rouge is a riverboat casino and hotel in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is owned by Gaming and Leisure Properties and operated by Bally's Corporation.
Facilities
The casino boat is a , four-deck sternwheeler built by Avondale Shipyard. It has of gaming space spread across three decks, containing 350 slot machines and 10 table games.
The hotel is 10 stories tall, with 288 rooms, a swimming pool, and a fitness center. As of 2020, it is closed for renovations. Next to the hotel is a five-story-tall, , glass-enclosed atrium. Inside the atrium is a performance venue that has been used for concerts, mixed martial arts events, and nationally televised boxing matches. Other amenities include meeting spaces, three eateries, and two parking garages.
History
Catfish Town (1984–1992)
The Belle atrium is located at Catfish Town, a historic warehouse district that was redeveloped and opened as a festival marketplace in July 1984. The $30-million project was developed by a group led by Jerry Dodson, with part of the budget financed by the city government using grant money from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Catfish Town struggled to attract tenants and shoppers, and by November 1986, its developers had decided to cut their losses. Ownership was transferred in December 1987 to Allied Bank, the primary mortgage holder, as a deed in lieu of foreclosure. The bank's property managers reoriented Catfish Town toward being an office park, based on a marketing study that found that Baton Rouge did not have the population or tourism base to support a festival marketplace. The Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) was brought in as a tenant in December 1989, and would come to occupy more than half of the complex's leasable space.
Catfish Town was put up for sale in April 1992 by NAB Asset Corp., which had come to own the property through a series of bank reorganizations. The RTC had given notice that it would vacate its offices in January 1993, but NAB hoped that the soon-to-be nearly vacant complex would be attractive to an owner-occupant. Louisiana had legalized riverboat casinos in July 1991, and multiple gaming operators had expressed interest in Catfish Town.
Licensing and construction (1993–2001)
The riverboat gaming law allowed up to 15 casino licenses to be issued and only to casinos located on certain rivers and lakes, including the Mississippi River. The number of licenses to be issued in the Baton Rouge area became a matter of contention. Baton Rouge city officials pushed for only one casino to be licensed, but the Louisiana Riverboat Gaming Commission decided to allow two casinos.
The casino was originally proposed by Jazz Enterprises, a company formed by several Louisiana and Nevada business people. The casino boat would be docked at the Catfish Town complex, which Jazz had agreed to purchase for $3.25 million; they would also spend $20 million to upgrade the complex. A 400-room hotel was added to the plan as part of negotiations to gain the city's endorsement. Their proposal won the endorsement of Mayor Tom Ed McHugh and the city council, beating out three other casino applicants in the parish. The Riverboat Gaming Commission gave preliminary approval to the casino in March 1993; the Commission awarded the other Baton Rouge license to Louisiana Casino Cruises (for what would become Casino Rouge, later named Hollywood Casino Baton Rouge).
Summit Casinos had been tapped to manage the casino, but withdrew from the project and was replaced with Argosy Gaming. Argosy would own 90 percent of the casino and up to 15 percent of the remainder of the project. The planned casino was then renamed from the Catfish Queen to the Belle of Baton Rouge, as Argosy planned to include the word "Belle" in all of the company's casinos' names.
The project's prospects were cast into doubt when the Louisiana State Police decided to disregard the Riverboat Gaming Commission's preliminary decisions and evaluate the applicants on their economic potential, including a third proposal by developer Charles Lambert and Lady Luck Gaming to dock a casino boat at the Capitol House Hotel. Ultimately, however, the Jazz Enterprises proposal was ranked as the best out of the three, and it received final licensing approval in July 1994.
During the licensing and construction process, several riverboat applicants, including Jazz Enterprises, were targeted by extortion schemes involving Governor Edwin Edwards. Two associates of Edwards threatened to derail Jazz's project unless they were given a stake in the company. A Jazz executive rebuffed their demands, and instead cooperated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to make recordings of the threats. Edwards and his associates were convicted on federal racketeering charges in 2000 (though Edwards was acquitted of the charges directly involving Jazz).
A separate legal battle over the Belle's licensing was waged by Lambert, who sued Jazz and Argosy for allegedly omitting important information from their application, and thereby improperly receiving a license that would otherwise have gone to the Lady Luck project. Lambert's litigation carried on until 2010, when the United States Supreme Court declined to review the dismissal of the case.
The casino opened on September 30, 1994.
Argosy purchased Jazz Enterprises in June 1995 for $49 million (including $22 million in forgiven debt), gaining full ownership of Catfish Town and the Belle. Jazz had had a string of confrontations with the city government, culminating in a threat by the city to shut down the casino because construction had been suspended on the parking garage. The sale to Argosy defused the issues and allowed construction to resume.
The three-story Argosy Landing building, the project's first permanent land-based facility, opened in February 1995, featuring a bar, gift shop, and restaurant. The glass-enclosed Argosy Festival Atrium opened in April 1996.
The Belle's name was changed to Argosy Casino Baton Rouge in July 1999.
The casino's contract with the city had required construction of the hotel to begin by September 1996. Since the deadline was missed, Argosy had been making penalty payments to the city of approximately $300,000 per month. Construction of the hotel finally began in July 1999, ending the penalty payments. The Sheraton Baton Rouge Convention Center Hotel opened at the property in February 2001, owned by Argosy and managed by Sheraton.
After completion (2002–present)
In November 2004, Penn National Gaming agreed to acquire Argosy Gaming. The merger raised antitrust concerns because Penn National, which already owned Casino Rouge, would gain a monopoly on casinos in Baton Rouge. In order to expedite approval for the merger from federal and state regulators, Penn National put the Argosy Baton Rouge up for sale. Columbia Sussex agreed to buy the property for $150 million. Penn National and Argosy completed their merger in October 2005. Weeks later, Penn National closed on the sale of the casino to a Columbia Sussex affiliate (which would later become an independent company, Tropicana Entertainment). The property's name was then reverted to the Belle of Baton Rouge.
The hotel dropped its affiliation with Sheraton in April 2010. A $7-million renovation of the property was begun in 2011 to make it more competitive with the new L'Auberge Baton Rouge casino.
In 2018, Gaming and Leisure Properties (GLP) acquired the real estate of the Belle of Baton Rouge and Eldorado Resorts (later Caesars Entertainment) acquired its operating business, under lease from GLP, as part of the two companies' acquisition of Tropicana Entertainment.
In 2020, Caesars agreed to sell the Belle's operating business to CQ Holding, the parent company of the Casino Queen in Illinois. The sale was completed in May 2022. CQ Holding later became The Queen Casino & Entertainment, and then merged with Bally's Corporation in 2025.
Finances
Each year, the casino reports its adjusted gaming revenue (total wagers placed, less the amount paid out for winning bets) to the Louisiana Gaming Control Board.
Sports
Boxing
On November 30, 2013, Regis Prograis fought Miguel Alvarez on a boxing card with Prograis winning with a TKO in the 3rd round.
See also
List of casinos in Louisiana
|
First National Bank South Dakota
|
[
"1962 establishments in South Dakota",
"2010s disestablishments in South Dakota",
"American companies disestablished in 2014",
"American companies established in 1962",
"Banks disestablished in 2014",
"Banks established in 1962",
"Defunct banks of the United States"
] | 351 | 3,263 |
First National Bank South Dakota was a bank headquartered in Yankton, South Dakota. In 2014, its charter was consolidated with that of its affiliate, First National Bank of Omaha.
History
The bank was established 1962 as Valley State Bank. Its name was changed on July 19, 1994. The name change triggered a trademark lawsuit, First National Bank, in Sioux Falls v. First National Bank, South Dakota, that is quoted as an example of weakness of the "likelihood of confusion" argument in the trademark disputes: while the Sioux Falls bank prevailed, with courts finding that the South Dakota bank was indeed targeting the competitor's customers, and its ads in the newspaper were misleading, the injunction (prohibition of using the brand within the 10-mile distance from the headquarters of First National Bank in Sioux Falls) was very weak.
In 1999, it acquired Commercial Trust And Savings Bank of Mitchell, South Dakota, which had 5 branches.
In 2014, its charter was consolidated with that of its affiliate, First National Bank of Omaha.
|
BancFirst
|
[
"Banks based in Oklahoma",
"Companies based in Oklahoma City",
"Companies listed on the Nasdaq",
"Banks established in 1966",
"1966 establishments in Oklahoma"
] | 554 | 4,381 |
BancFirst Corporation is an Oklahoma-based financial services holding company. The company operates three subsidiary banks, BancFirst, an Oklahoma state-chartered bank; and Pegasus Bank and Worthington Bank, both Texas state-chartered banks.
History
The roots of BancFirst date back to 1966, when lead investor and Chairman H.E. "Gene" Rainbolt purchased Federal National Bank in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Federal National had $16 million in assets at the time of purchase. Throughout the 1970s, Rainbolt acquired interests in many rural Oklahoma banks and formed Thunderbird Financial Corporation to assist each bank with management services. In 1985, Rainbolt's banks in seven communities were brought under the ownership of United Community Corporation.
On April 1, 1989, BancFirst was formed and established its corporate headquarters in downtown Oklahoma City. Changes in Oklahoma's banking laws that allowed multiple banks to merge in such a fashion were largely due to Rainbolt's efforts to modernize the law.
David Rainbolt became CEO in 1992, and took the company public in 1993 through an initial public offering; BancFirst began trading on the NASDAQ under stock symbol BANF. David Rainbolt became chairman in 2017 after having led the bank through more than 35 bank acquisitions over the years. David Harlow is currently CEO of BancFirst Corporation.
Currently
BancFirst operates in 60 Oklahoma communities in 32 of 77 counties, with over 100 service locations. The bank has a network of more than 350 ATMs across the state, including in all Oklahoma Walgreens stores.
As of March 31, 2025, BancFirst's assets totaled $14 billion while deposits totaled $12.1 billion.
|
Irene Sandiford-Garner
|
[
"Place of birth missing (living people)",
"1961 births",
"Living people",
"20th-century Barbadian women politicians",
"20th-century Barbadian women writers",
"20th-century businesswomen",
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"21st-century Barbadian women politicians",
"21st-century Barbadian women writers",
"21st-century businesswomen",
"21st-century women journalists",
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"Barbadian women journalists",
"People from Saint Andrew, Barbados",
"Queen's College (Barbados) alumni",
"University of the West Indies alumni",
"Virginia Commonwealth University alumni",
"Women government ministers of Barbados"
] | 403 | 4,346 |
Irene Sandiford-Garner (born 4 August 1961) is a Barbadian politician, journalist, businesswoman and activist, who is a member of the Democratic Labour Party and national delegate to the Inter-American Commission of Women.
Early life and education
Sandiford-Garner was born in the United Kingdom and moved to Barbados at the age of eight.
She grew up in Saint Andrew Parish, and received her education at St. Andrew's Girls' Primary School, Queen's College, Barbados Community College and the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill Campus. She also received a scholarship by an earlier employer, the Nation Publishing Company, to study in the US at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
Career
Sandiford-Garner has been cited as the first female Barbadian journalist to land on Grenada after US intervention in 1983.
Between 1995 and 2006 Sandiford-Garner served as a marketing manager for Barbados's largest credit union, in which she was responsible for launching them in the US, a year after she became employed with them.
After a career in journalism and marketing, Sandiford-Garner joined the Democratic Labour Party . Since February 2008 she has been a senator and Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Culture and Community Development, and since August 2008, she has been a national delegate to the Inter-American Commission of Women. She has also been involved in the 25th Regional Women of the Church of God Symposium, various UNIFEM workshops across the Caribbean, and was a featured speaker for the 2009 International Women's Day symposium, held by the National Organization for Women (NOW).
Personal life
Sandiford-Garner is married to Granville Garner and has two sons, Fidel and Malcolm. The couple own a laundry and an entertainment management firm.
|
UiPath
|
[
"Business software companies",
"Automation software",
"Artificial intelligence companies",
"Software companies established in 2005",
"Software companies based in New York City",
"Software companies of the United States",
"Romanian companies established in 2005",
"Software companies of Romania",
"2021 initial public offerings",
"Publicly traded companies based in New York City",
"Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange"
] | 1,493 | 15,710 |
UiPath Inc. is a global software company that makes robotic process automation (RPA) software. It was founded in Bucharest, Romania, by Daniel Dines and Marius Tîrcă. Its headquarters are in New York City. The company's software monitors user activity to automate repetitive front and back office tasks, including those performed using other business software such as customer relationship management or enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.
In December 2020, the company filed confidentially for an initial public offering, and became public on April 21, 2021.
History
UiPath was founded in 2005 in Bucharest, Romania as DeskOver, by Romanian entrepreneurs Daniel Dines and Marius Tîrcă.
In 2013, the company released the first UiPath Desktop Automation product line, which gave companies RPA tools to automate manual and repetitive back office tasks.
In 2015, the company changed its name to UiPath. Also in 2015, after receiving seed funding from Accel Partners and earlier investors, the company also opened offices in London, New York City, Bangalore, Paris, Singapore, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo.
By April 2016, the company had released its Front Office and Back Office Server suites, and also released its Studio Community Edition. Within six months, the company had 10,000 active members, and more than 250 enterprise customers.
In 2017, UiPath reported 590 employees and moved its headquarters to New York to be closer to its international customer base.
In October 2019, UiPath announced the acquisition of Ukrainian process documentation company StepShot and Dutch process mining company ProcessGold. Also in October, the company announced UiPath Explorer, a new product using technology from the acquired companies; a robot communication tool called UiPath Apps; a low code robot programming tool called UiPath StudioX; an embedded analytics tool called UiPath Insights; and UiPath Connect, a tool that allowed every employee to find new processes to automate.
In November of the same year, the company reported it had 5,000 customers worldwide, and a developer community of more than 500,000 people. In November, the company was ranked first in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500.
In March 2021, UiPath acquired Cloud Elements, an interconnectivity platform to advance API-based automation capabilities.
In April 2021, UiPath raised $1.3 billion in an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in one of the largest US software IPOs in history.
In July 2022, UiPath acquired Re:infer, a natural language processing developer, for an undisclosed sum.
In March 2025, UiPath acquired Peak, a Manchester-headquartered AI company specializing in agentic solutions for inventory and pricing optimization, for an undisclosed sum.
Products
UiPath develops software to automate repetitive digital tasks normally performed by people. The technology combines AI computer vision for reading screens with APIs, and gives users access to pre-built automation components that can be combined to automate routine processes. Its earlier products simplified tasks performed using other business software such as CRM or ERP systems, in internal and back-office areas like accounting, human resources paperwork, and claims processing. Newer applications of the company's software include coordinating with artificial intelligence systems to simplify repetitive front office tasks including customer management.
UiPath's main product is the UiPath Automation Platform. The platform combines a family of low-code visual integrated development environment (IDE) products called Studio for process creation, with client-side agents called Robots that execute those processes. The processes are deployed, monitored and managed remotely with a central management tool called Orchestrator.
UiPath also hosts the UiPath Academy, to provide job training and certification in the field of robotic process automation.
+WhenFunding raisedValuationWho and notesAugust 2015US$1.6 million.UiPath closed an initial seed funding round led by the Earlybird Venture Capital, with Credo Ventures and Seedcamp as backers.April 2017$30 million investment.One of the biggest Series A rounds of funding in Europe, led by Accel. Previous investors Earlybird Venture Capital, Credo Ventures and Seedcamp also joined.March 6, 2018$153 million investment$1.1 billionfrom Accel, CapitalG, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.September 18, 2018$225 million$3 billion valuationFunding round led by CapitalG and Sequoia Capital.April 30, 2019$568 million$7 billion (claimed by the company after the funding round)Series D round of funding led by hedge fund Coatue Management, with participation from Alphabet's CapitalG, Sequoia, Accel, Madrona Venture Group, IVP, Dragoneer, Wellington, Sands Capital, and funds advised by T. Rowe Price & Associates.July 13, 2020$225 Million$10.2 Billion..December 17, 2020..UiPath filed a confidential draft registration statement with the United States Security and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.February 1, 2021$750 million$35 billion (post-money valuation)Series F funding.
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Bank of America Corporate Center
|
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"César Pelli buildings",
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"Uptown Charlotte",
"Bank company headquarters in the United States"
] | 2,454 | 19,704 |
The Bank of America Corporate Center is an 871 ft (265 m) skyscraper in Uptown Charlotte, North Carolina. Designed by Argentine architect César Pelli and HKS Architects, and best known as the headquarters of the namesake Bank of America, it has been the tallest building in North Carolina since its 1992 construction, the 51st-tallest building in the United States, and the 174th-tallest building in the world.
Sometimes locally referred to as the "Taj McColl" after former Bank of America CEO Hugh McColl, who was responsible for the tower's construction, on a clear day the tower is visible to the naked eye from away.
Amenities
Ben Long Frescoes
Located in the Corporate Center's lobby are three frescoes that measure each and are the largest secular fresco in the United States. Created by North Carolinian artist Ben Long and a team of nine artists, the frescoes were completed in approximately four months in 1992. The three frescoes are a triptych, three related works, which was inspired by Shingon. The first panel Making/Building, on left, depiction of the construction of the Corporate Center. A row of workers holding golden spades appear at the bottom, while at the top is another worker, a leader, holds a spade as he gazes into the distance towards a figure asleep on the hill. The second panel Chaos/Creativity, at center, depicts a jostling crowd of figures of various occupations, while a circle of six nude figures spin above the crowd, creating a contrast. The third panel Planning/Knowledge, on right, is a portrait of a young boy, geometric shapes, a pyramid, people in the lower-left corner in a discussion, a dancing girl, and a figure sitting by a burning tree.
Blumenthal Performing Arts Center
Connected to the Corporate Center, along East 5th Street, the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center contains three performance halls: Belk Theater, Booth Playhouse, and Stage Door Theater.
Founders Hall
Connected to the Corporate Center, Founders Hall is a large vaulted atrium that features red-brown marble floors and a water fountain. Ringed around it are two levels of retail and restaurants, which are part of the Overstreet Mall, and is connected by skybridges to neighboring Bank of America Center, One South at The Plaza, and Truist Center.
History
Announcement
On Wednesday, December 10, 1986, North Carolina National Bank announced that it would construct what would become the Corporate Center. Jointly developed with Charter Properties, the project was initially announced as a 50 story tower to be constructed with a 350-room hotel and what would become the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center. The initial design for the 50 story tower was created by Charlotte-based Odell Associates. Its design featured a circular tower complete with a Greek cross lying flat on top to pay homage to the intersection of Trade and Tryon.
Additionally, its construction resulted in the demolition of an entire city block bound by North Tryon, East Trade, North College and East 5th Streets. The most notable buildings lost in its construction were the Belk department store, constructed in 1908, along East Trade and the Efird's department store, constructed in 1922, on North Tryon.
Design competition
On Monday, July 20, 1987, NCNB announced Lincoln Property as a general partner for the project. With the development team set, the process of hiring an architect of the project commenced in August 1987.
The architectural firms that competed for the job included:
I.M. Pei of New York City
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of Chicago
Cesar Pelli & Associates of New Haven, Connecticut
HKS Architects of Dallas
John Burgee Architects of New York City
WZMH Group of Dallas
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates of New York City
On Friday, September 25, 1987, the Cesar Pelli design was announced by NCNB Chairman Hugh McColl as being selected for the project. Additionally at the press conference it was revealed that the tower would be between 55-60 stories tall, sheathed in granite and be officially named the NCNB Corporate Center.
After winning the contract, its design was unveiled eight months later to the public on Tuesday, June 14, 1988. The final design was the 60 floor tower seen today. It features a granite base along North Tryon Street followed by a facade of rosy beige granite and silver glass rising complete with curved sides. The tower gradually tapers through a series of six setbacks at the 13th, 44th and 53rd floors on the corners and at the 47th, 56th and 60th floors on the face as it reaches the tip of its crown above Tryon Street.
On Tuesday, January 3, 1989, demolition commenced on the block where the tower would eventually rise. The demolition work would take just over seven months to complete before excavation could commence. Site preparation would continue from August through November. During the excavation for the foundation, contractors found threads and flakes of gold embedded within pieces of granite removed from the site. The discovery was not unexpected as Charlotte was the center of America's first gold rush during the 1830s.
On November 19, 1989, the initial concrete pour was completed signaling the beginning of actual construction.
The mat foundation consists of a thick slab containing of concrete and 150 tons of reinforcing steel at the center of the tower. The foundation reaches below Tryon Street at its deepest point with the tower being supported by 36 concrete and steel piers. These piers are able to withstand the placed upon them by the structure.
After only a couple of months, construction was temporarily halted after Hurricane Hugo slammed Charlotte with winds causing some damage on-site on Friday, September 22, 1989.
By November 1990, the tower had reached its 30th floor and as a result had risen to being the 5th tallest within Charlotte. On Wednesday, March 20, 1991, the tower officially became both Charlotte's and North Carolina's tallest when it reached a height of at its 47th floor to surpass the tall One First Union Center. The tower was officially topped-out on Wednesday, October 2, 1991 with the final concrete pour completed. From this point, the tall crown was installed with its completion coming in December bringing the tower to its final height.
By January 1992, the tower had since been renamed the NationsBank Corporate Center to reflect the bank's name change from NCNB to NationsBank in summer 1991. On May 1, the first tenants moved into the tower with its inaugural crown lighting taking place on May 9.
Completed in July 1992, its official dedication ceremony took place on Saturday, October 17, 1992. The celebrations that day included live entertainment, rappellers from Fort Bragg's 16th Military Police Brigade rappelling the height of the tower and a fireworks show.
Since its completion, the Bank of America Corporate Center has been the world headquarters for what is now Bank of America. NationsBank bought BankAmerica Corporation in 1998, changed its name to Bank of America and sold BankAmerica's headquarters at 555 California Street, then the Bank of America Center, in San Francisco. Moore & Van Allen and Ernst & Young are also tenants in the tower.
The Bank of America Corporate Center's crown shaped spire is the focal point of the building and it makes it stand out architecturally. Its spire does not reflect from the outside like the Chrysler Building or any others; it shines from within and instead of stainless steel there is glass illuminated by floodlights, making it stand out from the many world skyscrapers. Bank of America began shining the top of the crown shaped spire from white to blue in honor of the Carolina Panthers who were NFC champions in the 2003–2004 NFL season. In 2017 it was announced LEDs had been installed in the spire.
On July 20, 2005 Ken Lewis, then CEO and Mr. Cyprian White of the Credit Bureau of the Bank of America, announced the construction of a brand new 150 key Ritz-Carlton and LEED certified 40 story office retail complex located adjacent to the Bank of America Corporate Center.
FAA controversy
On May 15, 1989, a ruling by the Federal Aviation Administration stated that the tower's height would potentially jeopardize some flights taking off and landing at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. The ruling came even though Charlotte's dominant airline, USAir, and airport officials had determined that the tower was not a hazard. A June 12 appeal filed with the regional FAA office in Atlanta upheld the original ruling resulting in the case being appealed to Washington. Although the FAA could not force NCNB to halt construction of the tower, its "declaration of hazard to air navigation" could have potentially cost the city millions in federal airport grants as well as impeding the ability of NCNB to secure insurance for the tower upon its completion.
By December 1989, the issue was resolved when the FAA ruled that slight changes in air-traffic procedures around the building would resolve the hazard posed by the tower. With the influence of both U.S. representative Alex McMillan and Senator Ernest Hollings, the reversal of the original ruling was made after further review by the FAA. Since its construction, there has not been an incident involving an aircraft and the tower.
See also
List of Skyscrapers
World's tallest structures
List of tallest buildings by U.S. state
List of tallest buildings in Charlotte
List of tallest buildings in North Carolina
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J. Lee Nicholson
|
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"Columbia University faculty",
"Writers from Trenton, New Jersey",
"Economists from New Jersey"
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Jerome Lee (J. Lee) Nicholson (1863 – November 2, 1924) was an American accountant, industrial consultant, author and educator at the New York University and Columbia University, known as pioneer in cost accounting. He is considered in the United States to be the "father of cost accounting."
Nicholson most important contributions to cost accounting consisted of "emphasizing cost centres and the measuring of profits for individual departments based on machine hour rates." Also he helped establishing the National Association of Cost Accountants (NACA) in 1920, which resulted into the Institute of Management Accountants.
Biography
Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Nicholson grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After attending common school and business college, he started in industry. In his spare time he studied accountancy, and eventually in 1901 he obtained his Certified Public Accountant license for the State of New York.
Nicholson had started his career at the Keystone Bridge Company, where he worked his way up from office boy to assistant at the engineering department. In drawing up plans for the company foreman and superintendent, he started to develop his interest in cost accounting. At the age of 21, in 1884, he moved to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company where he had obtained an accounting position. Around 1900 Nicholson started his own accountancy and consultancy firm J. Lee Nicholson and Company, specialized in cost systems for manufacturing organizations.
During World War I he served at the U. S. Ordnance Department as supervising cost accountant in 1917–18. He was promoted to the rank of Major, and kept using his rank in public life, signed his work with Major J. Lee Nicholson, and is remembered by that name. Previous to this position at the Ordnance Department, he was chief of the Division of Cost Accounting of the Department of Commerce. The filling of these positions gave him ample opportunity to become familiar with the war contract situation in its accounting aspects. In the summer of 1917 he was chairman of a conference of delegates from the War, Navy, and Commerce Departments, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Council of National Defense. This conference, in a pamphlet issued July 81, 1917, made certain recommendations regarding government contracts, and these recommendations are presented verbatim in Nicholson and Rohrbach's Cost Accounting (1919).
Nicholson has been active in accountancy societies since the early 1900s. He joined the New York State Society of CPAs in 1902, where he became its first vice-president, and served as its president. In 1906 he also joined the American Association of Public Accountants. In 1920 Nicholson was founding president of the National Association of Cost Accountants (NACA) founded in Buffalo, New York, the forerunner of the Institute of Management Accountants
Nicholson authored several books, including "Nicholson on Factory Organization and Costs" published in 1909, "Cost Accounting Theory and Practice" in 1913, and "Cost Accounting" in 1920 and several papers. All three books were published in multiple editions.
Due to his ill-health he retired and moved to California in 1922, where two years later he died suddenly November 2, 1924 in San Francisco.
Work
Early 20th century, when Nicholson started published his first work, the development towards modern cost accounting was well underway for two decades. Chatfield (2014) summarized that "After hundreds of years of painfully slow progress, cost accounting took off during the 1880s. Between 1885 and 1920, the essentials of modern cost technique were formulated and to some extent standardized in practice. Workable overhead allocation methods were devised, procedures were developed for integrating cost and financial accounts, and standard costing became routinized."
Chandra and Paperman (1976) specified, that "serious studies in cost accounting started only in the 1890s with the writings of Metcalfe, Garcke and Fells, Norton, Lewis, and later with Church, Nicholson and Clark. They were truly the pioneers who introduced new cost concepts like fixed and variable costs, standard cost, cost centers, relevant costs, etc. in the literature. The development of cost accounting in this period was undoubtedly slow. In addition, cost accounting tried to adapt itself within the framework of financial accounting. Part of the delay in the establishment of cost accounting concepts may be due to the tendency of cost accountants to keep the methods they had developed within their own firms secret." Nicholson and Rohrbach (1919) specified that most work on cost accounting was written in the last decade, stating that "more than 90% of this literature has been published in the last decade, and fully 75% in the last five years."
More specifics about Nicholson's role Chatfield (2014) noticed, that "Nicholson was less an innovator than a synthesizer. His main contribution was to organize, improve, and propagate this new knowledge as it spread from a tiny minority of pioneering firms to the vast majority of manufacturers who still had no formal cost accounting systems at the beginning of the twentieth century."
Nicholson in Factory Organization and Costs, 1909
Purpose
In 1909 Nicholson published his first book, entitled "Nicholson on Factory Organization and Costs". In the preview he explained that this work was primarily intended as a handbook for manufacturers, who are interested in "modern methods of organization and systems"; for accountants and cost specialists as a book of reference; and also as a textbook on cost accounting for the student.
It was also Nicholson intention to outline and explain all the best known methods of Factory Organization, that relate to Cost Finding in such a manner as to enable the manufacturer to compare these methods with those in use in his own plant, in order that he may see more clearly the defects in his organization and how to remedy them. Nicholson hoped that the Public Accountant, Systematizer, and Cost Clerk would find this work to be of value as a reference in planning, devising, or changing a factory system.
Content
The work contains forty-eight chapters. Among other important topics "Organization and Cost Finding" forms the subject of one chapter. In this chapter the author summarizes the most important arguments for and against cost systems; he also shows the effect of cost system on organization, independent of cost finding, pointing out clearly the value of system to management. The second important topic dealt with is " Wage Systems." Under this head the author points out the general relation of wage systems to costs, treating of the pay-rate-system, piece work and the differential rate plan, as well as profit-sharing and stock-distribution.
The author then discusses the "Analysis of Cost Accounting", pointing out the fallacy of including selling and administrative expenses in factory costs; also criticisms of incorrect principles in distributing overhead charges. He then deals with the distribution of indirect expenses and explains the old machine rate, new machine rate, fixed machine rate, new pay rate, etc.
The fifth and sixth chapters constitute a general introduction to the subject of forms and systems and discuss such topics as principles used in forms and systems, estimated cost systems, actual cost systems, the designs and explanations relating to the conditions under which forms should be used.
Chapters seven to forty-two contain a large variety of forms (over 200). While undoubtedly a number of these forms or similar ones are to be found in ordinary treatises, nevertheless a good many, if not the majority of them, are original and have evidently been taken from actual experience. The author elucidates and fully explains the use of all the forms given and the advantages that can be derived from them. The forms are in large clear type and well arranged. And finally, the last chapters treat of mechanical office appliances.
Analyses of cost accounting
In the third chapter Nicholson described that in his days there was still a significant lack of knowledge on the subject of factory costs. Although the importance and desirability of accurate methods of ascertaining the cost of production is generally conceded, and while much attention has been devoted to this subject, and large sums of money expended annually in perfecting cost keeping records, there is a general lack of knowledge in many instances of the principles involved; and the problem now in hand is to present an analysis of the elements that go to make cost, and to indicate the lines along which methods must be devised to gather and classify the facts that are used in its actual determination. The accuracy and effectiveness with which this is done rests on, (1) the principles involved, and (2) the methods used.
Nicholson explained, that the elements that comprise the cost in all manufacturing enterprises are made up of three principal divisions:
Material : Direct material is that element of material that enters into the product itself and can be charged accurately to the article. Indirect material consists of such material as factory supplies used in the processes, but which do not enter into the product itself. These cannot be charged directly to any one article, but must be distributed over the number of articles affected by their use.
Labor : direct labor is limited to that labor which is actually expended on producing the article manufactured. All forms of labor, such as repairing, handling, supervising, etc., that are not engaged directly on the article itself, are designated as indirect labor. As in the case of indirect material, the expense of this non-productive labor is distributed over that part of the production that is indirectly affected by it.
Indirect Expense : Indirect expense, together with indirect material and indirect labor, compose the last element of Cost, which is sometimes called "Burden" and sometimes "Overhead"; and this large element of cost must be distributed accurately, by some known ratio, over the production^ if correct costs are to be obtained.
The elements, that comprise the cost can be graphically depicted (see image). Beside the here three listed principal divisions, it mentions the selling and administrative expenses, together compromising the total expenses.
Forms and systems for control of operations
The biggest part of Nicholson in Factory Organization and Costs, is devoted the description of a control system of operations, which relies on a series of forms, and accompanying procedures. Nicholson explained:
CHAPTERS VII to XXXI, inclusive, are devoted to the explanation and illustration of the various forms which may be introduced in a manufacturing business. The forms shown are in most cases similar to forms that are to-day in successful operation in factory systems that have been devised by the author. These forms have been used in a number of plants manufacturing different products, and it is believed that in their entirety they cover most of the important conditions which will be found to exist in any one plant.This does not mean that these forms are submitted to the business man or accountant as being absolutely orthodox in design and admitting of no change. No one form is adaptable to all lines of manufacture or accounting, and even in the same line of business the same form cannot be used successfully in every instance, as the volume of business, the conditions of manufacture, and the policy of the management, so far as the plan of organization is involved, would make this impracticable...
The forms and designs were to be used in connection with the several systems in the Factory Organization. Nicholson introduced three of these systems in advance as follows:
ESTIMATED COST SYSTEMS : In order to assist those who, instead of using an actual cost system, estimate their costs and keep their general accounts in the books in such a way as to make it difficult to form any opinion as to the accuracy of these estimates at the end of the year or at any other time, several methods calculated to aid in such case will be found in the chapters on this subject...
ACTUAL COST SYSTEM : The importance of this subject, while being generally conceded, is nevertheless sadly neglected, and the only explanation that can be given is that either the business man and his assistants are not able to inaugurate such a system, or the expense that might be involved prevents him from taking any action in this direction. This is the only logical explanation that can be offered where the importance of the matter is conceded and admits of no argument or difference of opinion...
STOCK SYSTEM : Although it is not necessary to inaugurate a perpetual inventory in order to obtain costs, yet it is advisable to do so whenever possible, as a safeguard to prevent waste of material, theft, or losses from any other causes; and also to guard against over-buying or failure to carry in stock such materials as are neces sary for the operation of the plant...
The whole series of forms presented in the work is summarized in a single sheet (see image). They are presented in 24 classes, covering operations from purchasing, material handling, stock keeping, time tickets, and production records, to cost records, further accounting operations, to drawing patterns and monthly reports. It showed building blocks of the information architecture.
Classification of factory accounts
As mentioned in the introduction, Nicholson helped standardize cost accounting practice," and contributed to the introduction of standard costing. A basic building block in this effort is the classification of the accounting practices and factory procedures and reporting. Nicholson kept developing these classifications in his 1909, 1913 and 1919 books. In his 1909 "Factory Organization and Costs" he introduced the classification of the general ledger and of the operating ledger:
Nicholson (1909) explained, that the first question to be considered in designing a system is the results to be obtained. If the system is to be a complete one, these results will ultimately be shown in the general accounts, which are usually contained in a General Ledger.
These accounts should be so classified as to show both the financial status and earnings of an enterprise. The proper classification and arrangement of these accounts will affect to a great extent the accuracy and clearness of the results to be obtained.
It is not necessary in the case of a small enterprise to have an elaborate or extensive classification of accounts. A few will answer all purposes in such cases, providing that the purpose of each account is well defined and charges and credits to these accounts during the year are properly made.
The accounts, however, must be so kept and arranged as to admit of showing proper results, either at the end of the year or monthly, according to the general plan of the system. Additional to the classification of general and operating ledger, Nicholson gave a classification of operating departments (see image).
Nicholson (1909) continued, that in the classification of accounts herein set forth, it will be observed that the assets appear under three principal classifications namely:
Property, the fixed assets of the enterprise, and by this term is meant assets that cannot readily be converted into cash.
Deferred Charges, expenses chargeable to future operations of any nature whatever, such as unexpired insurance, prepaid interest, unusual advertising charges, catalogue expenses, or any other expenses that should not be entirely charged off during any one period but should be pro-rated over several months or fiscal periods. This can be done by charging the original amount to any account properly named under this classification, and by writing off or credit into this account the proper proportion each month, charging the amount thus written off to some suitable expense account.
Current Assets, assets of a nature that may be termed quick assets, which can be realized upon currently or from time to time, and are intended to represent the accounts from which funds can be derived to meet current liabilities.
Nicholson (1909) continued to explain the ins and out of Accounts Receivable, the Consignment Account, the Factory Account (inventory of raw material as well as finished stock and goods in process of manufacture), Liabilities, Current Liabilities, Sales, Cost of Sales, etc.
Office appliances
About the last sixty pages of his 1909 work, Nicholson devotes to a treatment of mechanical office appliances, giving illustrations of such appliances and explaining fully the use of each one. Nicholson explained that the purpose of chapter was to present information to the manufacturer which may aid him in the organization of his office and in the handling of the immense detail connected with the majority of manufacturing plants. He argued, that "the clerk hire generally necessary in the office of a large plant acts as a dead weight on the profits, and any device which promises to lighten this burden on the cost of production is at least worth careful consideration."
Nicholson made clear, that the general purpose of mechanical office devices are to lessen the indirect expenses of a factory, and as such clearly within the scope of a book on Factory Costs. The use of these devices would bring four distinct advantages:
They save time in collecting, arranging, and calculating the different items that must be handled in office management: To illustrate this it is only necessary to refer to the function of those time stamps and clocks which register the time of employees on cards in such a way that the computation of the weeks pay is only a matter of a short addition and easy multiplication. If wage tables are used even this is dispensed with, as there is then no necessity for the double handling of time records, a feature of the ordinary methods of computing pay rolls. In collecting data for finding costs, the time of beginning and completing operations is usually registered on cards by the workman himself in writing. The use of time stamps in the factory effects a considerable saving of time in this respect alone.
They obtain greater accuracy with less labor incurred. Calculating machines gain in accuracy by reason of eliminating the personal equation in the operation itself, etc.
Through their use the clerical force may be reduced, either in actual difference in numbers or in the class of clerks hired: That is to say that the man agement may often substitute a machine, with a clerk of ordinary intelligence and moderate pay, for the skilled employee whose wages are necessarily high.
They arrange the work in better form for inspection and use than do the old pen and ink methods. The printed tabular forms and loose sheet devices are surely easier to deal with than cumbersome books and written columns, which have been used from remote times in the accounts of manufacturing firms.
The presentation of these kind of office appliances was more common in management books in those days. Richard T. Dana (1876–1928) and Halbert Powers Gillette devoted a substantial part of their (1909) Construction Cost Keeping and Management to the description of numerous office appliances.
Reception
A 1909 review in the Journal of Accountancy judged, that the work was the "first American treatise on cost accounting proper, dealing with the subject from an accountant's point of view." The review continues: "The author, though keeping to the front in his treatment of important accounting principles applicable to the subject, has nevertheless written the book in clear and untechnical language... While it may be questioned whether the author has been successful in preparing a text-book for students, he has undoubtedly accomplished his prime object, that of supplying the manufacturer with a thorough treatise on a subject in which he is vitally interested, and that of giving professional accountants and cost specialists a valuable reference work."
Taylor (1979) recalled, that this 1909 work was the first presentation of a "unified treatment of the estimated cost system." Four years later Nicholson published his second book, Cost Accounting Theory and Practice, which described the "same methods for determining inventories, cost estimates, and analysis of cost of sales but he varied his verification technique."
Cost Accounting Theory and Practice, 1913
In 1913 Nicholson published Cost Accounting Theory and Practice. In this work he presented "the same methods for determining inventories, cost estimates, and analysis of cost of sales but he varied his verification technique. This book probably shows the results of his teaching experiences at New York and Columbia Universities. Mr. Nicholson also recommends, in this book, a method for estimating cost of sales at current prices which foreshadowed LIFO accounting." Hein (1959) specified:
One of the most remarkable developments in this volume is his distinction between operating departments and service or indirect departments with respect to the allocation of overhead. Another historically important contribution is the integration of the factory accounting with the general financial ledger through the use of reciprocal accounts.But Nicholson went well beyond the treatment of "what are costs" and "how to account for costs." He was deeply interested in factory organization as such, and in the relationship of the cost department with the other departments in a company. The reader can infer this emphasis from the "factory organization" part of the title of his first book. A large part of his consulting practice was devoted to problems of organization and management.
Newlove (1975) mentioned that this work was a very famous textbook, which "devoted four chapters to the allocation of burden costs to the special factory orders or to the product on its productive labor and machine (or process) methods; this emphasis greatly exceeded the space devoted to the collection, analysis and control of burden."
System of factory accounting
In the late 1880s Garcke and Fells, had developed a system of factory accounting, and pictured its elements in four complementary flow diagrams. In 1896 J. Slater Lewis further developed this system, and pictured a diagram of manufacturing accounts, in which the four diagrams were integrated into one whole. A decade later Alexander Hamilton Church (1908/10) would further develop this system by introducing the concept of production factors, and illustrated the "Principles of Organization by Production Factors" around any organization. Using this concept of production factors Church was able to simplify the system of manufacturing accounts to a "Systems of Controlling Accounts."
In the 1913 Cost accounting Nicholson & Rohrbach presented not one, but four different method of factory accounting:
Special Order System, Productive Labor Method (see image, which only shows some fragments)
Special Order System, Process or Machine Method
Product System, Productive Labor Method, and
Product System, Process or Machine Method.
In the same year Nicholson & Rohrbach published their work, in 1913/19, Edward P. Moxey published his influential textbook on accountancy, in which he also pictured the relation of stores records to commercial records.
In his 1922 Cost accounts George Hillis Newlove further multiple similar Special Order Systems (see images).
Interest costs
Previts (1974) shared Nicholson among the foremost pioneers of interest costs, such as William Morse Cole, John R. Wildman, DR Scott, D. C. Eggleston, Thomas H. Sanders and G. Charter Harrison. According to Previts "the early arguments over treatment of interest cost (both paid and imputed) spurred publication of countless articles and commentaries along with a relatively sound but since unheralded work Interest as a Cost..." Nicholson explained his point of view in this matter in the 1913 article "Interest Should be Included as Part of the Cost" in the Journal of Accountancy in which he started the following argument:
The writer firmly believes in the theory that interest on capital invested should be charged to the proper expense accounts before ascertaining the actual profit from manufacturing or trading.There is a large difference in risk between capital invested in stocks, bonds and real estate and capital invested in manufacturing or other commercial undertakings; and it is not to be disputed that capital invested in commercial enterprises is liable to far greater risk than that of capital invested in securities. It is only fair that the capital invested in commercial enterprises should have credit for at least the same return as that in securities before a trading profit is shown.The two articles in the April number of The Journal by Wm. Morse Cole and A. Hamilton Church give such logical reasons for the inclusion of interest as a part of the cost...
Previts (1974) further explained, that the opposition consisted of a "politically more prominent group, and in the sense of the outcome, the success of their position may have been in large part because of such political strength. As early as 1911, Arthur Lowes Dickinson criticized advocates of interest inclusion. Dickinson's allies included R. H. Montgomery, Jos. F. Sterrett, and George O. May."
In the 1919 Cost Accounting Nicholson and Rohrbach again deal with the admittedly controversial question as to whether it is proper to treat normal interest return on passive investment as a part of manufacturing costs, the position is taken that interest on fixed assets should be so charged, but not interest on floating capital investment. The charging of some interest item is considered necessary to the successful distribution of overhead. Or, more exactly, normal return on passive investment is regarded as overhead to be distributed among the factory products. The authors in chapter IV considers that the opposition argument is directed chiefly at the practice of making these charges as part of the regular costs, not at the mere calculation thereof for use in statistical report form in the quotation of prices. He therefore suggests (page 140) an accounting procedure supposed to meet this objection.
The opposition view in that time was presented by William Andrew Paton and Russell Alger Stevenson in their Principles of Accounting (1919). To these writers, interest charges, whether contractual or non-contractual, are distribution-of-income, not expense, items. But, they say, if these charges are to be made at all, the logical procedure would be to distribute among the factory products the normal return on all the capital invested, not only on the fixed assets. But Professors Paton and Stevenson appear to believe that the problem in hand is being solved on other than logical ground. For they say: "The use of interest charges in cost accounts on anything like a rational basis is a procedure which faces almost insurmountable practical obstacles. It is probably this fact rather than the logic of the case that is causing cost accountants to begin to recover from the interest obsession"
Uniform cost accounting
Nicholson has been recognized as a proponent of uniform cost accounting. According to Gerald Berk (1997) Nicholson was part of a group of "associationalists", which promoted the idea that "uniform cost accounting, not enforcement, was the best hope to channel competition away from cut throat pricing into product and manufacturing process improvement."
These proponents also assumed, that uniform cost accounting would increase factory efficiency. The general idea for manufacturers was, that "the more they would think systematically about 'planning, routing, and scheduling' conversion processes within the firm... the more they [would] understood about the cost of the many products they made, the more they could distinguish the profitable from the unprofitable." In this context Nicholson had argued:
If a manufacturer can not make money in competition with other concerns when using the same methods of figuring costs, he can only conclude that his goods or his marketing, or both of them, are costing him too much. His next step, naturally, is to analyse closely the methods and conditions under which he is manufacturing and marketing his product, until he finds and corrects the inefficiencies which are handicapping him so seriously...
In their 1919 "Cost Accounting" Nicholson and Rohrbach expressed the idea, that "if the accuracy of the cost estimate has been tested and the sales price of the product has been properly determined on the basis of the tested cost estimates, then the proper profit margin of the product sold would be assured. The objectives of estimate-cost accounting... were to assure proper profit for the products sold and to test their manufacturing costs in detail."
National Association of Cost Accountants
In 1919 Nicholson conceived and organized the National Association of Cost Accountants. For a start he had initiated a special meeting of the American Institute of Accountants to talk about the subject of cost accounting in manufacturing industries. This meeting was held October 13, 1919 in Buffalo, New York, and let to the founding of the National Association of Cost Accountants (NACA), forerunner of the Institute of Management Accountants.
A total of 37 accountants attended the meeting, and among them were practitioners as William B. Castenholz, Stephen Gilman, Harry Dudley Greeley, and Clinton H. Scovell and professor of accounting Edward P. Moxey Jr. A total of 97 charter members joined in the initial organization, and among them were Arthur E. Andersen, Eric A. Camman, Frederick H. Hurdman, William M. Lybrand of Coopers & Lybrand, Robert Hiester Montgomery, C. Oliver Wellington, and John Raymond Wildman.
Nicholson was elected its first President 1919–1920. He was succeeded by William M. Lybrand. In the Presidents report in the first Year book of the National Association of Cost Accountants, Nicholson explained, that the Association had started with 88 Chartered members. In the first year an additional 2.000 applications for membership had been received.
Costs accounting, 1919
State of the art of cost accounting
In the preface of the 1919 Cost Accounting Nicholson and Rohrbach gave their view on the state of the art of cost accounting in the United States.
Cost accounting, as a vital factor of successful business administration, has, in the last few years, been brought home in various ways to many manufacturers who before had never seriously appreciated its importance.The Federal Trade Commission, working for more stable conditions, has conducted a widespread campaign of education, explaining in detail what a cost accounting system is, how it is operated, and the resulting business advantages.Various manufacturers' associations have first paid skilled accountants to devise cost-finding methods suited to their special trade conditions, and then have instituted a vigorous propaganda to induce all engaged in their own particular industry to adopt them, thus making these methods uniform in the trade and securing uniformity of selling prices and the end of reckless and ignorant price-cutting.Now the government, with its need to levy war taxes and its consequent necessity for searching investigation into income and excess profits, requires that estimates and approximations as to production costs and profits shall give place to rational accounting systems giving actual figures by uniform methods.
One of the important aims of the book is to "classify the details of cost accounting so that the reader, be he accountant, manufacturer, or student, is given a well-defined idea of the forms and records required for each separate operation."
Content of Costs accounting, 1919
Nicholson and Rohrbach's Cost Accounting is a revision and extension of Nicholson's "Cost Accounting, Theory and Practice", published in 1913, and represents a forward step in its particular field. There are seven distinct parts of the book, and the last preceding statement applies particularly to the first four parts, designated as follows:
Part I, Elements and Methods of Cost-Finding;
Part II, Factory Routine and Detailed Reports;
Part III, Compiling and Summarizing the Cost Records;
Part IV, Controlling the Cost Records.
The following three parts are:
Part V, The Installation of a Cost System, is both descriptive and suggestive.
Part VI, Simplified Cost Finding Methods, is again chiefly descriptive.
Part VII, Cost-Pius Contracts, is analytical and suggestive, and contains that which will be regarded by many as the most valuable material in the volume. Chapters 31 and 32 contain the senior author's personal, not official, opinions concerning the correct accounting procedure in the handling of cost-plus contracts. In chapter 33, likewise, are found his personal opinions regarding the proper terms of cancellation of such contracts. These chapters are most timely and will be read with interest by professional accountants and contractors.
General Functions of Cost Accounting
According to Nicholson (1920) it would be a mistake, to think that the scope of cost accounting is limited to finding costs only. The functions of a cost system are as follows:
Any good cost system, properly operated, performs two distinct, though related, functions.
The first, which may be called the direct function, is that of ascertaining actual costs.
The second, or indirect function, is that of supplying, in its system of reports, the information necessary to organize the many departments of a factory into working units, and to direct their activities in accord with some definite plan.
About the relation of cost accounting and general accounting Nicholson (1920) proceeded:
Cost accounting, as a science, is a branch of general accounting. Its province is to analyze and record the cost of the various items of material, labor and indirect expense incurred in the operation of a factory, and to so compile these elements as to show the total production cost of a particular piece of work.
And furthermore: "With the cost books once established, the best modem usage is to incorporate their record in total in the general financial books. In this way the modem cost system builds up an interlocking series of accounts which furnish the material for a detailed study of the operations of a manufacturing business."
Elements and Methods of Cost-Finding
In his 1909 "Factory Organization and Costs" Nicholson already presented a first analyses regarding the relation of the cost elements to selling price, which was visualized in a diagram (see above). In his 1919 work he explained that this analyses can be part of a "uniform methods of cost-finding." This means outlining the standard principles of cost accounting and, from these principles, arriving at uniform methods of treating costs as applied to a particular industry.
Nicholson explained that the greatest advantage to be derived from uniform cost methods is that of insuring a more uniform selling price. This object would be attained, even if the uniform system were not as scientific as it should be; for if errors were made through the method established, all manufacturers would at least be figuring the same way, all would be making the same mistakes, and unfair and ignorant competition would be eliminated. Before determining the selling price of an article consideration must be given to the various elements of costs and expenses which have been classified as:
Direct material
Direct labor
Direct expenses
Indirect charges
Selling expenses
Administrative expenses
The standard cost accounting system recognized not only expenses, but also different types of costs, and eventually the selling price:
Prime Cost. The sum of the direct material cost plus the direct labor cost is known as the prime cost.
Factory Cost. The sum of the prime cost plus the indirect charges is known as the factory cost.
Total Cost. The sum of the factory cost plus the selling expenses and the administrative expenses is known as the total cost.
Selling Price. The sum of the total cost plus the profit is known as the selling price.
These gradations of cost may be further illustrated by means of the following simple diagram (diagram I), which illustrates the steps leading from the material cost to the selling price. This diagram is an extension of the analyses of cost accounting, Nicholson presented in 1909. This type of visual analytics was presented earlier by Church (1901), and became more common in introductory textbooks; see for example Webner (1911), Kimball (1914), Larson (1916), and Newlove (1923).
Nicholson continued, that in practice it is customary to allow certain deductions from the established selling prices, or from the established purchasing prices. These deductions can include trade discounts, allowances, rebates and/or cash discount. As to the analysis of total of cost elements, every cost element can be traced back to certain kind of expenses, see diagram II. This kind of diagram was also more common in those days; see for example Dana & Gillette (1909), Kimball (1914), Kimball (1917); and Eggleston & Robinson (1921).
Basic methods of cost-finding
As costs furnish the basis for determining the selling prices of the manufactured product, they naturally should be compiled so that the total cost of the job, order, or article may be readily ascertained. Actual conditions in manufacturing determine the system of cost-finding to be used, which should include :
A method of ascertaining or reporting the material, labor, and overhead costs.
A method of compiling these elements of cost.
A method of determining the total cost of the job, order, or article.
For present purposes the actual conditions which exist in manufacturing industries may be grouped or summarized in two general classes, and the methods of cost-finding applicable to these two classes may be designated as follows:
Order method of cost-finding : When the order is the tangible basis upon which the elements of cost are charged, compiled, and determined, the order method of cost-finding is generally used. In other words, under such conditions the material costs, labor costs, and a pro rata share of the factory overhead are all charged to definite factory orders, and the elements of material, labor, and overhead costs are compiled so that the total factory cost of each individual order may be determined. If a number of units are manufactured under the definite factory order, the unit article cost may be determined by dividing the total factory cost by the total quantity manufactured or produced. Definite factory orders may be issued for the manufacture of a number of units, for a single unit, or for the manufacture of certain parts of a unit.
Process method of cost-finding : Whenever the process of manufacture is continuous for regular periods of time so that the definite factory orders and jobs lose their identity and become part of a large volume of production, the material, labor, and overhead costs are chargeable to the definite processes or operations and the process method of cost-finding is used. This method is sometimes called the "product method of cost-finding." However, as the word *' product" refers more particularly to article rather than operation, the designation "process method of cost-finding" is more explicit and is preferable. This term includes the method commonly known as the "machine-cost method", for the reason that the same general principles of cost-finding apply.
Form III shows in summarized form the two basic methods of cost-finding and the industries, or departments within a plant, to which they are applicable under the conditions already described.
Factory Routine and Detailed Reports
Before it can be decided which method of cost-finding may be used in any particular plant, the manufacturing departments of the plant must be classified. In some industries the order method of cost-finding might be applicable to certain departments, and the process method of cost-finding might be applicable to the remaining departments (see diagram IV).
In designing the system of "Factory Routine and Detailed Reports" first a classification is presented of factory departments and of factory orders. Diagram 4 shows the classification of various factory departments in summarized form.
Diagram V summarizes the various kinds of factory orders which may be issued and the functions of these records. Furthermore, the system of "Factory Routine and Detailed Reports", proposed by Nicholson & Rohrbach (1919), incorporates three types of reports about the handling of material, labor and production:
Diagram VI shows the various steps in the handling of material, and the material reports which are necessary to record
material costs. Diagram VII summarizes the various kinds of labor reports and the routine of reporting. And diagram VIII summarizes the detailed items to be considered in the routine of production and the devising of production reports.
Distribution of Factory Overhead
At the turn of the 20th century, factory management was faced with the problem how overhead cost should be assigned to products, which lead to the modelling of costing systems. In the work of Nicholson the idea of cost centres was emphasizing, although he didn't coined or used the term itself. An accompanying problem was "how to distinguish between 'production' cost centres working directly for production and 'service provider' cost centres working for other centres... [to] cascade the distribution of the charges related to these cost centres." According to Garner (1954) Nicholson in (1913) as well as to Webner (1917) and Taylor, where the first to tackle this problem.
Nicholson and Rohrbach (1919) further summarized, that the factory overhead that cannot be absorbed in the article cost directly is applied indirectly in the following manner:
The elements of factory overhead cost are assigned equitably to specific departments of the factory, including productive, non-productive, and miscellaneous departments.
The total cost of the indirect departments is then transferred to, and distributed over, the productive departments on some fair basis.
The total amount of factory overhead expenses chargeable to each productive department is determined, and is then distributed over the various jobs, orders, articles, or processes.
Nicholson continued explaining about different methods of distributing overhead. Assuming the departmental method of distributing overhead has been adopted, he said, there still remains the most complex problem of all – upon what basis shall the overhead be distributed within the departments so that each job, order, or article may be charged with the portion that properly belongs to it? In those days five methods were more or less standard, applied under definite conditions of manufacture. These are:
Prime-cost method : the most simple method, which divides the total overhead expenses by the total material and labor costs, resulting in a decimal figure which is the rate to be used.
Productive-labor-cost method : based upon the principle that indirect expenses are incurred in proportion to the cost of the labor involved. To operate the plan, the total amount of overhead expenses for a definite period is divided by the total cost of the direct labor for the same period.
Productive-labor-hours method : similar as the productive-labor-cost method, but the amount of labor is measured by time and not by cost.
Machine-rate methods : All machine-rate methods are based upon the principle that overhead expense accrues in proportion to the number of hours of machine operation.
Miscellaneous methods : Various modifications and combinations of methods for the distribution of overhead have been devised to meet special conditions in different lines of business. For the most part they are "percentage" plans in some form or other.
The items which make up the factory overhead and the methods of distributing them first to departments and then to product are summarized in diagram IX.
Compiling and Summarizing the Cost Records
Further classification of cost accounting details have been made as follows:
Diagram X summarizes the information entered on different kinds of cost sheets and the method of posting and checking the data they contain, and diagram XI shows in concrete form the cost summarizing records described all of Nicholson & Rohrbach (1919). The authors noted, that the distribution record, may be used for all summary purposes. The sheets of each summary may be classified in sections in a loose-leaf binder, each section being kept separate by means of tab indexes, thus providing a means for ready reference. The folios of each section should be numbered for posting purposes.
Controlling the Cost Records
In the chapter about "General Ledger Control of Factory Accounts", Nicholson & Rohrbach explained that in large manufacturing concerns it is customary to provide a chart or a classified list of accounts showing the exact name of each and the transactions to be recorded therein. Where the classification is elaborate, it is well to use account numbers or symbols so as to facilitate ready reference to them and thus save the bookkeepers' time. The authors advise, that such a chart should be printed upon heavy paper or cardboard and hung in view of those who have occasion to refer to it frequently. Where desks are equipped with glass tops and the chart is inserted under the glass, reference can be made to it very readily.
The requirements of each concern govern the number of copies of the chart of accounts to be prepared and the members of the staff to whom they are to be given. Ordinarily it is necessary for each clerk in the accounting and cost departments to have his own copy, while an additional copy should be given to the purchasing agent and treasurer or the officer who is in charge of the accounting records. Portions of the chart of accounts may be given to the plant superintendent, production manager, factory foreman, stock clerks, and factory clerks.
The chart shown in diagram XII gives a classified list of accounts of a large manufacturing concern. Last part of the system presented are the scheme's concerning the controlling the cost records:
Diagram XIII summarizes the discussion of the factory ledger accounts. For the same reason that it is advantageous to draw up a classification sheet of the general ledger accounts of a large manufacturing plant, the factory ledger accounts may also be illustrated by means of a chart (diagram XIV). In preparing such a chart, the accounts should be given symbol numbers. It may be noted that factory ledger controlling accounts vary in number from the three simple accounts previously described to several hundred.
The arrangement of the accounts in the ledger should receive attention. While they are often arranged according to their symbol numbers, as their classification is more or less standardized according to Nicholson & Rohrbach (1919), they may be grouped in sections in the following order:
Raw material accounts
Work in process accounts
Part-finished stock accounts
Finished stock accounts
Productive labor accounts
Distributed overhead accounts
Detailed factory overhead accounts
The sections should be distinguished by means of tab indexes marked according to the classifications. Where detailed overhead accounts are kept for each department, it may be well to furnish additional tab indexes within this section marked with the departments of the plant so that the overhead accounts of one department may be readily distinguished from those of another. With these classification charts Nicholson & Rohrbach (1919) presented their idea's, which became known as the definition of cost centres.
Reception
In a 1919 review in The American Economic Review, Stanley E. Howard stated, that the materials of the volume are well organized. The reader is given a bird's eye view of the problems dealt with, and is then shown in detail the development of cost and controlling records from the various business and factory forms. The authors have taken pains to emphasize relationships, presenting frequent summary charts. Fundamentals regarding the forms for orders, reports, and records have been illustrated, and the mistake has not been made of confounding multiplicity of illustration with clarity of exposition.
The volume is intended for use by accountants, manufacturers, and students. Members of the first two groups, according to Howard (1919), would find particularly useful the information contained in the tables of approved depreciation rates for different types of assets, as well as the discussion of the relationship between Overtime and the modification of standard depreciation rates.
Howard (1919) ended his review by stating, that the issue is probably beclouded by reason of the different points of view involved. The cost accountant wishes, among other things, to furnish the selling department adequate data upon which to base a price policy. The general accountant has in mind the preparation of correct, unpadded statements of condition and of operation. For the purposes of the one certain information is needed, which by the other should be discarded. Reconciliation of the opposing ideas ought to be possible, perhaps along the lines suggested by Messrs. Nicholson and Rohrbach.
A second 1919 review by Arthur R. Burnet in the Publications of the American Statistical Association called the entire work a happy combination of theory and practical examples. Burnet found that the book is being used as a handbook in a number of organizations where cost systems were being installed or improved. The forms are illustrated and can be followed in actual practice. The chapter on the examination of the plant preparatory to the installation of a cost system, according to Burnet in those days, contained a valuable checking list which should furnish statisticians with a wealth of suggestions for the analysis of business.
A 1920 review, in the Financial World, more in particular mentioned, that "in the methods of manufacture, greater care must be exercised. The functions of a cost system are well stated by Major J. Lee Nicholson..." in his 1919 work.
Profitable Management, 1923
Nicholson last book was Profitable Management, published in 1923. A 1923 review in The Annalist commented:
The volume on "Profitable Management" by J. Lee Nicholson 's a bright star in the Ronald catalogue, and in its 117 pages it presents a vast array of worldly wisdom which should be taken to heart by men of business, great and small. For while the major part of Mr. Nicholson's counsels on the varied phases of commercial activity have reference to the more extensive industries, they are applicable to every kind of business which is called into existence for profit making...
Hein (1959) further evaluated, that "modern writers on management theory and practice would have to examine it closely to find points not now being advocated in the current literature. It contains such recommendations as the costing of clerical and selling procedures, and the setting of standards as a means for comparison and control. Even today such procedures have not been widely adopted, although, since clerical costs are increasing at a faster rate than are factory costs, such control has much greater significance at the present time than it had in the early 1920s."
Reception
Nicholson reputation as cost accounting pioneer was acknowledged in his days. A 1920 article in The Packages, mentioned that "Major J. Lee Nicholson... reputation as a cost accountant and author extends from one end of the country to the other..." Nicholson is further remembered as founder of the National Association of Cost Accountants.
In the Evolution of Cost Accounting to 1925 S. Paul Garner (1954) described a number of important contributions by Nicholson. Hein (1959) summarized:
For instance, [Nicholson] proposed a summary of requisitions as an aid in posting to stores ledgers and cost records. In this same area of accounting for raw materials, Nicholson was an exponent of the use of a true perpetual inventory system. He did not originate this idea, but brought it to a high stage of perfection, designing raw materials ledger cards which had spaces not only for amounts and values, but also for items received and requisitioned, with the balance on hand indicated."
Hein (1959) further summarized:
Garner credits Nicholson with the original development of the several methods of accounting for scrap (although some earlier pioneering work had been done in this area), and he feels that the works of subsequent writers are primarily elaborations of Nicholson's treatment. In the differentiation of the uses of, and the accounting for job order costing and process costing, Nicholson was especially farsighted, missing only the now-taken-for granted concept of equivalent production in the valuation of inventories and the calculation of the cost of goods sold. He was apparently the first individual to develop the concepts and comparative advantages of accounting for costs departmentally, on a cumulative or non-cumulative basis that is, pyramided and non-pyramided departmental costs.
According to Chatfield (2014) Nicholson's later writings "anticipated post-1920 developments in the use of cost figures for decision making and in the psychology of cost control." He explained:
[Nicholson's] experiences as head of a management consulting firm focused his attention on the relationship between cost accounting and industrial efficiency. He emphasized that cost accounting is a service function whose value depends on its usefulness to other departments. As a staff man negotiating with foremen and executives, the cost accountant must be diplomatic, yet forceful enough to take full advantage of the discipline that costing makes possible. Nicholson stressed the importance of supplying cost figures that are appropriate for each executive level, and the need to educate foremen and department heads about overhead costs as a first step toward controlling such costs. Cost accountants should give department managers comparative costs of materials, labor, overhead, production quantities, and inventories. Each production department should in turn inform the sales department how all these amounts are likely to vary in relation to changes in sales volume.
And furthermore Nicholson "refined and disseminated new knowledge about cost accounting, which had recently undergone revolutionary changes... As one of the earliest American cost accountants to teach the subject at the university level, he helped standardize practice and facilitate the interaction of ideas between academics and practitioners."
Selected publications
Nicholson, Jerome Lee. . Kohl Technical Publishing Company, 1909; 2nd ed. 1911.
Nicholson, Jerome Lee. , 1913.
Nicholson, Jerome Lee, and John Francis Deems Rohrbach. . New York: Ronald Press, 1919. ; 3rd ed. 1922.
Nicholson, Jerome Lee. . Chicago, J. Lee Nicholson Institute of Cost Accounting, c. 1920–21.
Nicholson, Jerome Lee. Profitable Management. Ronald Press Company, 1923.
Stone, William M. et al. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : David McKay company, 1925.
Articles, a selection:
Attribution
This article incorporates public domain material from: Nicholson (1909) Factory Organization and Costs; L. G. (1909); Stanley E. Howard (1919) and some other PD sources listed.
Further reading
Agami, Abdel M. Biographies of Notable Accountants. Random House, 1989.
Chatfield, Michael. " ", in: History of Accounting: An International Encyclopedia. Michael Chatfield, Richard Vangermeersch eds. 1996/2014. pages 436–7.
Taylor, Richard F. " " in: Accounting Historians Notebook, 1979, Volume 2, Number 1 (spring), pages 7–9.
Richard Vangermeersch and Robert Jordan, " ", in: Michael Chatfield, Richard Vangermeersch (eds.), The History of Accounting (RLE Accounting): An International Encyclopedia 2014. pages 334–35.
|
Indonesian 100-rupiah coin
|
[
"Indonesian rupiah",
"Currencies of Indonesia",
"Currencies of Asia"
] | 1,109 | 9,244 |
The Indonesian one hundred rupiah coin (Rp100) is a denomination of the Indonesian rupiah. First introduced in 1973 in cupronickel, it has been revised four times throughout its history, changing materials in 1991 (to aluminum-bronze) and 1999 (to aluminum). As of 2022, it is the second-lowest valued rupiah coin that is legal tender after the Rp50 coin.
First series (1973)
The 100 rupiah coin was first introduced in 1973 as a cupronickel coin weighing . It had a diameter of and was thick. Its obverse featured the denomination ("100") in its center with the lettering "BANK INDONESIA," two stars, and the mint year (1973). Meanwhile, its reverse depicts a rumah gadang, a traditional house from West Sumatra, as well as the lettering "Rp 100" on top of it. Its edge was smooth and featured the lettering "BANK INDONESIA". 252,868,000 coins were minted bearing this date. These coins were demonetized on June 25, 2002, and was redeemable in general banks until June 24, 2007, and in Bank Indonesia offices up to June 24, 2012.
Second series (1978)
In 1978, this coin was updated, now as a FAO circulating commemorative coin. The rumah gadang was moved to the coin's obverse, while its reverse now features a depiction of a gunungan, an element in Javanese wayang, over a depiction of a globe. At the same time, the lettering gets updated, with its obverse now featuring the letterings "BANK INDONESIA" and "SERATUS RUPIAH" while keeping the two stars, and its reverse now featuring the lettering "HUTAN UNTUK KESEJAHTERAAN" (FORESTRY FOR PROSPERITY) and the denomination as well as the mint year (1978). This coin was also made lighter and thinner, as it now weighs (as opposed to the 1973 coin's ) and was thick (instead of the 1973 series' ); however, its diameter remained the same at . Furthermore, the "BANK INDONESIA" lettering, once etched to its edge, was removed; with the edge itself being made reeded. 907,773,000 of these coins were minted in total. These coins were taken out of circulation on June 25, 2002, the same date as the 1973 coins, and were redeemable in commercial banks until June 24, 2007, and in Bank Indonesia offices until June 24, 2012.
Third series (1991-1998)
In 1991, this coin was updated for the second time. Now minted in aluminum-bronze, it had a diameter of , thickness of , and a weight of . It had a smooth edge with no lettering, as opposed to the 1978 design's reeded edge and the 1973 design's carving of "BANK INDONESIA." Its obverse featured the national emblem Garuda Pancasila, the lettering "BANK INDONESIA" (now made smaller and placed on the bottom), and the mint year (1991-1998), while its reverse featured a depiction of karapan sapi, a Madurese bull-racing event, the denomination (Rp 100), and the lettering "Karapan Sapi." These coins were demonetized on November 30, 2006, and was redeemable in commercial banks until November 29, 2011, and in Bank Indonesia offices until November 29, 2016.
Mintage figures of this coin are as follows:
Fourth series (1999-2005)
The coin was updated for the third time in 1999, with its material switched to aluminum. It had a diameter of , thickness of , weight of , and a smooth edge. While its obverse remained unchanged as the 1991 series, its reverse now featured a depiction of the palm cockatoo (Probosciger aterrimus) as well as the lettering "KAKAKTUA RAJA" (PALM COCKATOO) to its upper right and denomination (100 RUPIAH) to its lower right.
Fifth series (2016)
As part of the release of the then-new National Heroes series of rupiah coins and banknotes on December 19, 2016, the coin was updated for the fourth time. Its obverse now not only features the national emblem (now moved to the upper left), but also a depiction of Prof. Dr. Ir. Herman Johannes to its right, as well as the letterings "REPUBLIK INDONESIA" on top of both images and "Prof. Dr. Ir. HERMAN JOHANNES" to its bottom. Meanwhile, its reverse now featured a simple depiction of the denomination, the lettering "BANK INDONESIA," and the mint year (2016).
See also
Indonesian rupiah
Coins of the rupiah
|
Source Code Capital
|
[
"Chinese companies established in 2014",
"Financial services companies established in 2014",
"Investment management companies of China",
"Venture capital firms of China"
] | 655 | 7,123 |
Source Code Capital () is a Beijing-based venture capital firm founded in 2014. The firm invests in companies from various fields such as information technology, biotechnology, retail and manufacturing.
Source Code Capital was founded in 2014 by Yi Cao, a computer science graduate from Tsinghua University and a vice president at Sequoia Capital China.
Investors of the firm include pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, college endowments, charities and private equity firms.
The firm runs a peer and mentor alliance called "Code Class" each year, which consists of over 300 entrepreneurs and investors. Within the community, members can exchange experiences, resources and feedback to one another. Notable members of Code Class include Zhang Yiming of ByteDance and Wang Xing of Meituan.
The firm is noted to have invested in some of China's largest startups such as ByteDance, Meituan, Li Auto and Niu Technologies.
In July 2023, Source Code Capital shut down Source Code Yisu, a seed funding programme. It was speculated this was due to factors such as regulatory scrutiny, declining China–United States relations and slowing economic growth.
Funds
FundVintage YearCommitted Capital ($m)TVPI by 2022DPI by 2022Source Code Fund I2014USD 1008.41.17Source Code Fund II2015USD 1503.30.5Source Code Fund III2017USD 2601.50.05Source Code Venture Fund IV &
Source Code Growth Fund I2019USD 5702.10Source Code Venture Fund V &
Source Code Growth Fund II2021USD 1,0001.20
Notable investments
ByteDance
Guazi.com
Meituan
Li Auto
Niu Technologies
|
Raiffeisen Bank (Ukraine)
|
[
"Banks of Ukraine",
"Ukrainian companies established in 1992",
"Banks established in 1992",
"Companies based in Kyiv",
"Raiffeisen Zentralbank",
"European Bank for Reconstruction and Development joint ventures",
"Companies in the PFTS index"
] | 612 | 4,999 |
The Public JSC Raiffeisen Bank (, formerly Raiffeisen Bank Aval) is a commercial bank in Ukraine and is a subsidiary of Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International. In early 2024, it was confirmed by the National Bank of Ukraine as one of the country's systemically important banks.
, the bank's service network included 503 branches, 2525 ATMs and 414 payment terminals. The bank has issued 4.9 million payment cards, Raiffeisen Bank also owns one of the largest networks of trading POS terminals with more than 23,000 units.
History
The bank was registered on 27 March 1992, and since 2006 has been a subsidiary of Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International. In 2015 the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development acquired a 30% stake in Raiffeisen Bank Aval, increasing its capital. Raiffeisen Bank International has a stake of 68.26% in the bank.
As of 2018 the fourth-largest bank in the country and the largest bank with foreign capital. Following a government bailout of the country's largest bank at the turn of 2016 and 2017, Raiffeisen Bank Aval was the only bank in the top 5 not owned by the government of Ukraine.
It was headed from 2005 until 2019 by Volodymyr Lavrenchuk.
As of 1 January 2018, the bank's net assets amounted to more than ₴72 billion, and in terms of their size. Raiffeisen ranks third in the retail banking market in Ukraine.
In June 2021 the bank changed its name from “Raiffeisen Bank Aval” officially to “Raiffeisen Bank”.
Banking network
At the end of 2013, the national network included 798 operating units:
711 full-featured branches providing a full list of standard banking services to individuals and clients of microbusiness, small, medium and corporate businesses;
85 commission branches serving private clients, carrying out cash transactions;
2 branches serving VIP-clients.
The vast majority of Raiffeisen Bank Aval's branches were fully functional, i.e. they provide a full range of standard banking services to private and corporate clients, as well as small and micro businesses. In addition, the bank's network included commission branches on the territory of the State Customs Service of Ukraine and in representative offices / stores of MTS Ukraine, the bank's corporate client.
See also
List of banks in Ukraine
|
List of largest companies in Pakistan
|
[
"Lists of largest private companies by country",
"Lists of companies of Pakistan",
"Companies of Pakistan",
"Economy of Pakistan-related lists"
] | 903 | 8,353 |
Following is a list of largest companies in Pakistan:
Conglomerates
Group name Headquarters Publicly listed companies Reference(s) Adamjee Group Karachi – Atlas Group Lahore Atlas Honda, Honda Atlas, Atlas Battery, Atlas Insurance AKD Group Karachi AKD Hospitality, AKD Securities Arif Habib Group Karachi Arif Habib Limited, Aisha Steel Mills, Fatima Fertilizer, Javedan, Power Cement, Safe Mix Concrete Askari Group Rawalpindi Askari General Insurance, Askari Life Assurance Bibojee Group Karachi Bannu Woollen Mills, Gammon Pakistan, Ghandhara Automobiles Limited, Ghandhara Industries Limited, Ghandhara Tyre, Janana De Malucho Textile Mills, The Universal Insurance Company Dawood Group Karachi Engro Holdings, Dawood Lawrencepur Descon Lahore Altern Energy, Descon Oxychem Fauji Group Rawalpindi Askari Bank, Fauji Cement, Fauji Fertilizer, Fauji Foods, Mari Petroleum Hashoo Group Karachi Pakistan Services Limited, Exide Batteries Pakistan Habib Group Karachi Agriauto Industries, Bank AL Habib, HabibMetro, Habib Insurance, Habib Rice, Habib Sugar Mills, Shabbir Tiles, Toyota Indus, Thal Limited Lakson Group Karachi Century Insurance, Century Paper, Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan, Merit Packaging Lucky Group Karachi Gadoon Textile Mills, Lucky Cement, Lucky Core Industries JS Group Karachi BankIslami, JS Bank, Jahangir Siddiqui & Co. Nishat Group Lahore Adamjee Insurance, Adamjee Life Assurance, DG Cement, Lalpir Power, MCB Bank, MCB Funds, Nishat Mills Limited, Nishat Chunian Power, Nishat Power Limited, Pakgen Power Packages Group Lahore Packages Limited Saigol GroupLahoreMaple Leaf Cement, Pak Elektron Limited, Kohinoor Energy Limited, Kohinoor Industries Limited, Kohinoor Mills Limited, Kohinoor Power Company Limited, Kohinoor Textile Mills Limited, Saritow Spinning Mills Limited
By market capitalization
Below is the list of largest companies by market capitalization based on the year-end closing, 31 December 2024:
Rank Name Market cap (US$) Headquarters Industry Reference(s) 1 Oil & Gas Development Company Islamabad Petroleum 2 Mari Petroleum Islamabad Petroleum 3 Pakistan Petroleum Limited Karachi Petroleum 4 United Bank Limited Karachi Banking 5 Fauji Fertilizer Company Rawalpindi Fertilizer 6 Meezan Bank Karachi Banking 7 Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan Karachi Fast-moving consumer goods 8 Pakistan Tobacco Company Islamabad Tobacco 9 Nestlé Pakistan Lahore Fast-moving consumer goods 10 MCB Bank Lahore Banking 11 Lucky Cement Karachi Cement 12 Engro Fertilizers Karachi Fertilizer 13 Habib Bank Limited Karachi Banking 14 Engro Corporation Karachi Conglomerate 15 Bestway Cement Islamabad Cement 16 Pakistan State Oil Karachi Petroleum 17 Standard Chartered Pakistan Karachi Banking 18 Systems Limited Lahore Information technology 19 Pakistan Oilfields Limited Rawalpindi Petroleum 20 Hub Power Company Karachi Power generation
Pakistan
*Largest
companies
|
Northern Rock
|
[
"Northern Rock",
"Virgin Money",
"Bank failures",
"Defunct banks of the United Kingdom",
"Companies based in Newcastle upon Tyne",
"Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange",
"British companies established in 1965",
"Banks established in 1965",
"Banks disestablished in 2012",
"Northern England"
] | 6,204 | 59,465 |
Northern Rock, formerly the Northern Rock Building Society, was a British bank. Based at Regent Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, Northern Rock was originally a building society. It demutualised and became Northern Rock bank in 1997, when it floated on the London Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol NRK.
During the early 2000s the company borrowed substantially to fund mortgages, with the aim of ambitious growth, and also donated large amounts to charitable purposes and communities directly and through sponsorships. Due to the 2008 financial crisis, it was unable to produce income as expected from its loans, and was at risk of being unable to repay the amounts it had borrowed. The news that the bank had approached the government for support with its liquidity led within 24 hours to a public lack of confidence and concerns that savings were at risk, and the bank failed following a bank run as people rushed to withdraw their savings. It was the first British bank in 150 years to fail due to a bank run.
Unable to find a commercial buyer or secure the further government support needed, it was taken into public ownership in 2008, as an alternative to insolvency. By that point the government had extended liquidity support of tens of billions of pounds to Northern Rock. An inquiry concluded that the board had failed to properly protect the bank from the risks inherent in its strategy, or to restrain the executive directors where required, therefore although the bank had sufficient assets, it had become vulnerable.
The branch operations were eventually returned to private ownership when the branches and other retail operations were acquired by Virgin Group in 2012, being rebranded as Virgin Money the same year. The mortgage book of higher risk assets was renamed Northern Rock (Asset Management) and later "NRAM plc", and remained in public ownership until it was sold to Cerberus Capital Management in 2016.
the Northern Rock Shareholder Action Group are continuing their campaign to obtain compensation for the shares that were taken over by the Government when the bank was nationalised during the 2008 financial crisis.
History
Northern Rock Building Society was formed in 1965 by the merger of two North East of England building societies, both of which were based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne: the Northern Counties Permanent Building Society (established in 1850) and the Rock Building Society (established in 1865). During the following 30 years, Northern Rock expanded through the acquisition of 53 smaller building societies, most notably the North of England Building Society in 1994.
Along with many other UK building societies in the 1990s, Northern Rock chose to demutualise as a building society and float on the stock exchange as a bank. Throughout this period an argument against demutualisation was that the assets of a mutual society were built up by its members throughout its history, not just by current members, and that demutualisation was a betrayal of the community that the societies were created to serve. Northern Rock chose to address these concerns by establishing the Northern Rock Foundation, which funded community-based projects. At its Stock Exchange flotation on 1 October 1997 (when it converted from a building society to a bank), Northern Rock distributed shares to members with savings accounts and mortgage loans; the flotation share price was £4.51908. It joined the stock exchange as a minor bank.
In 2000, it was promoted to the FTSE 100 Index. After the 2007 crisis, it was demoted to the FTSE 250 in December of that year, before suspension upon nationalisation.
On 14 September 2007 the bank sought and received a liquidity support facility from the Bank of England, following problems in the credit markets caused by the 2008 financial crisis. The bank was more exposed than others to restrictions in the supply of credit because of the way it had funded its expansion. It had borrowed short term on the wholesale money markets and lent long term for mortgages on property. This was a policy well known to cause failures (see Banking School Theory of Crises under Financial Crises) when short-term interest rates rose above long-term rates and insufficient hedging was in place.
The bank was nationalised at 00:01 on 22 February 2008 following two unsuccessful bids to take over the bank, neither being able to fully commit to repayment of taxpayers' money. In doing so, the Government effectively took ownership of the insolvent institution away from its shareholders, without reimbursement. The media reported cases where some shareholders had their life savings in the shares, which were taken from them. The shares had already lost over 90% of their value prior to nationalisation, and were valued at nil in an independent valuation process, as the government had not guaranteed aid. This would later form part of shareholder's action to seek compensation as, at that point, the aid was certain and the company had never stopped operating as a going concern.
A substantial reduction in the staff was announced in 2008, with 800 people made compulsorily redundant in July of that year, and another 500 taking voluntary redundancy. The bank planned to make another 700 redundant by 2011.
On 1 January 2010 the bank was split into two parts, assets and banking. In June 2011 the bank was officially put up for sale back to the private sector, and on 17 November 2011 it was announced that Virgin Money was going to buy Northern Rock plc for £747 million up front and other potential payments of up to £280 million over the next few years. The sale went through on 1 January 2012. The government said it had no plans to sell Northern Rock (Asset Management) and there would be no further job losses, except for those already announced. Virgin also pledged to keep the headquarters of the bank in Newcastle upon Tyne. The combined business now operates under the Virgin Money brand.
On 12 October 2012 Northern Rock plc was renamed Virgin Money plc, and Virgin Money Limited was renamed Northern Rock Limited. By this time the Northern Rock website had effectively become a 'soft redirect' to Virgin Money's website.
In 2024, Nationwide Building Society bought Virgin Money, and aims to rebrand the business by 2030.
2007 crisis and nationalisation
Background
Under non-executive chairman Matt Ridley and Chief Executive Adam Applegarth, Northern Rock had a business plan which involved borrowing heavily in the UK and international money markets, extending mortgages to customers based on this funding, and then re-selling these mortgages on international capital markets, in a process known as securitisation.
In 2007, there was much press attention given to the growing crisis due to subprime mortgage lending, particularly in the United States. Amid the resultant unease by August 2007, global demand from investors for securitised mortgages had fallen away, and Northern Rock was unable to raise funding by selling its securitised loan books, and therefore became unable to repay short-term loans from the money market. This problem had been anticipated by the financial markets, which drew greater attention to it. The major UK banks also faced the same problems raising funding, but as less of their business model was reliant upon securitisation, the effective freezing of the market in August 2007 was less critical.
2007 crisis and initial responses
On 14 September 2007, the bank sought and received a liquidity support facility from the Bank of England, to replace funds it was unable to raise from the money market. Reporting of this complex scenario led to panic among individual depositors, who feared that their savings might not be available should Northern Rock go into receivership. The result was a bank run – the UK's first in 150 years – where depositors lined up outside the bank to withdraw all of their savings as quickly as possible, particularly since many other people were doing the same.
As the UK government provided the liquidity support facility, they also exerted pressure on the bank to create a longer-term recovery plan. Over the next few months, there were numerous changes to the board of directors and executive team.
On 19 October, chairman Matt Ridley resigned and was replaced by Bryan Sanderson, a former Managing Director of BP. Chief Executive Adam Applegarth's resignation was then announced in mid-November, with the caveat that he would remain with the group until it established independent funding or was purchased. Four non-executive directors, Sir Derek Wanless, Nichola Pease, Adam Fenwick and Rosemary Radcliffe also resigned. A month later, Applegarth left and former Marketing Director, Andy Kuipers, was appointed Chief Executive. Kuipers had been with the bank since the 1990s.
Notably, Dave Jones, the Group Finance Director through the crisis, had only been in his role since the retirement of Bob Bennett in January 2007. Alongside Applegarth, Bennett had been one of the architects of the bank's flotation in 1997 and its subsequent substantial growth. He had been wary of its continued aggressive growth strategy, which would continue up until summer 2007, despite the increasing volatility in the markets on which Northern Rock relied. Commentators later suggested that with Bennett's retirement, the executive board was dominated by Applegarth. A report by the Financial Services Authority conceded in February 2008 that it had been wrong to consider Northern Rock low risk, and as a result had given the company too little scrutiny.
The group was criticised when it emerged that they had begun to pay in excess of 150 senior staff members substantial retention bonuses. Northern Rock hoped the bonuses would enable them to retain critical staff members at risk of being poached by other companies. It had previously been criticised in 1998 when the pay of the executive team that led the flotation was 40% higher in the year following.
In late 2007, Virgin Money was named as the preferred bidder for the group, with Olivant Group later beginning talks around takeover.
Nationalisation
On 22 February 2008, the bank was taken into state ownership as a result of two unsuccessful bids to take over the bank, neither being able to fully commit to repayment of taxpayers' money within three years. The bank was managed at "arm's length" by the government through UK Financial Investments.
The bank planned to repay the government debt within three to four years, primarily by encouraging mortgage customers to take their mortgage to another lender. Costs were also reduced by reducing numbers of staff. As of 3 March 2009, the bank was repaying the loan well ahead of target, owing a net balance of only £8.9 billion of the loan which stood at £26.9 billion at the end of 2007.
By October, customers appeared to be regaining confidence in the bank, when it emerged that there had been a surge in the number of new accounts which had been opened. People perceived Northern Rock as a safe place to put their money, given that it was currently government owned. However, there was no guarantee that if Northern Rock was to fail that the government would top-up any compensation over and above the standard £85,000 offered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
Former shareholders and hedge funds also took legal action in January 2009 to get compensation for their shares; the shareholders lost the case. They also lost their appeals in the British courts, but hoped to take the case to the European courts. However, on 8 December 2009, it was announced that the valuer Andrew Caldwell had decided that the Northern Rock shareholders should get no compensation.
On 23 February 2009, Northern Rock announced that they would be offering £14 billion worth of new mortgages, over the next two years, as a part of their new business plan. This new lending was partly funded by an increase in the government loan and a reversal of previous strategy to pay the loan off as quickly as possible by actively encouraging mortgage customers to leave when their mortgage deal matured. The reason for this change was government policy to increase the availability of credit. This £14 billion was to be split into £5 billion in 2009 and £9 billion in 2010.
Potential buyers for the bank included Virgin Money, National Australia Bank, NBNK, Santander, Blackstone, Tesco, TowerBrook, Yorkshire Building Society and Coventry Building Society. Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling had stated that he was in no "hurry" to return the bank to the private sector.
The bank was split into two parts, assets and banking on 1 January 2010. On 15 June 2011, it was announced that the bank was to be sold to a single buyer in the private sector by the end of the year. On 22 March 2011, the bank issued its first mortgage securitisation since the 2007 recession which nearly brought the bank down.
Purchase by Virgin Money
On 17 November 2011, it was announced that Virgin Money was going to buy Northern Rock plc for £747 million. The sale was completed on 1 January 2012, and by July of that year a further £73 million deferred consideration was paid by Virgin. In 2014 Virgin Money repaid a further £154.5 million that it had received as part of the refinancing package.
Northern Rock Shareholder Action Group
The Northern Rock Shareholder Action Group (NRSAG) has been active since the Northern Rock crisis began in 2007, seeking fair compensation for the thousands of small shareholders who owned Northern Rock shares. The group is run by a committee of volunteers. The UK Shareholders Association provide administrative and advisory oversight to the group. The Committee reached the conclusion that HM Treasury has made a substantial amount of money from running down the loan book of the bank.
The NRSAG committee made several failed appeals to the Government previously, but the facts were not fully known then, but it is evident now that all loans to the taxpayer have been paid in full at penal rates of interest. That means compensation to shareholders will not be a charge on taxpayers or upon the general public because it is payable out of the surplus funds, built since nationalisation in 2008, as a result of asset disposals.
The NRSAG claim that despite comparable conditions, no other failed bank was handled in this manner during the 2008 financial crisis. Instead, other banks received full Government backing, bailouts and shareholders retained their shares. The Government has earned a sizable surplus in the years after nationalisation, even though any and all Government assistance was completely reimbursed in those years, including interest paid at penal rates at no expense to the UK public. The NRSAG asked the Government to review their original compensation decision, given that the updated and widely confirmed numbers prove a huge surplus. To request an appeal, the NRSAG wrote to the Treasury Select Committee. Also, the group wrote to each MP to back their campaign for fairness and justice.
Northern Rock has been one of the top five mortgage lenders in the United Kingdom in terms of gross lending according to Council of Mortgage Lenders statistics.
As well as mortgages, the bank also deals with savings accounts and insurance. Home and contents insurance was dealt with by AXA whilst Legal & General, whose mortgage book Northern Rock acquired, arranged life insurance investments.
The bank offered credit cards until 2003, when it sold the business to The Co-operative Bank in order to free capital for its rapid growth in mortgage lending, making a profit of more than £7 million. Northern Rock continued to sell credit cards under its own brand through The Co-operative Bank until November 2007; the decision to stop was made before the 2007 crisis.
In 2006 the bank had moved into sub-prime lending via a deal with Lehman Brothers. Although the mortgages were sold under Northern Rock's brand through intermediaries, the risk was being underwritten by Lehman Brothers. Mortgages with LTV ("Loan to Value") ratios of up to 130% were made.
At the time of being bought by Virgin the bank had 75 branches that have since been re-branded under the Virgin Money name. In 2012 Northern Rock began to provide Virgin-branded savings accounts.
The bank was based on a large site at the Regent Centre in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne called Northern Rock House. It had customer contact centre operations at both North of England House in Doxford International Business Park in Sunderland and at its head office. The bank developed a site at Rainton Bridge, which it sold to Npower.
Gosforth site
Northern Rock completed the redevelopment of the Gosforth site, Northern Rock House, in the 2000s, which saw the development some new buildings as well as the demolition of their original 1960s tower block during Spring 2006.
A new tower block, simply known as The Tower, was completed in November 2008, originally intended to create 1500 jobs, and act as the main entrance and focal point of the company headquarters. The local council, Newcastle City Council, purchased the building for £22 million, and leased it to a green support services company, Eaga (now Carillion Energy), as it was surplus to the bank's requirements at the time.
The Kielder and Prudhoe buildings of the Gosforth site were completed in the early 1990s, behind which lies the distinctive glass-fronted Alnwick building. The main Atrium reception is adjacent to this, opening out onto Baker Street, a large covered atrium that housed a restaurant, shop and on-site branch. A number of other buildings, all named after North-Eastern castles are joined to Baker Street.
Outside the UK
A sub-division in Guernsey was established in February 1996, handling offshore savings and investment accounts. The Guernsey business was shut down on 2 September 2010.
Northern Rock opened a branch in Ireland on 16 November 1999 and the first branch in Northern Ireland followed on 4 April 2007. The first branch of the bank opened in Denmark on 7 February 2007; however as part of the Government restructuring, the Danish operations ceased on 18 June 2008. The €650 million worth of Irish deposits were sold to Permanent TSB in 2011.
Corporate image
In 2000 Northern Rock introduced a new corporate identity consisting of a magenta square containing the company name. This replaced the NR 'blocks' logo. The Northern Rock Foundation also changed its logo in 2003 from the NR 'blocks' inline with the main company, using the same new typeface. The Red Box Design Group designed all the currently standing buildings at the company's headquarters in Gosforth and have contributed to many of the other design aspects of the company, such as the in-branch styling. From 1 October 1997 until the government nationalisation, the bank used the symbol NRK on the London Stock Exchange.
One of Northern Rock's final advertising campaigns before the purchase by Virgin was titled 'Works for Me' and featured local customers. Following the purchase by Virgin, the Northern Rock brand was gradually phased out during 2012. Upon buying Northern Rock, Virgin Money changed their logo to use both Virgin's red and Northern Rock's magenta colours.
Board of directors
Prior to the credit crisis the company had focused on developing its own staff, and most appointments, including the chief executive, were made internally.
Matt Ridley was the chairman and Adam Applegarth was the chief executive until Ridley resigned in October 2007 and Applegarth resigned in November 2007, although the latter stayed on in a caretaker role until December 2007. The chief financial officer was Andy Kuipers, who joined the company in 1987. After Applegarth's departure, Kuipers became the interim chief executive prior to the nationalisation before retiring on 31 August 2008.
In February 2008, Ron Sandler was appointed executive chairman by the government. Gary Hoffman became chief executive of Northern Rock in October 2008. With the appointment of Gary Hoffman, Ron Sandler changed to a non-executive chairman position.
Since the split of the bank into Northern Rock plc and Northern Rock (Asset Management) plc on 1 January 2010, each company had its boards of directors. On 4 November 2010 Northern Rock announced that Gary Hoffman had left the bank and was to move to NBNK Investments as CEO. One of the stipulations of Hoffman's appointment at NBNK was that they could not table a bid for Northern Rock for a period of 12 months.
Prior to being bought by Virgin the board of Northern Rock plc at 8 April 2010 was:
Chairman: Ron Sandler
Chief Executive: Gary Hoffman
Chief Financial Officer: Jim McConville
Executive Directors: Rick Hunkin
Non-Executive Directors: Laurie Adams, Richard Coates, Mike Fairey, Mark Pain, Mary Phibbs
The company sponsored many local sports clubs and events, including Newcastle United Football Club, Newcastle Falcons (rugby union), Newcastle Eagles (basketball), Durham and Middlesex County Cricket clubs, professional golfer Paul Eales and the cycling festival Northern Rock Cyclone.
The sponsorship of Newcastle United began in 2003, and was set to expire in 2010, before an extension to 2014. However this extension included a get-out clause in June 2012, which was activated in November 2011. While under government control the bank continued their sponsorship agreement. The five-year deal from 2005 to 2010 was worth £25 million, and the 4-year extension was to be worth between £1.5 million and £10 million. In 2012 after Virgin bought the bank, Virgin Money signed a 2-year deal to sponsor Newcastle United initially using the remaining time of Northern Rock's deal that was cut short; this deal was again itself later cut short.
In 2005, to coincide with the Spirit of the Tall Ships Festival, Northern Rock enlisted the help of Red Box Interiors to create a temporary art installation at The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art on the Gateshead Quay of the Tyne. The art entitled "Northern Rock @ Baltic" included mobile light stem sculptures and large scale external graphics.
Northern Rock sponsored the North East Premier League competition for recreational club cricket. In 2006 Northern Rock sponsored the All*Star Cup celebrity Golf match, which was shown on ITV. The bank also sponsors a junior golf tournament, The Northern Rock Junior Golf Festival, held at Matfen Hall.
In 2007, almost three weeks before the bank had to appeal to the Bank of England for an emergency loan, the bank bought the home ground of Newcastle Falcons Rugby Club, Kingston Park stadium for £15 million. In February 2008, documents relating to the sale came to light, attracting much criticism that the purchase has been made at a time of impending crisis. In late 2008 the bank sold Kingston Park Stadium to Northumbria University for an undisclosed fee. While under government control the bank continued to sponsor Newcastle Falcons; the sponsorship agreement with the Falcons came to an end before the start of the 2010/11 season.
Northern Rock Foundation
The company donated substantial amounts annually to its own independent charity, the Northern Rock Foundation.
The nationalisation of Northern Rock had a devastating impact on the local charity sector in the North East, which was funded almost entirely by dividends from Northern Rock. The largest shareholder in the bank was the Northern Rock Foundation, which owned 15% of the bank's share capital. The charity did tremendous work with around £235 million spent on local charities and good causes.
The charity wound up after handing out some of its last grants to good causes across the North East and Cumbria in 2015.
See also
Landmark Mortgages
Northern Rock Foundation
Nationalisation of Northern Rock
Partnership House and Regent Centre
UKFI and UKAR
Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008
Virgin Money UK
|
Simple Dietz method
|
[
"Finance theories",
"Investment",
"Mathematical finance"
] | 958 | 6,953 |
The simple Dietz method is a means of measuring historical investment portfolio performance, compensating for external flows into/out of the portfolio during the period. The formula for the simple Dietz return is as follows:
where
is the portfolio rate of return,
is the beginning market value,
is the ending market value, and
is the net external inflow during the period (flows out of the portfolio are negative and flows into the portfolio are positive).
It is based on the assumption that all external flows occur at the half-way point in time within the evaluation period (or are spread evenly across the period, and so the flows occur on average at the middle of the period).
Fees
To measure returns net of fees, allow the value of the portfolio to be reduced by the amount of the fees. To calculate returns gross of fees, compensate for them by treating them as an external flow, and exclude accrued fees from valuations, i.e. do not reduce the portfolio market value by the fee amount accrued.
The simple Dietz method is a variation upon the simple rate of return, which assumes that external flows occur either at the beginning or at the end of the period. The simple Dietz method is somewhat more computationally tractable than the internal rate of return (IRR) method.
A refinement of the simple Dietz method is the modified Dietz method, which takes available information on the actual timing of external flows into consideration.
Like the modified Dietz method, the simple Dietz method is based on the assumption of a simple rate of return principle, unlike the internal rate of return method, which applies a compounding principle.
Also like the modified Dietz method, it is a money-weighted returns method (as opposed to a time-weighted returns method). In particular, if the simple Dietz returns on two portfolios over the same period are and , then the simple Dietz return on the combined portfolio containing the two portfolios is the weighted average of the simple Dietz return on the two individual portfolios: . The weights and are given by: .
The method is named after Peter O. Dietz. According to his book Pension Funds: Measuring Investment Performance,
"The method selected to measure return on investment is similar to the one described by Hilary L. Seal in Trust and Estate magazine. This measure is used by most insurance companies and by the SEC in compiling return on investment in its Pension Bulletins. The basis of this measure is to find a rate of return by dividing income by one-half the beginning investment plus one-half the ending investment, minus one-half the investment income. Thus where A equals beginning investment, B equals ending investment, and I equals income, return R is equivalent to
For the purpose of measuring pension fund investment performance, income should be defined to include ordinary income plus realized and unrealized gains and losses."
"The investment base to be used is market value as opposed to book value. There are several reasons for this choice: First, market value represents the true economic value which is available to the investment manager at any point in time, whereas book value is arbitrary. Book value depends on the timing of investments, that is, book value will be high or low depending on when investments were made. Second, an investment manager who realizes capital gains will increase his investment base as opposed to a manager who lets his gains ride, even though the funds have the same economic value. Such action would result in an artificially lower return for the fund realizing gains and reinvesting if book value were used."
Using and for beginning and ending market value respectively, he then uses the following relation:
to transform
He goes on to rearrange this into:
This formula
"reveals that the market value at the end of any period must be equal to the beginning market value plus net contributions plus the rate of return earned of the assets in the fund at the beginning of the period and the return earned on one-half of the contributions. This assumes contributions are received midway through each investment period, and alternately, that half the contributions are received at the beginning of the period, and half at the end of the period."
See also
Internal rate of return
Modified Dietz method
Rate of return
Further reading
MEASURING INVESTMENT PERFORMANCE
|
Abigail Stoneman
|
[
"1740s births",
"Date of death unknown",
"18th-century American businesswomen",
"18th-century American businesspeople",
"American drink industry businesspeople",
"American innkeepers",
"American slave owners",
"American women restaurateurs",
"Businesspeople from Newport, Rhode Island",
"Businesspeople in coffee",
"People from Middletown, Rhode Island",
"Women slave owners"
] | 1,354 | 11,195 |
Abigail Stoneman (birth after 1740, fl 1760 to 1777) was a Colonial American widowed woman who operated inns and tea and coffee houses in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York. She offered musical entertainment and dancing.
Background
In the 18th century, it was unusual for women to operate businesses. Any property or money a woman may have owned before or acquired during her marriage was managed by her husband. Stoneman became a feme sole as a widowed woman and could thus operate businesses and manage her financial decisions.
Early life
Abigail's birth year and parents are unknown, but it is estimated that she was born after 1740. She was described by publisher Solomon Southwick to give proper prominence to the successful business owner as she married a Knight of Malta.
She was,
First marriage
Abigail acquired the surname Stoneman from her first marriage, likely to Samuel Stoneman, a lieutenant of the Rhode Island regiment who fought in the French and Indiana War between 1757 and 1760. He became an adjutant during that war against Crown Point and Canada. Her husband is believed to have died by 1760.
Stoneman had several sons and two daughters when she established her business in Boston (1770). She also had at least two enslaved people at that time.
Stoneman lived in a large house on Marlborough Street and attended the First Congregational Church. Her house was robbed of some china and $100 Spanish dollars in 1766.
Businesswoman
In May 1767, Stoneman opened a coffee house and a store of goods from the West Indies in Newport called The Merchant's Coffee House. It was established at the Sign of the King's Arms. To capitalize on the summer tourist season, she opened a business in the nearby town of Middletown in 1768 and added a ballroom the following year. She offered "genteel lodgings" and food, like syllabub, orange and lemon cheesecake, cakes, and tarts. In October 1769, she moved to Whitehall (in Middletown) that she called Vauxhall. George Berkeley had lived at the house.
In March 1770, the Boston Massacre occurred on King Street (now State Street). The attack occurred at the entrance of a building Stoneman acquired and repaired. Stoneman offered coffee and short-term lodging in her Boston business from 1770 to 1772. One of her boarders, William Blodget, provided accounting services and painted a portrait of Stoneman and her daughter.
She returned to Middletown by June 1772 and operated Vauxhall for the summer tourist season. In the winter, she operated the British Coffee House in Newport. She simultaneously operated other taverns and coffee or tea houses. The only woman in Newport to do so at the time, she acquired a liquor license to operate a tavern, King's Arms, during the winter and spring months. She offered lodging, musical entertainment, and dancing, where only men paid to dance. She also advertised that she had billiard tables to draw in customers. The tavern was the site of the Newport Assembly meetings on Thursday evenings.
During the course of her business, she offered credit and expanded her businesses. In one case, one of her customers, Benjamin Wickham, signed an IOU for £13 on a nine of clubs from one of her decks of cards on March 20, 1769. It later became evidence in a suit that Stoneman filed for non-payment. It is also historical evidence of the manner in which business was conducted in the 18th century and that Stoneman would use the judicial system when needed to settle her debts. She placed notices in the Newport Mercury to collect on debts, the only woman in the town to do so at the time. Stoneman developed business alliances typical of wealthy men. She had lines of credit with other businessowners, who were also her customers to whom she extended credit. They included the Eastons, Coggeshalls, and other leading families of Newport.
She was deemed a successful businesswoman based upon her ability to make capital improvements to her businesses.
Second marriage
She was the first woman from Newport to marry a titled Englishman when she married John Treville, a Knight of Malta in Hampton, Connecticut on August 28, 1774. He was the captain of the cavalry of His Most Christian Majesty's Service. She sold her property after the marriage and moved with her husband to New York.
There are a couple of theories about what happened to her husband. He may have fled after spending most of her money or he may have fought as a loyalist in the War of Independence.
New York
By October 25, 1777, Stoneman established the London Coffee-House on Broad Street in what is now Lower Manhattan of New York City. Like her previous businesses, she offered lodging, entertainment, and liquid refreshments. In an advertisement for the business, she stated that she was indebted to the "politeness and humanity" of the British military gentry. She offered breakfast and dinners. The business was located near Fraunces Queen's Head (known now as Fraunces Tavern).
Further reading
|
Credit analyst
|
[
"Credit management",
"Finance occupations",
"Financial analysts"
] | 408 | 4,109 |
A credit analyst
is a person employed by an organization to analyze the credit worthiness of customers and potential customers,
and to assist in the ongoing management, classification and quantification of credit risk thereafter.
See and for discussion.
In May 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 70,840 people employed as credit analysts. The salary for this position ranged from $40,250 to $134,080 with a mean average wage of $79,720.
Job responsibilities
Job responsibilities include the following:
Reviewing credit applications
Projecting sales
Evaluating credit risk
Analyzing financial data, statements and trends
Setting new customer credit limits
Recommending credit limits based on company credit policies
Performing credit reviews of existing customers
Maintaining customer files with financial statements and bank reference information
Resolving credit issues
Monitoring risk trends on behalf of management and sales personnel
Credit analysts typically
hold a business related bachelor's degree majoring in finance, in accounting, in business administration, or in economics.
Depending on the role, some companies may require a professional certification such as the Credit Business Associate from the National Association of Credit Management (NACM).
Particularly for analysis involving the technical elements of EAD, PD and LGD modelling, some quantitative training, specifically in statistics and calculus, will be required.
Often, a math or actuarial degree, and / or the FRM or PRM certification may be recommended. See also .
Professional Organizations
Credit analysts in the United States can obtain memberships, continuing education and certification through NACM. Certification levels include Credit Business Associate, Certified Credit and Risk Analyst, Credit Business Fellow, Certified Credit Executive, Certified International Credit Professional and International Certified Credit Executive.
See also
Credit assistant
Credit manager
Director of credit and collections
Financial analyst
|
Blockchain.com
|
[
"Bitcoin companies",
"Cryptocurrency tumblers",
"Financial services companies established in 2011",
"Internet properties established in 2011",
"Bitcoin exchanges"
] | 2,056 | 19,982 |
Blockchain.com (formerly Blockchain.info) is a cryptocurrency financial services company. The company began as the first Bitcoin blockchain explorer in 2011 and later created a cryptocurrency wallet that accounted for 28% of bitcoin transactions between 2012 and 2020. It also operates a cryptocurrency exchange and provides institutional markets lending business and data, charts, and analytics.
Corporate affairs
Blockchain.com is a private company. The company is led by CEO Peter Smith, one of its three founders. The company's board members include: Smith; co-founder Nicolas Cary; Antony Jenkins; Jim Messina, the former deputy chief of staff for Barack Obama; and Jeremy Liew, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Between 2012 and February 2021, the company raised a total of $190 million in venture capital funding. In March 2021, it raised an additional $300 million investment. Investors in the company include partners of DST Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners, VY Capital, GV, Baillie Gifford, Lakestar, Eldridge, Kyle Bass, Access Industries, Moore Strategic Ventures and Rovida Advisors.
History
Blockchain.info was established by Ben Reeves in 2011. He launched a website which could be used to track bitcoin transactions. The website was a block explorer, a website that allowed bitcoin users to see the details of public cryptocurrency transactions if they have the identifying hash code for the transaction.
In early 2012, Reeves and Brian Armstrong, the co-founder of crypto-currency exchange Coinbase, applied to Y Combinator's summer class. They proposed a payment platform for bitcoin where users could keep a digital wallet, exchange other currencies for bitcoins for a percentage fee, and make payments in bitcoin. Due to different opinions they parted ways prior to attending Y Combinator. Reeves wanted to create a platform where users controlled access to their bitcoin information, while Armstrong felt that the platform should retain custody of the users wallets. After parting ways with Armstrong, Reeves continued to work on Blockchain.info.
From 2013 to 2014, Blockchain's user base grew from 100,000 wallet users in early 2013 to 1.5 million in April 2014. By 2014, Blockchain.com was the most popular bitcoin wallet and was led by Nicolas Cary as CEO. It had acquired two companies, ZeroBlock in 2013, and RTBTC in early 2014, through which it added data analytics services, and brought these services together under one umbrella. In December 2013, Blockchain.com acquired ZeroBlock, an app for bitcoin pricing. The following year, it acquired the data analytics platform RTBTC. It integrated RTBTC's technology with its existing services, establishing one platform offering cryptocurrency wallet, pricing and analytics, and the cryptocurrency explorer.
In February 2014, Apple Inc. removed the Blockchain.com app from the iOS App Store, prompting a public outcry in the bitcoin community, most notably within the Reddit community. At the time, it was the only bitcoin wallet app available for Apple users, as Apple had removed or denied other apps. In July 2014, Apple reinstated the Blockchain.com app.
In 2014, Peter Smith joined the founding team as its CEO. The three founders, Reeves, Cary and Smith, worked from Reeves' flat in York and formally established the company when bitcoin investor Roger Ver provided initial funding. By October 2014, it had 2.3 million consumer wallets and raised $30.5 million in its first external fundraising round, with investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners and Mosaic Ventures. This was the biggest round of financing in the digital currency sector at that time. The World Economic Forum named the company as one of 2016's "Technology Pioneers". In 2017, the company carried out a second round of fundraising. It closed $40 million in funding that June and the company was valued at $280 million.
In 2018, Blockchain started selling services for institutional cryptocurrency. In July 2019, Blockchain.com launched its cryptocurrency exchange and promoted it as faster than others. In September 2020, the company joined the Coalition for App Fairness which aims to negotiate for better conditions for the inclusion of apps in app stores. In mid-2018, the company acquired Tsukemen, an app-development startup company based in San Francisco.
In 2020 the company had 31 million users and as of 2021, there were 65 million Blockchain.com wallets and 28% of bitcoin transactions since 2012 were initiated or received by a Blockchain.com wallet. In February 2021, Blockchain.com raised a $120 million funding round from investors including Moore Strategic Ventures, Kyle Bass, Access Industries, Rovida Advisors, Lightspeed Venture Partners, GV, Lakestar, and Eldridge. Including previous venture capital funding rounds, the company had raised $190 million altogether. One month later, the company announced a further $300 million fundraising round. One-third of the amount raised was funded by investment firm Baillie Gifford which invested $100 million. Based on the fundraising round, the company was valued at $5.2 billion.
In 2022, Blockchain.com's CEO wrote to shareholders informing them that Three Arrows Capital rapidly becoming insolvent meant a default impact of approximately $270 million worth of cryptocurrency and US dollar loans to Blockchain.com. The firm laid off 25% of its staff, about 150 people, on July 21.
Products and services
As a cryptocurrency company, Blockchain.com provides a platform for holding, using, managing crypto assets, and exploring cryptocurrency transactions. It also develops financial services standards and infrastructure for cryptocurrencies. The company's platform provides market data and analytics. It follows cryptocurrency's aims of being decentralized and anonymous; some of its cryptocurrency products are managed by the end user and not accessible by Blockchain.com itself.
Its main products are its cryptocurrency wallet, exchange, block explorer, and institutional markets offering.
Wallet
The company offers a hosted cryptocurrency wallet which is a method to store cryptocurrency in a digital file that can be accessed online. The wallet can be used with different cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. Its wallets can be used to send and receive digital currency transactions, as well as swap between different cryptocurrencies. Blockchain.com has a non-custodial wallet, meaning that it is controlled completely by the user and the company has no access to the wallet's data. Users access their wallet with a private key, a recovery phrase known only to the user.
Exchange
A cryptocurrency exchange helps to convert your digital assets in money and money into the digital assets. They work like a stockbroker. The company has an exchange to allow its users to buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies. Additionally, the exchange's user interface can be customized by traders to show them relevant information depending on their level of experience.
Institutional markets business
In addition to its services for individuals, Blockchain.com also provides institutional investors with cryptocurrency-based financial services. The company's institutional markets business provides cryptocurrency lending, borrowing, trading and custody of financial assets. It also carries out over-the-counter transactions for large traders, acting as a broker to keep trades private and prevent price swings occurring based on market knowledge of the trades.
Explorer
The company operates a blockchain explorer that allows the user to see public cryptocurrency transactions and related information. This allows anyone who has a transaction's hash code to see the addresses of the wallets the transaction was sent from and received to, the amount of the transaction, and any fees. The tool can be used for analysis of transaction activity, cryptocurrency data, and analytics. The company sells advertising on the otherwise free service.
See also
List of bitcoin companies
|
Jørgen von Ansbach
|
[
"1510s births",
"1590 deaths",
"People from Skien",
"Emigrants from the Holy Roman Empire",
"Merchants from the Holy Roman Empire",
"Immigrants to Norway",
"Mayors of places in Telemark",
"Norwegian businesspeople in timber",
"Norwegian merchants",
"16th-century Norwegian people",
"16th-century merchants",
"16th-century German businesspeople"
] | 344 | 2,912 |
Jørgen von Ansbach (c. 1510 – c. 1590) was a German-Norwegian timber merchant and mayor of Skien (southern part of Norway).
He immigrated from Germany to Skien around 1540. He came as a mining administrator at a time when King Christian III of Denmark tried without success to establish a mining industry in Bratsberg (now Telemark). He subsequently became a pioneer in the timber industry in the district as an owner of several sawmills and a major timber merchant. He organized efforts to make water flows from the Hjellevannet on the lower water basin in the Skien watercourse (Skiensvassdraget) to the Skien River (Skienselva) so that water could drive recovery saws. He established sawmills and the timber trade rose sharply in Skien. He was cited as mayor of Skien in 1568, 1570 and 1578.
His considerable fortune was largely derived from the number of properties he owned in the city and district. These properties were divided between his five daughters whose descendants dominated the commercial life in Skien into the 17th century as timber merchants and estate owners. Among his descendants were Anne Clausdatter (1659–1713) who owned Borgestad Manor and Christian Cornelius Paus (1800–1879) who was Governor of Bratsberg. Among his more notable descendants was the playwright Henrik Ibsen.
Other sources
Ivar Seierstad (1958) Skiens historie Bind I fra 1184 til ca 1814 (Skien: Erik St. Nilssens Forlag. page 129-130)
Øystein Rian (1997) Bratsberg på 1600-tallet. Stat og samfunn i symbiose og konflikt (Oslo: Universitetsforl. page 109–110)
S. H. Finne-Grønn (1910) "Jørgen v. Ansbach, Engel Jensen og slegten Klouman" in Vol. 1 p. 357
|
Suleyman Kerimov
|
[
"1966 births",
"Living people",
"People from Derbent",
"Russian people of Lezgian descent",
"Liberal Democratic Party of Russia politicians",
"Members of the Federation Council of Russia (after 2000)",
"Russian billionaires",
"Russian football chairmen and investors",
"Russian oligarchs",
"FC Anzhi Makhachkala",
"Russian individuals subject to U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctions",
"Russian individuals subject to European Union sanctions",
"Russian individuals subject to United Kingdom sanctions",
"Third convocation members of the State Duma (Russian Federation)",
"Fourth convocation members of the State Duma (Russian Federation)",
"Dagestan State University alumni"
] | 6,171 | 62,490 |
Suleyman Abusaidovich Kerimov (; ; born 12 March 1966) is a Russian billionaire, oligarch, philanthropist and politician of the Lezgin descent. Kerimov has close ties to Vladimir Putin's government in Russia, and used to have close ties to Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader. Recently, Kerimov and Kadyrov have been at odds.
He entered politics in the 1990s. By 1999, he won control of Nafta Moskva, a former state-oil trader. In the 2000s, Kerimov obtained billions of dollars in loans from big Russian state-owned banks, such as Sberbank and VTB. Through these loans, he became a major stakeholder in Gazprom and Uralkali, as well as Sberbank. By 2008, his fortune had risen to $21 billion, and by 2022, it had decreased to $11 billion.
Since 2008, Kerimov has represented the Republic of Dagestan in the Federation Council of Russia.
He bought the football club FC Anzhi Makhachkala in 2011, which subsequently made numerous high-profile signings. The club bought Samuel Eto'o, making him the highest-paid player in the world. In 2013, Kerimov drastically and abruptly cut the team's funding, prompting a firesale of players.
In April 2018, he was placed under sanctions by the United States Department of Treasury. In the wake of 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Kerimov was sanctioned as a Russian oligarch close to President Putin, by the US, UK and EU on 15 March 2022. Suleiman Kerimov has been the focus of scrutiny in the U.S. for years.
Kerimov's son Said Kerimov resigned from the board of Polyus Gold in April 2022 and the family sold its stake in the company worth $6.3 billion relinquishing the majority shareholder position of Polyus Gold.
Early life and education
Kerimov was born in Derbent, Dagestan, to a Dagestani Lezgin family. His ancestral village is said to be Karakyure of the Dokuzparinsky District. He graduated from high school in 1983, and following this enrolled in the Civil Engineering Department at Dagestan Polytechnic Institute in 1984, though his obligatory military service for the Soviet Army brought his studies to a halt just one year later. After completing his service in 1986, Kerimov continued his studies at Dagestan State University, where he graduated with a degree in financial accounting and economics in 1989. During his studies he was Deputy Chairman of DSU's Trade Union Committee. It was also at university that Kerimov met his wife, Firuza, the daughter of a former Trade Union leader.
Kerimov has stated to have dreamed of making money from an early age, an ambition that prompted him to later move from his native Dagestan in the early 1990s.
Career
Early career
Soon after his university graduation in 1989, Kerimov took a job as an economist at the Eltav electrical plant in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. The state-controlled plant supplied transistors and semi-conductors to television-makers, while also producing diodes, microchips and halogen lamps. Kerimov was paid 150 roubles (approximately $250 dollars) a month and he and his wife lived in a worker's hostel attached to the plant, where they shared one room of a two-room flat.
Eventually, Kerimov rose to the rank of Deputy Director General at Eltav and began to dabble in investing alongside during the fall of the Soviet Union.
Fedprombank
In 1993, Kerimov was put in charge of handling relations between Eltav and Fedprombank, a Moscow bank established by the electrical company. Fedprombank financed lagging industries and Kerimov and his associates soon became creditors to large utility companies, allowing them to continue to provide key services. Once the Russian economy stabilized, the debts were repaid with hefty returns for Fedprombank and, consequently, Kerimov.
In 1995, Kerimov was appointed to head the banking and trading company Soyuz-Finans, and by 1997, Kerimov had built a 50% stake in Vnukovo Airlines and used his leverage to take over Fedprombank, buying out his partners' shares.
Nafta Moskva
In late 1999, Kerimov bought a 55% stake in the oil trading company Nafta Moskva, the successor to the Soviet monopoly firm Soyuznefteexport, for $50 million. By 2000, he had increased his stake of Nafta Moskva to 100%. Kerimov undertook a mass restructuring of the company, selling off all of the oil-related aspects and creating an investment and holding company. Nafta's investments in the mid-2000s included purchase of the business center Smolensky Passazh and AvtoBank.
Gazprom and Sberbank investments
In 2003, Kerimov managed to secure a $43 million loan from the state-owned Vnesheconombank, which he invested in the oil and gas company Gazprom. Within the next year, share prices for the Russian gas company doubled and Kerimov was able to pay off the entirety of the loan within four months. In 2004 Sberbank, now the largest bank in Russia and Eastern Europe, provided Kerimov with a loan of $3.2 billion, which was later repaid, and these funds were also invested in equities. By 2008, Kerimov had amassed a 5% stake in Gazprom, a 6% stake in Sberbank, along with an estimated fortune of $17.5 billion, making him the 36th richest man in the world. However, in mid-2008, Kerimov sold all his Gazprom and Sberbank shares.
Polymetal
In November 2005, Kerimov's Nafta Moskva acquired JSC Polymetal, one of Russia's largest gold and silver mining companies. In 2007, he took the company public on the London Stock Exchange, then sold 70% of his shares in 2008 before gold would go on to climb to an all-time high in 2011. In 2008, Kerimov sold control over Polymetal.
Role in the 2008 financial crisis
As markets around the world began to tighten in 2007, Kerimov and his associates expected that Russia would suffer more than the West from the 2008 financial crisis. A concerted effort was thus made to build closer ties with Western banks. Kerimov decreased his stakes in Gazprom and other Russian blue chips and approached Wall Street, proposing to invest the vast majority of his fortune to defend the institutions from short-sellers. In return, it was expected that Kerimov would receive favorable lending terms for future loans.
In 2007, Kerimov invested billions in Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and other financial institutions. Though neither Kerimov nor the Western banks have disclosed the exact size of his investment, it was sizeable enough for Kerimov to receive a call from the United States Treasury during the darkest days of the economic crisis imploring the Russian oligarch not to sell his stakes.
Polyus Gold
Following his losses during the 2008 financial crisis, Kerimov shifted his investment strategy to buying stakes large enough to influence the strategies of the companies he invests in. In 2009, Nafta Moskva bought a $1.3 billion stake (37% stake) in OAO Polyus Gold, Russia's largest gold producer, from Vladimir Potanin.
Later the stake was increased up to 40.2%. In 2012 the company held an IPO on the London Stock Exchange.
In 2015 Kerimov's share in Polyus Gold was transferred to his son, Said.
Property developer PIK Group
In the spring of 2009, shareholders of Russia's construction giant PIK Group sold 25% of their company's shares to Kerimov. PIK required extra funding after their debt level reached $1.98 billion, and the value of their capital fell by more than 40 times to $279.9 million. Nafta Moskva later increased its stake in PIK Group to 38.3%.
In December 2013 Kerimov sold his shares to property investor Sergei Gordeev and businessman Alexander Mamut, who owns a stake in precious metals miner Polymetal.
Uralkali
In June 2010, Kerimov and his partners Alexander Nesis and Filaret Galchev together paid Dmitry Rybolovlev an estimated $5.3 billion for a 53% stake in Russian potash giant Uralkali, which, together with Belaruskali, at the time made up the duopoly that controlled 70% of the global potash market: the Belarusian Potash Company (BPC). Kerimov secured substantial loans from Russia's VTB bank for the Uralkali takeover.
In July 2013, Uralkali announced it was pulling out of the BPC cartel, dropping prices and increasing production to maximum capacity in a grab for market share. The immediate consequences on the global economy were a 25% drop in potash prices to around $340 a tonne, harming the prospects of both Canadian producers and the Belarusian economy. Belarusian authorities estimate they may lose up to $1 billion a year.
Two weeks after Uralkali's July announcement, Belarusian prime minister Mikhail Myasnikovich responded by inviting Kerimov and the Uralkali managers to Minsk to discuss the current situation. Uralkali's then-CEO attended in Kerimov's place and was arrested by state security forces and charged with "abuse of power".
In the meantime, Belarus also opened a criminal investigation into other Uralkali employees and its main shareholder Suleyman Kerimov. Baumgertner was held in a Belarusian KGB jail until a plan to change ownership of Uralkali was announced, and Belarus then extradited Baumgertner to Russia. Belarus put Kerimov on the national wanted list, and also requested Interpol to publish a Red Notice for him. Interpol clarified later that no Red Notice had been issued and that the request was political in nature. The Belarusian authorities later withdrew the case against Kerimov and closed the criminal investigation. By December 2013, Kerimov sold 21.75% of Uralkali shares to Mikhail Prokhorov for US$3.7 billion and 19,99% (for approximately US$2.9 billion) to Uralchem.
Media portrayal of business style
Forbes magazine describes Kerimov as one of the most private Russian billionaires, who has not given a single interview over 20 years in business.
Moscow Times quoted a former deputy editor of Forbes Russia Kirill Vishnepolsky as describing Kerimov as a "Russian Warren Buffett" for a similarly astute investment style. A senior Moscow banker is reported to have said of Kerimov: "Sometimes it is difficult to talk to him. He is always a few steps ahead of you. For foreigners, it is next to impossible, even those used to a Russian environment. He is very quick and creative, in a sense that ideas come to him that don't come to other people". Kerimov reportedly made extensive use of leverage for his investments, according to financiers and bankers active in Russia.
Other investments
FC Anzhi Makhachkala
In 2011, Kerimov purchased FC Anzhi Makhachkala, his hometown football club which competes in the Russian Premier League.
In March 2012, it was reported that Kerimov had given the club a summer transfer budget of over €230 million, in an attempt to qualify for the UEFA Champions League within the next three seasons.
Apart from FC Anzhi, Kerimov financed the construction of a modern football stadium Anzhi Arena for 30,000 spectators and teams from Anzhi's Youth Football Academy.
In August 2013, as a part of new long-term strategy for the club, it was decided to scale back the club's annual budget by $50–70 million, down from their previous outlay of $180 million a season. The club sold some international players and recruited Russian young players instead.
Kerimov sold the club to Osman Kadiyev on 28 December 2016.
Business controversies and investigations
Business controversy over Nafta Moskva
Shortly after Kerimov bought into Nafta Moskva, the company found itself in a conflict with businessman Andrei Andreev. Andreev's assets were transferred to Nafta Moskva, Millhouse Capital and Basic Element. Further dispute brought the parties to the court.
In July 2004 Andreev and Nafta Moskva reached an amicable settlement and the dispute was resolved.
Moskva Hotel ownership and associated issues
Nafta Moskva, controlled by Kerimov, acquired a 25% stake in the Hotel Moskva project, a multibillion-dollar project to construct a replica of the enormous Stalin-era luxury hotel demolished in 2004. in February 2009, closing the deal by January 2010. In September 2010, Member of Russian Parliament Ashot Egiazaryan accused Kerimov of conspiring with the city government of Moscow to forcibly acquire his 25% stake in the project. After claiming he received death threats, Egiazaryan fled to the United States to seek asylum and filed lawsuits in a civil court in Cyprus, the London Court of International Arbitration and on Capitol Hill claiming that a campaign of threats of criminal prosecution and armed police raids forced him to give up his shares. According to Kerimov's lawyer Mr Egiazaryan transferred his interest in the Moskva Hotel as part of a legitimate business deal but was overextended and was deep in debt. Mr Egiazaryan was facing financial ruin.
Pending deliberation by the courts, Kerimov's assets were frozen, upsetting Uralkali's $39 billion joint bid with Chinese company Sinochem for the Canadian Potash Corp. The Nicosia district court in Cyprus lifted Kerimov's billion dollar asset freeze in February 2011, arguing that the plaintiffs "failed to prove the urgency of their petition." According to Egiazaryan's lawyer, Andreas Haviaras, the Cyprus ruling was based on "technicalities" and did not prejudge the merits of the case.
The hotel reopened in 2014 under the Four Seasons brand. In October 2015, Suleiman Kerimov sold his interest in the property to businessmen Yury and Alexey Khotin for an undisclosed amount.
French tax evasion case
In November 2017, Kerimov was arrested by French police at Nice airport in connection with a tax evasion case concerning his alleged purchase of several luxury residences on the French Riviera via shell companies. The charges were dismissed the following June. In March 2019, French prosecutors placed Kerimov under formal investigation "on suspicion of complicity in tax fraud". He was released on bail of €20 million and his lawyer plans to appeal the accusation of fraud.
Sanctions
In April 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on Kerimov and 23 other Russian nationals.
Kerimov is one of many Russian oligarchs named in the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA, signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2017. Also sanctioned by the UK government on 15 March 2022 in relation to the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Political career
From 1999 to 2003, Kerimov was a member of the State Duma of the 3rd Convocation, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, as well as a member of the State Duma Committee for Security. From 2003 to 2007, while continuing his role on the Committee for Security, he was also a member of the 4th Convocation and Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee for Physical Education, Sports and Youth. He first gained a seat in parliament with the Liberal Democratic Party, led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
Since 2008, Kerimov has served as a member of the Federation Council of the Federation Assembly of the Russian Federation – the upper house of the Federation Assembly— and represents the Republic of Dagestan. In response to the Russian parliament's passage of a bill prohibiting government officials from holding foreign-issued securities and bank accounts abroad, Kerimov transferred his assets to the trusts controlled by Suleyman Kerimov Foundation, a charity registered in Switzerland, in May 2013. This way, he retained both his position in the Federation Council and beneficiary rights to his business assets. Later, Kerimov's son Said became the sole beneficiary of the said trusts. Suleiman Kerimov was re-elected to the Federation Council in September 2016.
Conflict with Ramzan Kadyrov
In October 2024, the Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov said he was ready to formally declare a blood feud against Kerimov and two Russian State Duma members who he said were planning to order his assassination. In a post on Telegram on Wednesday evening, October 9, Kadyrov said he had held a meeting with commanders and heads of Chechnya's security forces. Along with the post, he also posted a nine-minute video with excerpts from the meeting, in which he speaks mostly in Chechen.
As TASS reports, Kadyrov mentioned Kerimov and State Duma deputies Bekkhan Barakhoev and Rizvan Kurbanov "in the context of the incident in the Wildberries office." At the same time, in the video, Kadyrov speaks part of the text in Russian. In his speech, you can indeed hear the names of Kerimov and two deputies, but at this point the head of Chechnya is no longer talking about Wildberries.
Personal life
Kerimov's father was a lawyer at a criminal investigation institution, while his mother was an accountant for the Savings Bank of Russia. He is married and has three children.
In October 2011, Kerimov used his connections to fly Western financial figures such as Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, Richard Parsons of Citigroup and Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone to Moscow in support of Medvedev's initiative to turn Moscow into an "international financial centre".
In 2006 Kerimov was listed among the world's 100 richest people and as Russia's eighth richest man ranked by Forbes. He had a net worth of $6.9 billion as of 2014, with the previous years' net worth estimated at $7.1 billion (2013) and $6.5 billion (2012).
In 2020, Kerimov's fortune doubled due to a sharp rise in gold prices. In August 2020, he became the richest businessman in Russia for a while. His family's fortune almost entirely based on the 77 percent holding in Polyus gold company was estimated at $24.7 billion.
At the end of 2020, the value of the assets of the Kerimov family was estimated at $20.9 billion. By 2022, his wealth had decreased to $11 billion. He keeps vast assets through networks of offshore companies.
He owns a villa in Cap d’Antibes, France (Villa Hier). On 26 November 2006, in Nice, France, Kerimov was seriously injured after losing control of a $650,000 Ferrari Enzo on the Promenade des Anglais. He suffered severe burns as a result of the accident.
Known for spending much of his fortune on parties, the Russian billionaire has paid for celebrities such as Christina Aguilera, Shakira, Amy Winehouse and Jessie J to perform at his events.
From 2005 to 2015, Kerimov owned one of the world's largest private yachts, which is known as Ice. Previously known as Air, she was built by German company Lürssen in 2005. Ice measures in length, and can reach a speed of . She has won the Superyacht of the Year award at the World Superyacht Awards in 2006, and is currently the 78th largest yacht in the world. He sold Ice to The Ministry of Defence for the Republic of Equatorial Guinea in 2015.
In 2022 there were reports that he was the owner of the superyacht Amadea. In April 2022, it was seized by Fiji police at Lautoka Port as Fijian high court granted a restraining order to Fiji Police to restrain it for being allegedly linked with Kerimov. In May 2022, Fiji's High Court ruled that US authorities can seize the yacht. A possible Fabergé egg was found aboard the yacht. In February 2024, US authorities revealed their desire to auction the yacht due to its "excessive" upkeep. The yacht reportedly costs $7 million a year to maintain and monthly costs include $360,000 to pay the crew, $165,000 on maintenance and other expenses, and $75,000 on fuel.
Kerimov established the Suleyman Kerimov Foundation in 2007. The Kerimov Foundation has donated to mosque and church constructions, as well as sent thousands of pilgrims to Mecca on Hajj annually. Kerimov spent $100 million on the construction of the Moscow Cathedral Mosque.
Kerimov was involved in the reconstruction of the Zarechenskaya secondary school, an advanced comprehensive school west of Moscow. Kerimov is a sponsor of the Sirius educational centre for gifted children, located in Sochi and Dagestan.
Kerimov is head of the supervisory board of the Russian Wrestling Federation, and is a member of the Gorchakov Foundation's supervisory board. The International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA) honored Kerimov the "Gold Medal" in 2013.
On 20 March 2017, Kerimov was awarded the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", II class by President Vladimir Putin for his outstanding contribution to the development of parliamentarianism and legislation.
See also
List of Russian billionaires
|
HelloFresh
|
[
"2017 initial public offerings",
"Companies in the MDAX",
"Companies listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange",
"Food and drink companies based in Berlin",
"Food and drink companies of Germany",
"German companies established in 2011",
"Internet properties established in 2011",
"Online food ordering",
"Online retailers of Germany",
"Retail companies established in 2011",
"Rocket Internet",
"Software companies of Germany",
"Subscription services",
"Transport companies established in 2011"
] | 2,790 | 29,146 |
HelloFresh SE is a German meal-kit company based in Berlin. It is one of the largest meal-kit providers in the world, operating in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Scandinavia and United Kingdom).
It has been listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since its IPO in November 2017. At the end of 2022, the company had approximately 7.1 million active customers worldwide, including 3.4 million in the U.S.
2010s
HelloFresh was founded in November 2011 by Dominik Richter, Thomas Griesel, and Jessica Nilsson in Berlin. Richter and Griesel packed and hand-delivered to the first 10 customers. It was one of the earlier companies in the meal-kit industry. They were initially funded by Rocket Internet, a German startup studio company. They first started delivering meal kits to paying customers in early 2012, and expanded to The Netherlands, UK, US and Australia the same year. By 2014, the company claimed to be delivering 1 million meals per month. They raised $50 million in a 2014 funding round, after having raised $10 million in 2012, and $7 million in 2013.
By March 2015, the company had 250,000 subscribers, although it was still not profitable. In September of that year, it was valued at €2.6 billion in a funding round where it raised €75 million, making it a unicorn company. The company was still majority-owned by Rocket Internet at that time. It cancelled a planned IPO in November, due to concerns about the company's proposed value. It experienced significant growth during the year, with 530,000 subscribers by the end of October. It had 750,000 subscribers by July 2016, and 1.3 million by the third quarter of 2017.
In October 2017, the company announced a planned IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange to raise $350 million. On 2 November, the company completed its IPO, valuing it at €1.7 billion. At the time of its IPO, the company had a market capitalization of more than double Blue Apron, its largest US-based competitor.
In March 2018, HelloFresh acquired Green Chef, a US organic meal-kit company. In October 2018, Toronto-based HelloFresh Canada acquired Chefs Plate, a Canadian meal-kit company.
In 2019, Rocket Internet sold its remaining stake in HelloFresh by accelerated book building to international institutional investors. Rocket Internet had held a 30.6% stake in HelloFresh, as of the end of 2018.
2020s
In 2020, HelloFresh acquired ready-made meal company Factor75 (since rebranded to just Factor) for up to $277 million. Factor75 was started in Batavia, Illinois in 2013 by Mike Apostal and Nick Wernimont. At the time of the acquisition, it had grown to a $100 million company.
In July 2021, HelloFresh agreed to acquire the Brisbane-based food kit company Youfoodz from Lance Giles and Jordana Stott for A$125 million, with the transaction finalised in October 2021. Giles remained as CEO of Youfoodz during the transition period. According to The New Zealand Herald and The Australian, Giles also owned a 14.5% stake in Youfoodz, which amounted to a cashout of A$18 million. The couple subsequently used NZ$10 million from the sale of Youfoodz to bankroll the independent 2025 horror film Forgive Us All.
In April 2022 HelloFresh launched in Japan, the first Asian market for the meal box provider. Just 8 months later on 20 December 2022, HelloFresh announced their withdrawal from Japan with the CEO Thomas Griesel admitting failure in his ability to drive reasonable ROI. Employees were notified of their layoffs with less than the legal 30-day notice period. On 27 September 2023, HelloFresh filed for bankruptcy in the Tokyo District Court with total debt of 3 billion yen.
On 17 November 2022, HelloFresh launched in Spain under the name HelloFresh SE, promising to use "100 percent Spanish raised beef, chicken and pork." The following year, they announced that they would cease importing coconut milk from Thailand, following an investigation by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals which accused Thai farmers of forcing southern pig-tailed macaques to harvest coconuts.
HelloFresh announced in August 2023 they would expand their Factor ready-to-eat brand into Europe, starting with The Netherlands.
On 11 January 2024, after an investigation begun in 2022, HelloFresh was fined £140,000 by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), for sending millions of spam texts and emails, and contacting customers even after being asked to stop.
In March 2024, the company's stock dropped 46% in one day after the HelloFresh announced it expected lower earnings in 2024. HelloFresh then closed two distribution centers; one in Nuneaton, Warwickshire in the UK and one in Newnan, Georgia in the United States.
Corporate affairs
The key trends of HelloFresh are (as at the financial year ending December 31):
YearRevenue (€ bn)Net income (€ m)Employees20170.9–922,71520181.2–834,27620191.8–104,47720203.73696,43220215.925614,63520227.612719,59520237.51919,01220247.7–13621,783
Business
HelloFresh's business model is to prepare the ingredients needed for a meal, and deliver them to customers, who must then cook the meal using recipe cards, which can take around 30–50 minutes. It generally provides about three two-person meals a week for about $60 to $70. Each week, about 45 recipes are offered for users to choose from. In several markets, HelloFresh provides "Rapid Box" meals which take only 20 minutes to prepare. Their Factor brand competes in the ready-to-eat market, with not-frozen meals requiring about 2 minutes of preparation.
HelloFresh previously offered a wine-subscription service, based on that of its competitor Blue Apron. This subscription, HelloFresh Wine Club started at $14.83 per bottle or $89 for the whole month (includes 6 bottles of wine). With the Wine Club, customers could also pick between All Reds, All White, or a Mixed Box (Red and White) for their wine.
In March 2018, HelloFresh announced their acquisition of Green Chef, a USDA-certified organic meal-kit company. HelloFresh planned to use the acquisition to offer the largest selection of meal plans and diets for consumers on the market, adding Green Chef's organic vegan and gluten-free menus, including those plans compliant with Paleo and Keto diets. In 2020, HelloFresh acquired ready-made meal company Factor75 (since rebranded to just Factor) for $277 million. Factor was founded in 2013 and produces fresh pre-cooked meals with a focus on health and nutrition.
The company's US operations were responsible for 60% of revenues as of November 2017, and it has approximately 44% of the American market.
HelloFresh has operations in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Ireland.
HelloFresh offers partnership opportunities, including in-store, affiliate, and .
In March 2025, HelloFresh announced the closure of its distribution center in Grand Prairie, TX. This follows the 2024 closure of a distribution facility in the Atlanta area, part of the company’s cost-cutting program.
Union drives in the US
Warehouse workers for HelloFresh in Aurora, Colorado, and Richmond, California, initiated a union drive with UNITE-HERE in September 2021. HelloFresh management responded by hiring Kulture Consulting, a "union avoidance" consulting firm. Workers were compelled to attend captive audience meetings with anti-union messages. The Aurora election was held on 22 November, and Richmond held its election on 15 December; workers in both places voted decisively against unionization amid accusations of the company's interference and intimidation in the campaign, with the union contesting the results in Aurora. In Newark and Totowa, New Jersey, HelloFresh workers are unionizing with Brotherhood of Amalgamated Trades.
Climate labeling
In November 2021, HelloFresh launched their Climate Labeling Initiative. This labeling is to let consumers know when recipes are producing up to 85% less COe emissions. The initial launch was in Germany and expanded to ten other countries by late 2022.
Labor violation allegations
From December 2024 the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is investigating HelloFresh over allegations that migrant children were working at the meal-kit maker's cooking and packaging facility in Aurora, Illinois, as recently as this summer. The investigation also includes Midway Staffing, the agency responsible for hiring employees for the facility, to determine if child labor laws were violated. Cristobal Cavazos, executive director of Immigrant Solidarity, an immigrant rights advocacy group, stated that at least six teenagers, some of whom were migrants from Guatemala, were discovered working night shifts at the facility. The group played a role in bringing the issue to the attention of federal regulators.
In October 2024, a union representing 79 recently dismissed HelloFresh workers in the United Kingdom has criticized the company, labeling the terminations as unjust and outrageous. Workers from the Warwickshire warehouse staged a protest after their dismissals, which the Community Trade Union claims occurred following complaints about poor working conditions, including restrictive toilet break policies and questionable termination procedures. Former workers have described the workplace environment as toxic, citing long waits for toilet access and alleging they were fired for raising concerns. Union leaders have vowed to appeal the dismissals and criticized HelloFresh for not fostering a supportive environment for employees to voice their issues.
|
Dash's Designer
|
[
"1989 disestablishments in Virginia",
"Clothing retailers of the United States",
"Defunct companies based in Washington, D.C.",
"Defunct retail companies of the United States",
"American companies established in 1970",
"Retail companies established in 1970",
"Retail companies disestablished in 1989",
"Retail companies based in Washington, D.C.",
"American companies disestablished in 1989"
] | 541 | 5,019 |
Dash's Designer, commonly known as Dash's, was an American off-price, high-end men's clothing store chain based in Washington, D.C., Georgetown, Maryland, and Tysons Corner, Virginia.
History
After achieving success with several boutique stores in the late 1960s and early 70s in Georgetown and downtown Washington, D.C., John Dashtara and his brother Dar Dash established Dash's Designer in 1978.
Dash's was as well known for its unique and prodigious ad campaigns as it was for selling the very latest and best men's garments at the lowest prices.
Dash's won several ADDY Awards for their unparalleled television campaigns, including The Camel, which was featured on Dick Clark's TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes. President Gerald Ford delivered television and radio spots for the company during its collaboration with Washington's Children's Hospital and its Muscular Dystrophy Clinic. Dash's was also the first television sponsor of a number of television and radio programs, including the syndicated The George Michael Sports Machine.
The flagship store on 1308 F Street NW, was replaced by the Tysons Corner location as the flagship store and headquarters in 1978, and would remain so until its liquidation sale in January 1989.
In late 1983, Dash's brought suit against the nation's largest manufacturer of men's clothing, Hartmarx Corp., of trying to hurt its business by refusing to sell the retailer some of its best products and by charging one of its chief competitors lower prices. The suit was voluntarily dropped in 1984. The law firm was later sanctioned.
Dash's filed for bankruptcy protection in late 1988, and the company ceased operations in 1989.
|
Balthazar P. Melick
|
[
"1770 births",
"1835 deaths",
"American bankers",
"People from Lebanon Township, New Jersey",
"18th-century American merchants",
"JPMorgan Chase people",
"19th-century American merchants"
] | 593 | 4,761 |
Balthazar P. Melick (also known as Baltus) (October 26, 1770 – November 20, 1835), an American merchant and banker, was the founder of Chemical Bank in 1823. Melick served as the first president of Chemical from 1823 to 1831.
Biography
Melick who was born in Lebanon Township, New Jersey in 1770, started as an apprentice at a mercantile house at the age of thirteen. In 1792, at the age of twenty-one he was admitted to a partnership and for many years he was a prosperous merchant in Greenwich Village in New York City. In 1795, he was listed as a "grocer" doing business at 183 Washington Street. Melick founded the commercial house of Melick & Burger, which owned trade vessels sailing in the Caribbean, doing much of its business with the island of St. Croix. The firm, which had its offices at 76 Washington Street, owned a ship known as "Chase" which afterwards was prominent in the sugar trade.
He became a Director in the Equitable Fire Insurance Company, the Greenwich Fire Insurance and the Union Marine and Life Insurance Company.
Melick was also a noted member and secretary of the Black Friars Society, also known as the Friary, a music and social club.
Founder of Chemical Bank
Melick founded the New York Chemical Manufacturing Company, the predecessor of Chemical Bank in 1823 together with John C. Morrison, Mark Spenser, Gerardus Post, James Jenkins, William A. Seely and William Stebbins. Melick and his partners used the manufacturing company, which produced chemicals such as blue vitriol, alum, nitric acid, camphor and saltpeter, as well as medicines, paints, and dyes as a means to securing a bank charter from the New York State legislature. During the 1820s, prospective bankers found that they were more likely to be able to successfully secure a charter if the bank were part of a larger business. The following year, in April 1824, the company successfully amended its charter to allow Chemical to begin its banking practice.
Melick retired as president of the bank in 1831 in favor of John Mason, one of the richest merchants of his day in New York, and an early shareholder in the bank. Melick, who never married, died shortly thereafter in 1835.
|
Samuel Dresser
|
[
"1831 births",
"1901 deaths",
"Politicians from Bangor, Maine",
"People from Chisago County, Minnesota",
"People from Osceola, Wisconsin",
"American city founders",
"Businesspeople from Minnesota",
"Businesspeople from Wisconsin",
"Wisconsin sheriffs",
"19th-century American businesspeople",
"19th-century American farmers",
"Republican Party members of the Wisconsin State Assembly",
"19th-century members of the Wisconsin Legislature"
] | 498 | 4,500 |
Samuel B. Dresser (November 23, 1831November 20, 1901) was an American businessman, farmer and politician.
Background
Born in Bangor, Maine, Dresser received a public school education, and became a farmer. He moved to Taylors Falls, Minnesota Territory in 1851 and was in the lumber and merchant business. Dresser moved to a farm in a part of the township of Osceola, in Polk County, Wisconsin called Osceola Prairie, in 1862.
Public office
Dresser was elected as a Republican to the Wisconsin State Assembly seat representing Ashland, Barron, Bayfield, Burnett, Douglas and Polk Counties for the 1870 session, with 620 votes against 305 for Democrat V. M. Babcock, replacing fellow Republican Henry D. Barron, who had just been appointed auditor of the United States Treasury. He was assigned to the standing committees on lumber and manufactures, and on legislative expenditures, chairing the latter. He was not a candidate for re-election in 1870, and was succeeded by another Republican, Samuel S. Vaughn. Dresser was sheriff of Polk County in 1877 and 1878. By the time of his death, he had also served in various town government offices in Osceola for a quarter of a century.
Death and heritage
In 1871, he was appointed Deputy Lumber Agent for the St. Croix-Lake Superior railroad grant lands. He would spend some time acting to protect the timberlands of this district.
Dresser died in Osceola on November 20, 1901. Dresser had donated land for a railroad; when the area became a community, it was first called Dresser Junction and later simply Dresser, Wisconsin.
|
Arie Belldegrun
|
[
"1949 births",
"Living people",
"American bankers",
"American billionaires",
"American chairpersons of corporations",
"American health care chief executives",
"American medical academics",
"American oncologists",
"American technology chief executives",
"American technology company founders",
"American urologists",
"American venture capitalists",
"Businesspeople from Los Angeles",
"American pharmaceutical industry businesspeople",
"Harvard Medical School alumni",
"The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School alumni",
"Israeli billionaires",
"Israeli emigrants to the United States",
"Israeli Jews",
"Jewish American bankers",
"Jewish physicians",
"People from Bel Air, Los Angeles",
"Physicians from California",
"Weizmann Institute of Science alumni",
"21st-century American Jews"
] | 2,287 | 23,109 |
Arie S. Belldegrun (; born 1949), FACS, is an Israeli-American urologic oncologist, billionaire businessman and investor.
Early life and education
Belldegrun was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. He received his medical degree from the Hadassah Medical Center at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1974, and conducted his post-graduate studies at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1979. He completed his urologic surgery residency at Harvard Medical School in 1985, and his Surgical Oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in 1988. He is certified by the American Board of Urology, and is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons. Belldegrun is the director of the UCLA Institute of Urologic Oncology, professor of urology, and chief of the Division of Urologic Oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine.
In 1996, Belldegrun established his first company, Agensys, which was an early-stage privately held biotechnology company based in Los Angeles. The company was focused on the development of fully human monoclonal antibodies to treat solid tumor cancers in a variety of cancer targets. He served as its founding chairman of the board of directors from 1996 to 2002, and then as a director. In December 2007, Agensys was acquired by Astellas Pharma in a deal valued at US$537 million.
In 2003, Belldegrun became the founding vice-chairman of the board of directors and chairman of the scientific advisory board of Cougar Biotechnology; the company had a focus in the field of oncology. In July 2009, Cougar Biotechnology was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in a $970 million transaction. In April 2011, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved abiraterone acetate (Zytiga), Cougar's lead product, for late-stage prostate cancer.
In 2008, Belldegrun became the chairman and partner of , a New York-based venture capital firm and merchant bank focused on the life science sector. Two River specializes in investments in life science, biotechnology, and in firms focused on developing preventative and therapeutic technologies for a broad spectrum of disease areas including oncology, cardiovascular disease, neurological disorders, and companion animal health care.
Belldegrun is the founder, chairman, president and CEO of Kite Pharma. Although founded in 2009, the company went public in June 2014. Based in Santa Monica, Kite Pharma is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company engaged in the development of novel cancer immunotherapy products with a primary focus on engineered autologous T cell therapy (eACT) designed to restore the immune system's ability to recognize and eradicate tumors. On August 28, 2017, Gilead Sciences announced that it would acquire Kite Pharma for $11.9 billion in an all-cash deal, equating to $180 cash per share. The deal added a CAR-T candidate to Gilead's existing portfolio. The acquisition was completed in October 2017. In October 2017, Kite Pharma's therapy, Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) became the first CAR-T therapy approved by the FDA for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma after two or more lines of systemic therapy.
In 2017, Belldegrun became the co-founder and senior managing director of , a Boston-based life sciences investment firm that consists of scientists, physicians, entrepreneurs, and investors passionate about building and funding breakthroughs in biomedicine. Vida Ventures has a bicoastal presence. In June 2021, Vida Ventures closed its third fund (Vida Ventures III) with $825 million. Vida Ventures currently has approximately $1.7 billion in assets under management.
In 2017, Belldegrun co-founded and serves as the executive chairman of Allogene Therapeutics, a San Francisco-based biotechnology company. Allogene has raised $300 in Series A fundraising, and $120 million in a private financing round. On October 11, 2018, Allogene Therapeutics raised $324 million in an initial public offering on the NASDAQ, listing under the ticker "ALLO".
In July 2019, it was reported that , Belldegrun's family office, has entered into a joint venture with Tishman Speyer to start . Belldegrun serves as the co-chairman, while his son, Dan, is the company's CEO. The company purchased its first property in Boston's Seaport District for $80 million. In November 2020, Breakthrough Properties closed its first fund (Breakthrough Life Science Property Fund) with $1 billion.
In May 2021, it was reported that Belldegrun's Bellco Capital is co-sponsoring the $2.5 billion merger of Ginkgo Bioworks with Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp. (a SPAC), with a pre-money valuation of $15 billion. Ginkgo Bioworks is now trading on the NYSE under the ticker "DNA". Belldegrun serves on the board of directors of Ginkgo Bioworks.
In 2014, according to the Bloomberg Pay Index, Belldegrun was ranked the 8th highest-paid executive in the United States, with a pay package valued at $95.2 million. In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter's annual Hollywood's Top Doctors list included Belldegrun as one of the highest-rated urologists.
In 2021, in its annual ranking of the wealthiest people in Israel, Forbes Israel ranked Arie and Rebecka Belldegrun 36th with a personal net worth of $1.75 billion. They have donated over $1 million to the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences, and have donated a $5 million sculpture to LACMA.
Belldegrun was featured in the 2017–2021 editions of the LA500-LA's Most Influential People, compiled by the Los Angeles Business Journal, and has been named Business Leader of the Year for 2018 in the Health Care category for a life dedicated to finding cures for cancer. He was also featured in the CEO Today USA Awards 2017 which celebrate the success, innovation and strategic vision of CEOs across a number of sectors, industries within the US, identifying the most successful, innovative and forward-thinking CEOs in business today. In June 2018, Belldegrun received the EY Master Entrepreneur Award at the Entrepreneur of the Year 2018 Awards.
Belldegrun has written over 500 scientific publications related to urologic oncology and has authored several books on prostate and kidney cancers. He was one of the speakers at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2013, delivered the keynote Andrew C. Novick Memorial Lecture at the Ninth International Kidney Cancer Symposium, and regularly presents at the Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. It was announced that Belldegrun will present at the 34th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in January 2016.
Belldegrun serves as a member of the advisory board of the Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management at the University of Pennsylvania and as a member of the strategic advisory group of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Belldegrun also serves on the board of directors of Kronos Bio, Fosun Kite, UroGen Pharma, Pontifax, ByHeart and IconOVir Bio. In the past, he served on the board of directors of Teva Pharmaceuticals, Cell Design Labs, Arno Therapeutics, SonaCare Medical, Roei Medical Technologies, Oncura, Nile Therapeutics, Hana Biosciences, Paramount Acquisition Corp and Chem Rx Corp.
Personal life
Belldegrun is married to Rebecka Belldegrun and together they have four children. They reside in Bel Air, Los Angeles.
|
Chang Byung-gyu
|
[
"Living people",
"1973 births",
"20th-century South Korean businesspeople",
"21st-century South Korean businesspeople",
"KAIST alumni",
"South Korean billionaires",
"Businesspeople from Seoul",
"South Korean chairpersons of corporations",
"Video game developers"
] | 782 | 7,497 |
Chang Byung-gyu (; born 25 April 1973) is a South Korean business executive and investor. He is best known as the founder and chairman of Krafton, a video game publishing and holding company. Chang was the first and second chairman of South Korea's Presidential Committee on the 4th Industrial Revolution. He is a co-founder of Neowiz, a holding company, and BonAngels, a venture capital firm where he serves as an advisor.
As of April 2025, Forbes estimates his net worth at US$1.1 billion.
Early life and education
Chang was born on 25 April 1973 in Daegu, South Korea. He attended Daegu Science High School where he graduated early. In 1991, he enrolled at KAIST, earning a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Computer Science in 1995, a Master of Arts and Science in Computer Science in 1997, and a PhD in computer science at KAIST's graduate school.
Career
In 1997, Chang co-founded Neowiz, along with seven other co-founders, and served as chief technology officer (CTO).
Chang left Neowiz in 2005 and founded First Snow, a search engine startup. The company's technology was sold to Naver Corporation for ₩35 billion won (US$31 million) in 2006.
In March 2007, Chang founded Bluehole Studio. Chang founded venture capital firm BonAngels in 2012, which invests in early-stage startups.
On 22 April 2015, Bluehole Studio rebranded to Bluehole and acquired several video game studios.
In 2017, Chang joined the Presidential Committee on the 4th Industrial Revolution as its first and second chairman until 2020. During the term, he lead the proposal of industrial innovation plans for the South Korean government.
Chang established Krafton on 5 November 2018 to serve as a holding company for Bluehole. The same year, Tencent bought a 10% stake in the company for US$500 million, making Krafton a unicorn.
In August 2021, Chang became a billionaire after Krafton went public in an initial public offering (IPO).
In March 2022, Chang donated approximately ₩37.4 billion (US$30 million) worth of Krafton stock to executives and employees.
Personal life
Chang is married to Jung Seung-hye, who holds less than 1% of Krafton.
|
Henry Parsons Crowell
|
[
"1855 births",
"1943 deaths",
"19th-century American businesspeople",
"19th-century evangelicals",
"20th-century American businesspeople",
"20th-century evangelicals",
"American anti-communists",
"American evangelicals",
"American food company founders",
"American philanthropists",
"Quaker Oats Company",
"Businesspeople from Cleveland"
] | 344 | 3,318 |
Henry Parsons Crowell (January 27, 1855 in Cleveland, Ohio<ref name=Marquis>, in Who's Who in America (14th edition, 1926); p. 537</ref>–1944) was an American businessman and philanthropist. In 1881, Crowell purchased the Quaker Mill Company, and subsequently the brand name Quaker, and launched the first breakfast cereal advertising campaign in a magazine. He also purchased the bankrupt Quaker Oat Mill Company. In 1901, he founded the Quaker Oats Company.
Career
As the founder of the Quaker Oats Company, Henry Parsons Crowell helped influence the eating habits of Americans and in the process helped to create new methods of marketing and merchandising.
Crowell spent much of his life in business and philanthropy. For 40 years he was the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Moody Bible Institute. The Henry Parsons Crowell and Susan Coleman Crowell Trust carefully states that the purpose of their personal family trust is to fund the teaching and active extension of the doctrines of evangelical Christianity.
Legacies and contributions
Crowell donated over 70 percent of his wealth to the Crowell Trust. The Moody Bible Institute named the 12-story Crowell Hall building after him. In the United States, he was regarded as one of the most respected Christian businessmen in the early 20th century.
Bibliography
Musser, Joe (1997). The Cereal Tycoon''. Moody Press. .
Day, Richard Ellsworth, "Breakfast Table Autocrat The Life Story of Henry Parsons Crowell". Moody Press, Chicago, 1946.
|
NatWest Three
|
[
"June 2002 crimes in the United States",
"British fraudsters",
"English white-collar criminals",
"Corporate crime",
"Enron scandal",
"Quantified groups of defendants",
"People extradited from the United Kingdom to the United States",
"British people imprisoned in the United States",
"Living people",
"NatWest Group litigation",
"Year of birth missing (living people)"
] | 5,605 | 48,930 |
The NatWest Three, also known as the Enron Three, are the British businessmen Giles Darby, David Bermingham and Gary Mulgrew. In 2002, they were indicted in Houston, Texas, on seven counts of wire fraud against their former employer, Greenwich NatWest, as part of the Enron scandal.
After a high-profile battle in the British courts, the three men were extradited from the United Kingdom to the United States in 2006. On 28 November 2007, each pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in exchange for the other charges being dropped. On 22 February 2008, they were each sentenced to 37 months in prison. Initially they were jailed in the US, but were later repatriated to British prisons to serve out the rest of their sentences. They were released from custody in August 2010.
Background
In 2000, Giles Darby, David Bermingham and Gary Mulgrew worked for Greenwich NatWest, then a unit of National Westminster Bank, which was later acquired by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). The three were involved in Greenwich NatWest's dealings with the American energy company Enron. As a result of these dealings, NatWest owned a stake in a Cayman Islands-registered partnership, Swap Sub.
Swap Sub was a special-purpose entity created by Andrew Fastow, Enron's CFO, ostensibly for the purpose of hedging Enron's investment in Rhythms NetConnections, an internet service provider. Swap Sub's assets consisted of cash and Enron stock. Its liability was an option giving Enron the ability to require it to buy Enron's entire investment in Rhythms NetConnections at a predetermined price in 2004. In addition to NatWest, Credit Suisse First Boston held an equal stake in Swap Sub. The remainder was owned by a partnership managed by Fastow.
In March 2000, Enron terminated the hedging arrangement with Swap Sub. Fastow persuaded Enron to pay Swap Sub a $30 million fee to terminate the option and recover the Enron stock it owned, even though, because of a decline in the price of the Rhythms stock, Swap Sub owed Enron a large amount of money. $10 million of the payment went to Credit Suisse First Boston; Fastow falsely claimed to Enron that the other $20 million would go to NatWest, but in fact only $1 million did so. The payment, which was formally agreed on 22 March 2000, resulted in large profits for Swap Sub, enriching several Enron employees who had acquired ownership interests in the partnership.
Crime
According to the Statement of Facts which was signed by all three defendants as part of their eventual plea bargain, the Three realized in early 2000 that, because of rises in the stock prices of Enron and Rhythms, NatWest's interest in Swap Sub "had quite some value". On 22 February of that year, the three bankers made a presentation to Enron CFO Andrew Fastow suggesting ways in which this value could be captured; however, Fastow ultimately rejected this proposal.
Shortly afterwards, Fastow contacted Gary Mulgrew in late February or early March 2000 and offered to purchase NatWest's interest in Swap Sub. He also offered Mulgrew what is described in the Statement of Facts as "an unspecified financial opportunity" if he were to leave NatWest. Mulgrew discussed this conversation with Darby and Bermingham. On 6 March 2000, Fastow's assistant Michael Kopper contacted Darby with a formal proposal that a company Kopper controlled should purchase NatWest's stake in Swap Sub for $1 million. Mulgrew and Darby subsequently recommended to their superiors that NatWest should accept this offer.
Later that month, the three bankers learned that the "unspecified financial opportunity" which had been mentioned to Mulgrew involved their personally acquiring a portion of NatWest's stake in Swap Sub. In furtherance of this, Kopper set up a deal for the Three to acquire a put option on half of NatWest's former stake in the company. On 17 March, Darby collected the signatures needed to finalize the NatWest sale. On 20 March the Three executed the option agreement with Kopper. The Three concealed both their dealings with Fastow and Kopper, and the fact that they now had a financial interest in the company that bought Swap Sub, from their superiors at NatWest.
According to the Statement of Facts, the Three were unaware of the 22 March agreement to pay $30 million to Swap Sub. On 21 April 2000, Bermingham, who had resigned from NatWest in the meantime, exercised the options, resulting in a profit of more than $7 million. He subsequently split the proceeds with Darby and Mulgrew.
Timeline of legal proceedings
FSA investigation
In November 2001 the three bankers, having now moved to work at Royal Bank of Canada, learned that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was investigating Fastow and voluntarily met with the British Financial Services Authority (FSA) to discuss the deal. According to their own account, the Three initiated this meeting in order to "ensure transparency". Bermingham later claimed that "[w]e gave [the FSA] everything because we thought we had nothing to hide."
In February 2002 the FSA completed its inquiries without taking any action. It later emerged that the FSA had passed the results of its investigation to the SEC, which had in turn passed them on to the prosecutors in the US Department of Justice. According to a report in The Times the FSA report was so detailed that it told the SEC whom to interview and what evidence would be needed to secure a conviction, and concluded that "there appears to be evidence that the three individuals were subject to a major conflict of interest".
Issue of arrest warrants and indictment
US arrest warrants for the Three were issued in June 2002. They were indicted by a grand jury in Houston, Texas in September of the same year on seven counts of wire fraud. The warrants were among the first issued by Enron prosecutors; media reports speculated that their main purpose was to induce the Three into a plea bargain whereby they would testify against Kopper and Fastow (seen as more important prosecution targets) in exchange for reduced sentences.
During the long delay caused by the decision of the Three to fight extradition, however, Kopper and Fastow both pleaded guilty and entered into plea bargains themselves. Thus, in an ironic turn of events, Kopper and Fastow were likely to have been the key prosecution witnesses against the Three if the case had gone to trial.
The indictment set out seven counts of wire fraud, each one corresponding to a document (fax, email or wire transfer) that was transmitted electronically in the United States in furtherance of the alleged fraudulent scheme. In addition to the facts agreed to as part of the eventual plea bargain, the indictment alleged that the Three knew, at the time they recommended the sale of Swap Sub to NatWest, that its value was significantly greater than $1 million, and that the 22 February presentation to Fastow was part of the fraudulent scheme. Although Enron officials were involved, the indictment did not allege that Enron Corporation itself was a victim of the scheme, or that the Three's activities had any connection to Enron's collapse.
The evidence against the NatWest Three included preparations for the 22 February presentation, which contained the phrase
Problem is that it is too obvious (to both Enron and LPs) what is happening (ie, robbery of LPs), so probably not attractive. Also no certainty of making money ...
Prosecutors alleged that the use of the word "robbery" in the presentation showed that the Three knew that they were planning to commit a crime. They also cited the discrepancy between the amounts of money accepted by NatWest ($1 million) and Credit Suisse First Boston ($10 million) for their equal stakes in Swap Sub.
Extradition to the United States
US prosecutors began to pursue proceedings in what they expected to be a "routine" extradition in the summer of 2002. The Three were arrested in Britain on 23 April 2004. Extradition proceedings under the Extradition Act 2003 commenced in June of that year amid widespread controversy.
In September 2004 a judge at Bow Street Magistrates' Court ruled that the extradition could proceed. The Three responded by suing Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in the High Court of Justice, seeking judicial review to force a prosecution in the UK which would have taken precedence over the US investigation.
In response the SFO issued a statement defending its decision to defer to prosecutors in the US:
After a significant delay, the extradition was endorsed by Home Secretary Charles Clarke in May 2005. The Three appealed this decision also in the High Court. On 20 February 2006 both the appeal against extradition and the suit to force the SFO to prosecute (which were consolidated into one case) were rejected by the High Court. The bankers appealed further to the House of Lords, but this appeal failed on 21 June 2006. On 27 June 2006 the Three lost an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Rumours in the British press that the government would support the Three's case were rejected by Attorney General Lord Goldsmith on 7 July 2006.
Initial court proceedings in the United States
After all legal avenues of appeal against extradition had been exhausted, the Three arrived in Houston on 13 July 2006. They spent one night in that city's Federal Detention Center before being released into the custody of their attorney, under a requirement that they wear electronic monitoring devices. On 21 July, a judge ruled that the Three could go free on bond but could not leave the Houston area, could not meet with each other without their lawyers present, and were required to raise between $80,000 and $150,000 by the end of the month. US immigration services gave them permission to accept employment in the US for a period of one year, but, because of the judge's order, they were not permitted to leave the Houston area to seek or obtain work.
Trial date postponements
On 2 August 2006 the trial date was delayed indefinitely from 13 September 2006, in order to allow two of the Three to secure legal representation. On 9 August 2006 the legal situation of the Three was complicated by subpoenas served on them in an Enron-related civil suit against Royal Bank of Canada. On 12 August 2006 all three informed the judge that they had retained attorneys.
On 6 September 2006, the trial date was set for February 2007 if witnesses could be obtained in time, failing that for 4 September 2007. Until that time the Three were required to wear monitoring devices and were forbidden from leaving the Houston area. On 1 August 2007, the trial date was moved back yet again to January 2008. This was following another earlier postponement to 22 October. This further delay was a significant blow to the three, and their supporters stressed again the problems they were facing with the scale of legal fees and further separation from their families in the UK.
Witnesses controversy
On 6 August 2007, the Three asked the judge in the case to order six former colleagues living in Britain to provide video testimony for their defence. In a court filing explaining this request, they alleged that "[s]everal individuals now refuse to travel to the United States to appear on defendants' behalf because they feel, or have been, threatened by the [US] government". Such a request would have required the co-operation of British authorities.
The Three's filing also claimed that Royal Bank of Scotland was obstructing attempts to contact a larger group of thirty-six employees who were also potential witnesses, claiming that "[t]he Royal Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Canada have… taken steps to prevent Defendants from securing the testimony of former colleagues", and that "counsel for the purported victim in this case [RBS] has interfered with the ability of defence counsel to obtain relevant testimony". They concluded that the Three's ability "to mount a vigorous defence has thereby been severely compromised, if not eviscerated". The Three went so far as to publicly name the prospective witnesses in the hope that that would encourage some of them to speak out.
Plea bargain
On 28 November 2007, the Three accepted a plea bargain, pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop the other six counts, and to support the application by the Three to serve part of their sentences in the United Kingdom. In the plea agreement, the Three pleaded guilty to count four of the indictment, relating to the email from London to Houston of the final Swap Sub sale documents. A "statement of facts" was appended to the plea agreement as Exhibit A and was signed by all three defendants.
Prosecutor Alice Fisher stated, "[t]hese three defendants admitted today that they defrauded NatWest by entering into a secret and illegal deal with officers from Enron – a deal that yielded millions in profits for them personally at the expense of their employer". However, an article in The Daily Telegraph argued that the guilty pleas were motivated not by actual guilt, but rather by the prospect of further delays before the trial and possible 35-year sentences if convicted. Other British commentators agreed that this was a possibility. The Telegraph piece went on to claim that the statement of facts did not state that the Three knowingly defrauded NatWest. The original indictment alleged that the Three knew that NatWest's stake was worth far more than the $1 million it was being sold for; the statement of facts claimed only that bankers believed it was likely that they would make significant amounts of money as a result of the transaction, based on information that they concealed from their employer.
In August 2010 Bermingham and Mulgrew appeared in a video on ungagged.net, a site devoted to attacking the US Department of Justice's handling of the Enron collapse. In the video David Bermingham recanted his guilty plea, and both he and Mulgrew claimed that they had been pressured into accepting plea bargains, attacking the US judicial system and characterising their treatment as "torture". Giles Darby said that he "fundamentally" disagreed with the claims made by Bermingham and Mulgrew in the video.
Sentencing and prison
The NatWest Three were sentenced on 22 February 2008 to 37 months of imprisonment. They were also required to repay $7.3 million to RBS Securities, the successor bank to Greenwich NatWest, of which $1.25 million would be due when the men surrendered themselves to prison authorities. During sentencing, the Three each made brief statements to the judge. Mulgrew said that he had shown a "lack of integrity" and "exercised poor judgement", concluding that "I have no one to blame but myself". Darby admitted that he was "wrong", and said "I deeply regret my involvement in this whole affair."
Darby's lawyer stated that "Andy Fastow and the culture of greed at Enron corrupted everybody and everything it came in contact with", and added that the Three "are as much victims as anybody else." The Three requested to be assigned to the low-security federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania. In April 2008, each was assigned to a different prison: Mulgrew was ordered to surrender to the facility in Big Spring, Texas on 30 April; Giles Darby to the Allenwood facility on 7 May; and David Bermingham to the prison in Lompoc, California, on 9 May.
Mulgrew, Darby and Bermingham were assigned consecutive federal inmate numbers (66096-179, 66097-179 and 66098-179 respectively). They were later allowed to serve the remainder of their sentence in England. Bermingham was moved from Spring Hill Open Prison to a closed prison in Grendon Underwood in August 2009. The three were released in August 2010.
Public relations campaign in Britain
Press coverage of the Three in Britain was initially mostly negative, focusing on the amount of money the men had gained and their extravagant lifestyles.
For example, The Independent wrote that the men saw themselves as "womanising buccaneers who played as hard and as fast as they pursued their deals", and The Sunday Times described Mulgrew as "fiercely competitive" with "a massive ego" and "scars on his arms" from his former career as a nightclub bouncer. The tone of the reporting changed when the Three secured the services of Bell Yard Communications, a public relations firm which specialised in "public reputation management during times of corporate crisis or dispute", headed by Melanie Riley. Adrian Flook of M: Communications was also involved. Both firms claimed to be working pro bono. Riley said that "I have been working pro bono for the last six months because I believe in the case. We have worked hard to ensure that people understood the inequity of the Extradition Act."
Guardian journalist Nick Davies, in his book Flat Earth News, described the strategy adopted by Bell Yard:
Davies later recounted the reaction of the press:
Riley summed up her strategy as follows:
M: Communications co-founder Nick Miles added:
An article in the Financial Times also highlighted the achievements of the public relations team:
The Three feature as victims of British justice in the £500,000 documentary Taking Liberties, made by Bermingham's film finance acquaintance.
Extradition controversy
The extensive news coverage of the Three in Britain resulted in a large-scale debate over the merits of their extradition to the United States under the then new Extradition Act 2003. In particular, a high-profile campaign against the extradition was led by The Daily Telegraph newspaper. Several arguments were raised against the extradition.
Jurisdiction argument
It was argued that the crime was committed by British citizens living in Britain against a British company based in London, the nation's capital city and that, therefore, any resulting criminal case fell under British legal and territorial jurisdiction and should be tried by a British court. However, British authorities decided not to prosecute due to a purported lack of evidence.
Fair trial argument
Some argued that it would be very difficult for Three to receive a fair trial in Texas. The case could have taken years to come to trial. The trial was scheduled to begin in September 2006, but was repeatedly postponed to January 2008. The three accused men would be forced to remain in the US, far away from their families in the UK. Additionally, while on bail they would be unable to find gainful employment in order to fund a legal defence against the charges brought against them. (The Three were permitted to seek employment in the US provided they remained in Houston.)
It was also claimed that the defendants would be handicapped in preparing a defence because most of the evidence and witnesses were overseas in the UK. They argued that witnesses would be reluctant to come to Texas.
Extradition inequality argument
It was alleged that the extradition arrangements between the US and the UK were highly unequal. The Act's terms made it easier to extradite British citizens to America than vice versa. There has been much criticism of the fact that the Americans do not have to produce a prima facie case to extradite British citizens, whereas there was no comparable facility to extradite US citizens to the UK. Despite this, the head of Britain's Serious Fraud Office, Robert Wardle, has claimed that there would have been enough evidence to extradite the Three to the US even under the old extradition arrangements. He expressed astonishment that the men had become a "cause célèbre", and expressed confidence that the Three would get a fair trial in the US. Supporters of the Three claim that when the extradition law was passed in the wake of 11 September the British government stated that it was only to be used in the so-called war against terror and if the treaty was ratified by the US. However, neither of these conditions was written into the text of the extradition law, and neither had been fulfilled in the case of the Three at the time of their extradition. (The treaty was subsequently ratified by the US in September 2006.)
House of Commons debate
The Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, allowed an emergency debate, on 12 July 2006, on both the treaty and the 'Natwest Three' after a request by Liberal Democrat MP Nick Clegg.
Neil Coulbeck
On 12 July 2006, a former Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) executive and FBI prosecution witness Neil Coulbeck had been found dead, after committing suicide by slitting his wrists. Coulbeck had worked for RBS until 2004, latterly as Head of Group Treasury.
It had been suggested by friends and family that the FBI 'hounded' Coulbeck. At the inquest into his death, Coulbeck's wife stated that he had been deeply disturbed by the extradition of the Three, and it was known that he had provided a crucial statement which in part led to their extradition. The FBI denied this, saying that it had interviewed Coulbeck only once, four years earlier.
Relevance in future extradition cases
The case of the NatWest Three was cited in Parliament in relation to the 2020 US extradition request for Mike Lynch, founder of software company Autonomy. David Davis stated:
Comments on the attempt by the US to extradite Autonomy founder Mike Lynch: "[i]t is a near statistical certainty that someone extradited to the US will end up guilty, most probably through a plea bargain rather than going to trial, because the criminal justice system in the US is so heavily geared towards this outcome".
"[A]longside the horror stories about gang beatings and brutality, Giles also wrote about the larger-than-life characters he met and the unexpected antics of his fellow inmates."
"The remarkable true story of one man’s journey from a Glasgow orphanage to a notorious gang-infested prison in Texas. Driven by his desire to return to his son in England and haunted by the increasingly frustrating search for his missing daughter".
See also
Babar Ahmad
David Carruthers
Peter Dicks
Gary McKinnon
Christopher Tappin
Syed Talha Ahsan
Richard O'Dwyer
|
Cal Grant
|
[
"Student financial aid in the United States",
"Education in California",
"Grants (money)",
"Scholarships in the United States"
] | 855 | 6,514 |
Cal Grant is a financial aid program administrated by the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) providing aid to California undergraduates, vocational training students, and those in teacher certification programs. Cal Grants are the largest source of California state funded student financial aid.
Cal Grant gives funds to students who meet grade point average and parent income requirements. Up to $12,630 a year is available to qualifying students which can be applied to tuition, room and board, or books and other supplies. Cal Grant applicants must file FAFSA or California Dream Application between October 1 and March 2 each year, along with the Cal Grant GPA verification Form. Students that do not have a high school GPA to submit (such as students that were homeschooling, attended charter school or have a GED) may substitute their GED, ACT, or SAT scores.
Submit the FAFSA or California Dream Application and your verified Cal Grant GPA by the deadline
Be a U.S. citizen or eligible non-citizen (your parents don’t need to be citizens or eligible noncitizens)
Be a California resident when you graduated from high school or exempt from non-resident tuition (AB 540)
Attend a qualifying California college
Not have a bachelor’s or professional degree (except for Cal Grant A and B extended awards for a teaching credential program)
Have financial need based on your college costs
Have family income and assets below the established ceilings
Meet any minimum GPA requirements
Be in a program leading to an undergraduate degree or certificate
Be enrolled at least half time
Have registered with U.S. Selective Service (most males)
Not owe a refund on a state or federal grant, or be in default on a student loan
Types of Cal Grants
Cal Grant A
This award may be applied to tuition and other fees at public or private colleges for students working towards an associate's or bachelor's degree. In the 2018-19 school year, the grant covers $5,742 at California State Universities and $12,570 at University of California schools. Up to $9,084 is given to students attending a private school.
Cal Grant B
This award is given to low income students as a living allowance and partial tuition assistance. First year students are given up to $1,672 for books and living expenses; after that the awards are the same as Cal Grant A. As of 2019 the grant increased up to 6,000 a year due to a new bill passed July 2019. Beginning in 2019‑20, Cal Grant recipients with dependent children qualify for larger access awards (of up to about $6,000 per year) at the public segments (UC, CSU, and CCC). Cal Grant recipients enrolling full time at CCC also qualify for additional aid (of up to $4,000 per year) through the Student Success Completion Grant. To be eligible for this grant the student must be engaging in at least one academic year of courses.
Cal Grant C
This award provides assistance for tuition at occupational or career colleges. $547 is available for books and equipment and is available at any California Community College. The vocational program must be at least four months in length but not more than two years.
Cal Grant A Competitive Award
For students that did not qualify for the regular Cal Grant A, this award is available, but not guaranteed, to all that meet the minimum eligibility requirements. The student must have a minimum GPA of 3.0 and be from a low to middle income family. This award helps with tuition and fees at qualifying schools with programs of more than two years.
Cal Grant B Competitive Award
Students must have a minimum GPA of 2.0 and are from a disadvantaged or low income family. The money may be used for tuition and access costs at eligible schools with programs of more than one year in length. The first year, this grant can only be used for access costs like living expenses, transportation, supplies and books. Starting with the second year, this award may also be applied to tuition.
See also
Other state-sponsored scholarship in the U.S.
Bright Futures Scholarship Program in Florida
HOPE Scholarship in Georgia
Nevada Millennium Scholarship in Nevada
|
Cornelius Vanderbilt II
|
[
"1843 births",
"1899 deaths",
"19th-century American railroad executives",
"American people of Dutch descent",
"American socialites",
"Businesspeople from Newport, Rhode Island",
"Businesspeople from Staten Island",
"Vanderbilt family",
"New York (state) Republicans",
"Gilded Age",
"Presidents of the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York",
"Burials at the Vanderbilt Family Cemetery and Mausoleum"
] | 1,880 | 16,120 |
Cornelius "Corneil" Vanderbilt II (November 27, 1843 – September 12, 1899) was an American socialite
and a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family.
Noted forebears
He was the favorite grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who bequeathed him $5 million, and the eldest son of William Henry "Billy" Vanderbilt (who bequeathed him about $70 million) and Maria Louisa Kissam. In his turn, he succeeded them as the chairman and the president of the New York Central and related railroad lines in 1885.
Early life
Cornelius Vanderbilt II was born on November 27, 1843, on Staten Island, New York to William Henry Vanderbilt (1821–1885) and Maria Louisa Kissam.
Vanderbilt established a reputation for a strong work ethic while clerking at the Shoe and Leather Bank in New York City. This endeared him to his grandfather, the 'Commodore,' who was a strong believer in personal industry.
Vanderbilt was active in numerous organizations, including the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York, YMCA, Red Cross, Salvation Army, Trinity Church, St. Bartholomew's Church, Sunday Breakfast Association, and the Newport Country Club.
Personal life and death
On February 4, 1867, he married Alice Claypoole Gwynne (1845–1934), daughter of Abraham Evan Gwynne and Rachel Moore Flagg. The two met at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church where both taught Sunday school.
Together, they had seven children:
Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt (1869–1874), who died of a childhood illness at the age of five.
William Henry Vanderbilt II (1870–1892), who died of typhoid fever while attending Yale University.
Cornelius "Neily" Vanderbilt III (1873–1942), whom his father disinherited for marrying Grace Graham Wilson (1870–1953) without his approval.
Gertrude Vanderbilt (1875–1942), who married Harry Payne Whitney (1872–1930)
Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (1877–1915), who died aboard the RMS Lusitania, and who married Ellen French, and after their divorce, Margaret Emerson (1884–1960).
Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt (1880–1925), who first married society debutante Cathleen Neilson, and later Gloria Morgan.
Gladys Moore Vanderbilt (1886–1965), who married Count László Széchenyi (1879–1938).
A stroke in 1896 compelled him to reduce his active business involvement. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage shortly after 6 a.m. on September 12, 1899, at his home on West Fifty-seventh Street in Manhattan, New York City.
Upon his death, family leadership passed to his first brother, William Kissam Vanderbilt.
Estate
Vanderbilt's philanthropy had been such that he did not increase the wealth that had been left to him. His estate at the time of his death was appraised at $72,999,867, $20 million of which was real estate. In dollars, $73 million is equivalent to $.
In the weeks following Cornelius Vanderbilt II's death, the terms of his will sparked a minor controversy within New York society when it was revealed that Vanderbilt's eldest surviving son, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, was to receive a substantially smaller share of his estate compared to his siblings. In his place Vanderbilt’s second surviving son, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, was named as the principal beneficiary, inheriting over half of the fortune as well as the Gold Congressional Medallion awarded to his grandfather, 'Commodore' Cornelius Vanderbilt I, by the United States Congress—an heirloom which had come to symbolise headship of the Vanderbilt family. The final version of the will bore the date 18 June 1896, the same day originally intended for the wedding of Cornelius Vanderbilt III to Grace Wilson despite his parents' disapproval of the union.
Under the terms of the Will, the bulk of Vanderbilt's estate was divided amongst his widow and children:
His widow, Alice Claypoole Vanderbilt received an income of $250,000 annually for her life from a $7,000,000 Trust Fund, which she had the power to bequeath amongst their descendants under her Will in whatever proportions she saw fit. Alice also received $2,000,000 outright, the Family's Box at the Metropolitan Opera, a life interest in their Newport Estate The Breakers, and a life interest in their Manhattan Townhouse Cornelius Vanderbilt II House at 1 West 57th Street, Manhattan. The Will also gave Alice the power to leave their Newport and Manhattan homes to any of their children.
His elder daughter Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney received a $5,000,000 Trust Fund and $2,250,000 outright
His two youngest children Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt and Gladys Vanderbilt Széchenyi each received $1,250,000 and a $5,000,000 Trust Fund
His eldest son Cornelius Vanderbilt III received a far smaller bequest than his siblings; $500,000 outright and a $1,000,000 Trust Fund
His second-eldest son Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Sr received a $5,000,000 Trust Fund, a specific bequest of $1,250,000, The Oakland Farm Estate in Rhode Island, as well as the Residuary Estate, reportedly valued at $28,000,000 to $35,000,000. In the weeks following Vanderbilt's death it became publicly known that Alfred had gifted his elder brother Cornelius Vanderbilt III $6,000,000 from his own inheritance to provide Cornelius with an inheritance of an equal size to that of their other siblings.
Vanderbilt's Will also provided for a specific bequest of $100,000 to his younger brother Frederick William Vanderbilt, whilst other relatives, friends, and servants collectively received approximately $565,000. Various churches and charitable organisations collectively received charitable bequests totaling $1,020,000.
Real estate
The Fifth Avenue mansions that Cornelius Vanderbilt II, his brothers, and his sons lived in have been demolished, including Cornelius Vanderbilt II House.
His 70-room summer residence, The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, still stands as a memory of his lifestyle. It is today operated as a historic house museum.
Descendants
Through his son, Reginald, he was the grandfather of Gloria Laura Vanderbilt, the socialite and fashion designer, and the great-grandfather of news anchor Anderson Hays Cooper.
Through his son, Alfred, he was the grandfather of William Henry Vanderbilt III, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Jr., and George Washington Vanderbilt III.
Through his daughter, Gladys, he was the grandfather of Hungarian-American heiress Alice Széchenyi.
See also
The Breakers
Vanderbilt Family
Further reading
For vital data.
Vanderbilt, Arthur T., II (1989). Fortune's Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt. New York: Morrow. .
essay on the construction and demise of the Fifth Avenue mansion.
Cornelius II
|
Philippine fifty-centavo coin
|
[
"Obsolete denominations of the Philippine peso",
"Philippines currency history",
"Fifty-cent coins"
] | 792 | 7,890 |
The Philippine fifty-centavo coin () (50¢) was a denomination of Philippine currency. It was minted for the Philippines from 1864 to 1994 and was demonetized in 1998.
History
Spanish administration
Prior to 1864, coins valued at 1/2 a Spanish dollar (or peso) or four reales issued by Spain and Spanish America were generally accepted in the Philippines for half a peso. The half-peso coin was considered as the successor to the pre-Hispanic silver denomination rupee or rupiah, locally called salapi. In 1864 a silver 50-centimo coin was issued specifically for the Philippines weighing 12.98 grams of 0.9 fine silver (reduced to 0.835 fine after 1881).
United States administration
In 1903 the 50-centavo coin equivalent to 1/4th a U.S. dollar was minted for the Philippines, weighing 13.48 grams of 0.9 fine silver. Its specifications were reduced from 1907 to 10.0 grams of 0.75 fine silver; this was minted until 1945.
Independence
English Series: In 1958, minting of the centavo resumed with another coat of arms on the reverse. The inscription around the coat of arms was changed to 'Central Bank of the Philippines'.
Pilipino Series: In 1969, the coin featured the Tagalog language for the first time. Its obverse featured Marcelo H. del Pilar in profile to the left, a Filipino writer, lawyer, journalist, and freemason of the Philippine Revolution during the late 19th century. The inscription around the shield of the Coat of arms of the Philippines on its reverse read 'Republika ng Pilipinas', however, mintage of this coin was discontinued with the introduction of the Ang Bagong Lipunan Series.
1983: BSP reintroduces 50¢ coins as part of the Flora and Fauna Series. The coin has the profile of Marcelo del Pilar on the obverse and the Pithecophaga jefferyi (Philippine eagle) on the reverse.
1991: Improved Flora and Fauna Series, features the same designs on both the obverse and reverse, but was minted in brass instead of Copper-Nickel.
1995: The fifty-centavo coin was not included when the BSP Series was introduced.
1998: The 50¢ coin and other coins in the original Flora and Fauna and Improved Flora and Fauna Series was withdrawn, making the coin officially demonetized.
Version history
English Series(1958–1967)Pilipino Series(1969–1974)Flora and Fauna Series(1983–1990, 1991–1994)Obverse Reverse
Errors
Some of the coins of the Flora and Fauna Series had an error; in the fifty-centavo coin, the text was "Pitecobhaga jefferyi" instead of "Pitecophaga jefferyi", It was later replaced by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
|
July Jobs Stimulus
|
[
"2020 in economic history",
"Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland",
"Economy of Ireland",
"Economy of Europe",
"Economic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic",
"Economic stimulus programs"
] | 1,483 | 16,481 |
The July Jobs Stimulus is a €7.4 billion stimulus package announced by the Government of Ireland on 23 July 2020 in response to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland. The package includes 50 measures to boost economic recovery and get people back to work. The spending primarily includes €115 million for active travel, public transport and renewal of transport infrastructure, €75 million for primary and secondary schools to carry out reconfiguration works necessary to support schools' reopening in late August and September 2020 and €112 million in employment services and supports to deliver 47,500 training and apprenticeship places and a €450 million package of business supports including a €250 million Restart Grant to provide direct grant aid to businesses with up to 250 employees to help them with the costs associated with reopening and reemploying workers.
The COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment, due to close on 10 August, would be extended until April 2021 and will be gradually reduced to €203 per week over that period based on the pre-pandemic earnings of the claimant as part of the package. From 17 September 2020, the scheme would close to new applications and the headline rate of payment would reduce from €350 to €300. The Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme would be replaced by the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme in September 2020, which would run until April 2021.
Measures
The package includes the following measures.
Backing Ireland's Businesses
The Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme will succeed the Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme from September 2020 and will run until April 2021.
The Restart Grant for businesses will be extended and expanded. The grant will rise from a maximum of €4,000 to €25,000.
The waiver of commercial rates will be extended until the end of September 2020.
A €2 billion COVID-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme will be announced.
Helping People Get Back to Work
The COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment will be extended to 1 April 2021.
€200 million investment in training, skills development, work placement schemes, recruitment subsidies and job search and assistance measures.
35,000 extra places will be provided in further and higher education.
Further supports for apprenticeships.
Building Confidence and Investing in Communities
Financial certainty through the Enterprise Wage Support Scheme, Pandemic Unemployment Scheme and Rates Waivers.
€500 million investment in communities.
Investment in schools, walking, cycling, public transport, home retrofitting, and town & village renewal. €1,000 allowance to promote expenditure on cycling is being increased to €1,250, and to €1,500 for electric bikes. The period to avail of this is being reduced from every five years to four years.
Tax measures including a temporary 2% reduction in the standard rate of VAT from 23% to 21% for six months.
Targeted measures for most vulnerable sectors.
Preparing Ireland for the Economy of the Future
€25 million investment in life sciences.
Training and skills development.
€10 million to be provided under a new Green Enterprise Fund.
Increase in Seed and Venture Capital for innovation driving enterprises.
Additional supports for IDA promotional and marketing initiatives targeting jobs.
Additional supports to businesses to develop their online presence.
€20 million Brexit fund to help SMEs to prepare for new customs arrangements.
Expansion of Sustaining Enterprise Fund scheme.
Enterprise Support Grant
On 14 August, Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys opened applications for the newly revamped Enterprise Support Grant, designed to assist people who transitioned from the COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment into self-employment since 18 May. The Enterprise Support Grant is worth up to €1,000 per person and is aimed at sole traders such as plumbers, electricians, carpenters and taxi drivers, who do not pay commercial rates.
Stay and Spend Scheme
On 3 September, as part of the July Jobs Stimulus, Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Catherine Martin launched the Stay and Spend Scheme to help drive sales in the hospitality sector during the off-season which has been negatively impacted as a result of COVID-19, which will run from 1 October 2020 to 30 April 2021. The scheme provides a maximum of €125 in income tax credits to tax-payers who spend up to €625 in restaurants, pubs, hotels, B&Bs and other qualifying businesses.
COVID-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme
On 7 September, Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath and Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue opened the new €2 billion COVID-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme to provide Irish businesses, including those in the farming and fishing sectors, with access to low cost loans as they respond to the impacts of COVID-19. The scheme allows small and medium-sized enterprises to borrow up to €1 million, with 80% of the loan guaranteed by the state. The COVID-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme is the largest state-backed loan guarantee for businesses in the history of Ireland.
|
Barracuda Networks
|
[
"American companies established in 2003",
"Companies based in Campbell, California",
"Networking companies of the United States",
"Networking hardware companies",
"Networking software companies",
"Computer security software companies",
"Telecommunications equipment vendors",
"Computer security companies",
"Anti-spam",
"Content-control software",
"Backup software",
"Deep packet inspection",
"Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange",
"One-click hosting",
"Private equity portfolio companies",
"Kohlberg Kravis Roberts companies",
"Software companies established in 2003",
"2003 establishments in California",
"2013 initial public offerings",
"2018 mergers and acquisitions",
"2022 mergers and acquisitions",
"Computer companies of the United States",
"Computer hardware companies",
"Software companies of the United States",
"Thoma Bravo companies"
] | 1,851 | 22,556 |
Barracuda Networks, Inc. provides security, networking and storage products based on network appliances and cloud services.
History
Barracuda Networks was founded in 2003 by CEO Dean Drako, Michael Perone, and Zach Levow, and the company introduced the Barracuda Spam and Virus Firewall in the same year. In 2007, the company moved its headquarters to Campbell, California, and opened an office in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
In January 2006, it closed its first outside investment of $40 million from Sequoia Capital and Francisco Partners.
On January 29, 2008, Barracuda Networks was sued by Trend Micro over their use of the open source anti-virus software Clam AntiVirus, which Trend Micro claimed to be in violation of their patent on 'anti-virus detection on an SMTP or FTP gateway'. In addition to providing samples of prior art in an effort to render Trend Micro's patent invalid, in July 2008 Barracuda launched a countersuit against Trend Micro claiming Trend Micro violated several antivirus patents Barracuda Networks had acquired from IBM.
In December 2008, the company launched the BRBL (Barracuda Reputation Block List), its proprietary and dynamic list of known spam servers, for free and public use in blocking spam at the gateway. Soon after opening BRBL many IP addresses got blacklisted without apparent reason and without any technical explanation.
In 2012, the company became a co-sponsor of the Garmin-Barracuda UCI ProTour cycling team.
Barracuda Networks expanded its research and development facility in Ann Arbor to a 12,500 square foot office building on Depot Street in 2008. By 2012, the Michigan-based research division had grown to about 180 employees, again outgrowing its space. In June 2012, Barracuda signed a lease to occupy the 45,000 square foot office complex previously used as the Borders headquarters on Maynard St in downtown Ann Arbor.
In July 2012, Dean Drako, Barracuda Networks's co-founder, president and CEO since it was founded in 2003, resigned his operating position, remaining on the company's board of directors.
In November 2012, long-time EMC executive William "BJ" Jenkins joined the company as president and CEO. Jenkins worked at EMC since 1998 and previously served as president of EMC's Backup and Recovery Systems (BRS) Division.
In November 2013, Barracuda Networks went public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CUDA.
In November 2015, Barracuda added a new Next Generation Firewall to its firewall family.
In November 2017, private equity firm Thoma Bravo announced they were taking Barracuda Networks private in a $1.6 billion buyout. In February 2018 Thoma Bravo announced that it had completed the acquisition.
In April 2022, KKR announced the signing of an agreement to purchase Barracuda Networks from Thoma Bravo for about $4 billion, which was completed in August of that year.
In 2024, Barracude Networks launched BarracudeONE, an AI-powered unified cybersecurity platform that consolidates the company's security offerings. The suite includes email protection, data backup, threat detection, and extended detection and response, all in one interface.
In May 2025, Barracuda Networks appointed Michelle Hodges as Senior Vice President of Global Channels and Alliances.
In September 2007, Barracuda Networks acquired NetContinuum, which provides application controllers to secure and manage enterprise web applications.
In November 2008, Barracuda Networks acquired BitLeap and 3SP.
In January 2009, Barracuda Networks acquired Yosemite Technologies to add software agents for incremental backups of applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server and SQL Server, and Windows system states.
In September 2009, Barracuda Networks acquired controlling interest in phion AG, an Austria-based public company delivering enterprise-class firewalls. A month later, in October, the company acquired Purewire Inc, a software as a service (SaaS) company offering cloud-based web filtering and security.
In April 2013, Barracuda Networks acquired SignNow.
In 2014, Barracuda Networks purchased C2C Systems UK.
In October 2015, Barracuda Networks acquired Intronis.
In November 2017, Barracuda purchased Sonian. In the same month, Barracuda announced that it was being acquired by private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo, LLC.
In January 2018, Barracuda acquired PhishLine.
In July 2021, Barracuda Networks acquired SKOUT Cybersecurity.
In April 2022, KKR purchased Barracuda Networks from Thoma Bravo for a reported $4 billion.
In 2024, the company acquired Fyde.
Security Issue
In January 2013, a backdoor was discovered: "A variety of firewall, VPN, and spam filtering gear sold by Barracuda Networks contains undocumented backdoor accounts that allow people to remotely log in and access sensitive information, researchers with an Austrian security firm have warned." The backdoor was then secured shortly after the announcement.
IP reputation and Emailreg.org
On April 13, 2009, Emailreg.org published a notice clarifying that it is an allowlist of domains that have no impact on Barracuda Blog Lists. April 10, 2010, a blog entry appeared alleging that Barracuda Networks SPAM blocking deliberately targets non-spamming IP addresses and tries to get them to sign up for an email whitelisting service "emailreg.org". In 2019 Emailreg.org announced that it was no longer accepting new customers but would continue services for existing customers until further notice. Emailreg.org discontinued services shortly thereafter and is no longer in operation. As of May 2, 2020, the same warning appears for some IP addresses.
See also
Comparison of file hosting services
Comparison of file synchronization software
Comparison of online backup services
|
Hindustan Construction Company
|
[
"Construction and civil engineering companies of India",
"Companies based in Mumbai",
"Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1926",
"1926 establishments in British India",
"Walchand Group",
"Indian companies established in 1926",
"Companies listed on the National Stock Exchange of India",
"Companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange",
"Family-owned companies of India"
] | 749 | 6,038 |
Hindustan Construction Company Limited (HCC) is an Indian multinational engineering and construction company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. The company was founded by Industrialist Seth Walchand Hirachand in 1926.
HCC has executed a majority of India’s landmark infrastructure projects, including 29% of India’s hydropower capacity, over 65% of India’s nuclear power generation capacity, 3,800 km of roads and expressways, 375 bridges and 337 km of complex tunnelling.
Ajit Gulabchand is the current Chairman of the company while Arjun Dhawan is the Vice Chairman and Managing Director.
Founding and early years
The company was founded by Seth Walchand Hirachand in 1926, when it received a contract to construct the Bhor Ghat Tunnel on the Mumbai-Pune railway line. The tunnel was completed in 1928.
In 1993, Ajit Gulabchand took control of the company due to internal family problems.
Timeline
1954 - Maharashtra's first dam after independence: Vaitarna dam, Maharashtra
1954 - India's first bridge: railway bridge across river Torsa, Assam
1954 - India's first water treatment plant in Mumbai
1956 - India's first thermal plant for Tata, Mumbai
1966 - India's first barrage: Sone barrage, Bihar
1967 - India's first port: impounded dock for Haldia, West Bengal
1971 - World’s longest barrage: Farakka barrage, West Bengal
1971 - India's first nuclear power plant: Rajasthan Atomic Power Project – Unit 1&2
1971 - India’s first integrated steel plant: Bhilai, Madhya Pradesh
1975 - India's first underground power house: Yamuna Power House, Uttarakhand
1977 - Idukki double curvature dam, Kerala
1983 - India’s largest water treatment plant: Bhandup, Mumbai
1983 - India’s largest rail coach factory in Kapurthala, Punjab
2009 - India’s first Sea Link bridge: Bandra Worli Sea Link, Mumbai
2010 - India's largest nuclear power plant: Kundankulam nuclear power plant, Tamil Nadu
2011 – India’s first strategic crude oil storage cavern: Vizag Oil Cavern; Andhra Pradesh
2012 – India's highest altitude Hydro Power projects: Nimoo Bazgo & Chutak Hydro Power Projects, Jammu & Kashmir
2013 – India’s longest transportation tunnel: Pir Panjal Railway Tunnel, Jammu & Kashmir
2014 – India’s second strategic crude oil storage cavern: Padur Oil Cavern, Karnataka
2016 – NHPC’s first RCC dam: Teesta Low Dam Stage IV Project, West Bengal
2018 – Largest EPC contract of NHPC: Kishanganga Hydro Power Project, J&K
2018 – India’s longest Rail-cum-road Bridge: Bogibeel Bridge; Assam
Subsidiaries
HCC Infrastructure Co. Ltd. is the infrastructure arm of HCC engaged in the creation and management of premium assets in transportation.
|
Domingo Marcucci
|
[
"American shipbuilders",
"American businesspeople in shipping",
"Businesspeople from San Francisco",
"1827 births",
"1905 deaths",
"People of the California Gold Rush",
"People from San Francisco",
"Venezuelan emigrants to the United States",
"19th-century American businesspeople"
] | 855 | 7,429 |
Domingo Marcucci Jugo (Maracaibo, 1827 - San Francisco, 1905), was a Venezuelan born 49er, shipbuilder and shipowner in San Francisco, California. He owned or captained some of the many steamships, steamboats, ferries, and sailing ships he built at San Francisco and elsewhere on the Pacific coast.
Early life and education
Domingo Marcucci was born in Maracaibo (Venezuela) on April 28, 1827, to Juan Bautista Marcucci, a native of Santiago de los Caballeros (Dominican Republic), and Catalina Jugo, a native of Caracas (Venezuela). He came to Philadelphia in the 1840s to study American shipbuilding techniques at the behest of the Venezuelan government. He worked as an apprentice in the shipyard of Mathew Van Duzen, the Byerly and Van Dusen Shipyard in Philadelphia.
Shipbuilding in California
At the age of 22, Domingo Marcucci came to start a shipyard in San Francisco from Philadelphia. He came from Panama in the Pacific Mail Steamship Company steamship SS Oregon. Arriving on September 18, 1849, within days they began assembling a knock-down steamboat, previously delivered, on the beach of Yerba Buena Cove at Happy Valley, at the foot of Folsom Street, east of Beale Street. Marcucci's company assembled the Captain Sutter in six weeks. Built for George W. Aspinwall, brother of William Henry Aspinwall, it was the first steamboat that ran between San Francisco and Stockton, in 1849. Also for the Pacific Mail, Marcucci next converted the 153 ton side-wheel steamboat El Dorado that had been rigged as a 3 masted schooner for the trip around Cape Horn, to be used for the Sacramento run. Subsequently, in March 1850, for the same company, he assembled the Georgiana, a small 30 ton side-wheel steamboat made in Philadelphia, knocked down and sent by sea also for the Sacramento run. That April Georgiana pioneered the shortcut route between Sacramento and Stockton through a slough in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta that was between the Sacramento River and Mokelumne River, which afterward became known as Georgiana Slough.
In the 1858, Marcucci moved to a shipyard at Steamboat Point, around Fourth and King Streets on Mission Bay. Here he built the side-wheel steamboat Flora Templeton in 1859, the barkentine Monitor in 1861, the side-wheel steamer Cyrus Walker for the Puget Sound in 1864 and the propeller steamer Reliance for the Alviso Transportation Company in 1866.
From 1866 to 1869, using Henry B. Tichenor’s Second Street marine railway, Marcucci built the stern-wheeler Pioneer, the twin screw propeller steamer Santa Cruz in 1868 and the large propeller steamer Vallejo for the California Pacific Railroad Company in 1869.
Later life
Marcucci was appointed assistant inspector of steam vessels for the port of San Francisco, by the Treasury Department, in December, 1890. On September 2, 1893, he was struck on the head by a falling timber while inspecting the railroad ferry Thoroughfare in Oakland, California. He survived a fractured skull, recovered and continued to work. He resigned the position in January 1900 and retired. Domingo Marcucci died in 1905, and was buried in the San Francisco Columbarium.
See also
List of Venezuelan Americans
|
John Bredenkamp
|
[
"1940 births",
"2020 deaths",
"People from Kimberley, Northern Cape",
"Afrikaner people",
"Rhodesian businesspeople",
"Rhodesian rugby union players",
"South African emigrants to Rhodesia",
"White Rhodesian people",
"White Zimbabwean businesspeople",
"White Zimbabwean sportspeople",
"20th-century Zimbabwean businesspeople",
"21st-century Zimbabwean businesspeople",
"Zimbabwean people of Dutch descent",
"Alumni of Prince Edward School"
] | 1,304 | 11,229 |
John Arnold Bredenkamp (11 August 1940 – 18 June 2020) was a Zimbabwean businessman and rugby union footballer. He was the founder of the Casalee Group.
Early life
Born in South Africa, Bredenkamp moved with his family to Southern Rhodesia while he was still a child. He was orphaned in his mid-teens on his birthday when while he was riding his bike, on return he found his father had shot his mother and sister and then shot himself. His sister survived the shooting. He was educated in Southern Rhodesia at Prince Edward School, Salisbury. Of Dutch ancestry, Bredenkamp registered as a Rhodesian citizen in 1958. He was reported to have lost Zimbabwean citizenship "by default" in 1984, but this was restored to him shortly thereafter.
Bredenkamp was reported to hold Zimbabwean, South African and Dutch passports. The matter of his nationality was a matter of dispute with some Zimbabwean officials towards the end of 2006.
As a Rugby Union international, he captained Rhodesia from 1965 to 1968.
Early career
After his graduation, Bredenkamp joined Gallaher Limited, an international tobacco company in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), as a leaf buyer. In 1968 he was transferred to Niemeyer in the Netherlands, where he rose to the position of leaf director.
After leaving Gallaher in 1976, Bredenkamp founded the Casalee Group of companies registered in Antwerp, Belgium. It is believed that the Casalee operation was involved in the sale of Rhodesian tobacco on world markets, through evasion of UN sanctions. Casalee was primarily a leaf tobacco merchanting company but was also engaged in general trading and an active initiator of counter trade and barter deals. The Casalee Group grew over 16 years to become the fifth largest tobacco merchant in the world and the biggest non-US leaf tobacco company. The Group employed 2,500 people and had offices in all the major tobacco growing countries in the world including the USA (Winston-Salem), Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey and Yugoslavia. The company owned tobacco-processing factories in the Netherlands, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Brazil.
The Casalee Group of companies was sold in 1993 to Universal Leaf Tobacco, the largest leaf tobacco company in the world. Since then, Bredenkamp has expanded his business interests into many other different areas, mainly through the Zimbabwe registered Breco company.
Role in Zimbabwe
Bredenkamp's career took off in earnest during the late 1970s when he became deeply involved in the commercial affairs of the embargoed UDI regime in Rhodesia. It has been claimed that he effectively ran the finances of the Rhodesian Security Forces during the later stages of the Bush War. In this capacity, he brokered export sales of Rhodesian products (mainly tobacco) and used the proceeds to fund the purchase of munitions and military equipment. His "sanctions busting" deals (often involving complex barter transactions) sustained the UDI regime for far longer than would otherwise have been possible. These deals were entirely legal under Rhodesian law.
After independence in 1980, Bredenkamp left Zimbabwe and moved his base of operations to Belgium. However, he remained involved in commodity trading and defence procurement. He made himself useful in certain quarters. In 1984 he made his peace with the rulers of the new Zimbabwe and was able to return home. Zimbabwe provided a hospitable base for Bredenkamp's dealings with customers in Africa and the Middle East. These dealings made Bredenkamp and his associates very wealthy men. They also helped sustain the Zimbabwean economy in a time of some turbulence.
Bredenkamp gained considerable clout in the political and economic affairs of Zimbabwe. It is known that he played a significant role in the events surrounding Zimbabwe's intervention in the DRC between 1998 and 2003. This intervention involved using the Zimbabwean army and air force to support the Kabila government in its war with rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. There appears to have been some linkage between the intervention and generous mining concessions granted by the DRC to figures in the Zimbabwe political and business elite. When Zimbabwe was subject to EU sanctions from 1999 onwards, the Mugabe regime was able to call on sanctions busting expertise from the UDI era to keep its armed forces supplied.
Bredenkamp became something of a power behind the scenes in the ruling ZANU-PF party. It is claimed that he sought to facilitate the early retirement of President Mugabe in 2004 and his replacement by Emmerson Mnangagwa, former Security Minister and Speaker of Parliament. This displeased rival factions in ZANU-PF, and government investigations were started into the affairs of Bredenkamp's Breco trading company concerning tax evasion and exchange control violations. The matters under investigation were transactions between Breco in Zimbabwe and offshore companies controlled by Bredenkamp.
Bredenkamp was linked to claims to facilitate the retirement of Mugabe in 2000, by the Guardian's investigation into the leaked US embassy cables.
In September 2006 Bredenkamp was tried in Zimbabwe on charges that he used a South African passport on international journeys. Zimbabwean citizenship law does not permit dual nationality. Although acquitted, he had to fight a second court case to obtain an order to return his Zimbabwe passport which the clerk of the court had retained. He was ordered to produce documentary evidence of his renunciation of South African citizenship to have his nationality restored permanently. But his passport was returned.
In April 2016, The Guardian reported that Bredenkamp had an "estimated £700m fortune from tobacco trading, grey-market arms dealing, sports marketing and diamond mining."
From 2008 until his death, Bredenkamp was the subject of US sanctions aimed at people of significant influence within the Zimbabwean government.
Death
According to news reports, Bredenkamp died on 18 June 2020 due to kidney failure.
See also
Tremalt
Whites in Zimbabwe
|
Old China Trade
|
[
"China–United States economic relations",
"History of foreign trade of the United States",
"History of foreign trade in China",
"Illegal drug trade in Asia",
"Drugs in China"
] | 3,853 | 27,888 |
The Old China Trade () was the early commerce between the Qing Empire and the United States under the Canton System, spanning from shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 to the Treaty of Wanghia in 1844. The Old China Trade represented the beginning of relations between the United States and East Asia, including eventually U.S.–China relations. The maritime fur trade was a major aspect of the Old China Trade, as was illegal trafficking in opium. The trade era overlapped the First Opium War, which resulted from an attempt by China to enforce its prohibition on opium smuggling by Western traders and blockade-runners.
The American Revolutionary War, which ended with the 1783 Treaty of Paris, led to the Thirteen Colonies becoming independent from Britain as the United States, which continued to consume large quantities of tea. At the time, increased global demand for tea was one of the primary reasons for a shortage of silver; this was the only currency that the Chinese, sole producers of the commodity at the time, would accept in payment. The British East India Company (EIC), monopoly suppliers of tea to the British Empire's markets, got around the problem by indirect sales of opium to the Chinese, the proceeds from which they used to pay for tea.
The Americans meanwhile, also needed silver to finance their burgeoning international trade in furs, timber and other commodities. They too looked to the Chinese market as a source of hard currency based on the US monopoly of the Ottoman opium trade. The United States' first consul in China, Bostonian and former Continental Army officer Samuel Shaw (17541794), arrived in the port of Guangzhou (then romanized as "Canton") in 1784 aboard the converted privateer Empress of China. The "Chinese Queen", as the vessel was known, under the command of Captain John Green, carried a cargo of silver specie and ginseng for trade. In Guangzhou, the Americans encountered many European nations already trading under the Canton System, including the British, Dutch, French and Danish.
Shaw subsequently negotiated the sale of the Empress cargo and earned a substantial profit. As well as symbolizing a breach of the EIC's tea monopoly, the successful and lucrative voyage of the Empress inspired other American merchants to follow suit with the desire to enter a new market with great potential for profit. By 1803, American vessels outnumbered all other Western nations in their trade with China. While more numerous, American vessels were smaller, averaging just under 300 tons each, compared with the East Indiamen from Europe, which averaged 1,200 tons each.
American business growth with the opium trade
Two years after the voyage of the Empress, Shaw set up the firm of Shaw & Randall to advise American firms unfamiliar with trade in the Far East. Boston Brahmin Thomas Handasyd Perkins of Perkins & Co., the dominant American presence in the Ottoman opium business, along with one of his partners and his 16‑year-old nephew John Perkins Cushing, subsequently opened operations in Guangzhou, where Russell & Co. had become the most important American illegal smuggler and dealer of opium. The founders of Russell & Co., Samuel Russell, and Philip Ammedon, had set up in the Chinese city in 1808, buying opium at auction from the EIC in Bombay, which they then shipped clandestinely to Guangzhou on the south coast of China. By 1827 Russell and Co. had become the largest American opium dealer in China, competing in the market alongside British firms including Jardine, Matheson & Co. and Dent & Co. Of all the American firms, only Olyphant & Co. and one other abstained from the opium trade.
Trade with China, originally an enterprise of seemingly limited prospects involving significant risk instead turned out to be extremely lucrative. American traders, then with a stable foothold in Guangzhou, were eager to sell their goods to China, but the Chinese interest in foreign goods was limited. The first item that tended to sell in China was Spanish bullion: American traders would devote large sums of money to buying and amassing large quantities of the metal for export to China. The Spanish silver bullion was primarily used to complement the less profitable American goods such as cheese, grain, and rum. The use of bullion eventually became considerable with over $62 million worth of species traded to China between 1805 and 1825. This practice, however, gradually declined after 1815, when American merchants began to participate in "chain trade" routes —the buying and selling of goods en route to Guangzhou. The second major —and by far the most lucrative— American export to China was ginseng. Hailed by the Chinese, among other cultures as shown by the genus' Latinate scientific name Panax as a panacea, the most potent and therefore most demanded type of ginseng, Panax quinquefolius, grew in Manchuria and the Appalachian Mountains. Transported from the interiors of Pennsylvania and Virginia to Philadelphia, New York, or Boston, ginseng was then shipped to China and sold for up to 250 times its weight in silver. Furs were the third-most lucrative American export to China. Searching for another type of item that could be sold to the Chinese aside from specie and ginseng, Americans soon found that the mandarins had a taste for sea otter pelts, which could be inexpensively purchased from the Indians of the northwest coast of the United States and shipped to Guangzhou. The Chinese mandarins' desire for bullion, ginseng, and furs was the primary impetus for the United States' initiation of trade with China. The return of the Empress of China, which had carried all three commodities, and her by the now rich crew to Boston in 1785 inspired other Americans to make similar voyages. However, different reasons emerged for maintaining trade with China.
There had always been a general American desire for foreign and sometimes exotic wares, and, with the EIC no longer the dominant force in North American trade with China, the job of satisfying this demand fell to American merchants. Therefore, when the Empress returned home, she brought with her a large stock of outlandish Chinese goods, which her owners sold for a significant profit of $30,000—a 25% gain. Other American merchants did not take long to realize that, while selling American species, ginseng, and fur to the Chinese was undoubtedly profitable, selling Chinese goods in the United States would be considerably more so. Further motivation came from the knowledge that China, as a whole, had a mercantilist-like attitude towards foreign commerce; they tended to resist the importation of foreign goods because of a mixture of Confucian doctrine, which deprecated trade, and the underlying ethnocentrism felt by the Chinese—they did not need to actively search for trade because the inferior white "barbarian" states would instinctively bring it to them as a form of tribute. Because of these factors, American traders began to focus their funds on acquiring Chinese goods—a practice that the Chinese were more willing to adopt—rather than on purchasing those of the United States. What resulted was the flooding of Chinese teas, cotton, silks, rhubarb, cassia, nankeens (durable, yellow cloth), floor-matting, lacquerware, fans, furniture, and porcelains, into the US, to the extent that even those of poor social classes possessed some Chinese items—perhaps a painting of Guangzhou's harbor or a pair of trousers made out of nankeen cloth.
The development of the Canton System
The Cohong monopoly and supercargoes
In 1757, the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty confined all Western trade to Guangzhou and regulated it through the use of merchants known collectively as the Cohong. This group owned a licensed monopoly on trade with foreigners and served as trading intermediaries accountable for their behavior and cargoes. Relations between the Cohong and the foreign merchants were cordial and very peaceful, as both parties valued their reputations and had vested interests in preventing the disruption of trade. The Cohong reviewed the cargo of each ship and collected tariffs that were then passed onto the Hoppo (Inspector of Customs). The Cohong was at the mercy of the government's demands for revenue, and they had to add costs to the foreign merchants, in order to extract extra money for bribes to please the officials; although Qing court officials did not actively supervise foreign trade, China's government treasury reaped the benefits of tariff revenues. Additionally, each foreign vessel had to contract a comprador responsible for supplying the ship with provisions and servicing the factories onshore.
Before the rise of four American trading houses in the 1820s that controlled seven-eighths of the China trade by 1825—Perkins and Company, Jones Oakford and Company, Archer, and T. H. Smith—the American trade was conducted through the use of supercargoes. Each American ship had a supercargo who acted as the commercial agent responsible for the purchases of Chinese goods. He had to arrive and leave on his vessel. It was not until 1800 that supercargoes began to establish themselves as resident agents in Guangzhou. These agents either served trading houses or operated off of commissions from other private merchants' transactions. Upon their emergence, large trading houses, greater capitalization, and higher volumes of trade became possible.
Finding media of exchange
One of the largest problems faced by foreign traders in Guangzhou was finding a reliable medium of exchange that would enable sustainable trade with the Chinese. The Chinese were always willing to accept bullion, in exchange for tea and other products. This was because the Chinese were fairly self-sufficient and did not have a large desire for foreign goods. Specie was very expensive and difficult to acquire considering that the supply coming from South America fluctuated and it required a lot of goods to attain through a trade. Unable to afford to sustain high-level trading in specie, British merchants turned to the lucrative opium trade, obtaining trading rights for opium from India and importing it to China. Beginning in 1767 and rapidly expanding through the early 1800s, opium was illegally traded for specie with Chinese merchants and then reinvested in tea for importation to British markets.
The Americans had less difficulty finding a variety of different products to barter for tea. The Empress of China and the following early vessels were able to use ginseng and some species to secure tea. Yet, the market for ginseng was rather small, so the Americans began trading furs with Indian tribes in the American Northwest, which was in turn traded for species in Guangzhou, which was then used to purchase tea. From 1790 to 1812 supplies of furs and then sealskins were depleted and new products had to be found as demand also waned. In the Pacific Islands, merchants evaded cannibals and traded with natives to get sandalwood and sea slugs that could be traded for species. But those items soon ran their course, and by 1814 species had risen to nearly 70% of total American exports. In the 1820s, they attempted to compete with the British opium trade that monopolized crops produced in India by trading for Ottoman opium. Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital and the Boston Athenæum, the Bunker Hill Monument, many factories, mines, the US's first railroad, university buildings, high schools, public libraries, and an orphanage were built with the proceeds of opium smuggling. The opium trade was profitable for American traders and some of these profits were reinvested to support the industrial revolution. However, the opium trade had a damaging effect on Chinese society.
The innovation of the British credit system and issuance of banking bills allowed the American traders to clear their debts with Cohong merchants and gradually substitute their cargoes away from carrying specie and more towards domestically manufactured items. The Americans could then later pay off the principal and interest on their loans to the British banks. From 1830 to 1850, faster and larger tea clippers were introduced, thereby replacing the earlier, smaller privateering vessels from the American Revolution. As a result, Americans could achieve greater scale with the combination of tea clippers and British credit. Tea could be transported to American markets in less time and with greater freshness, translating into higher profits. By 1834, tea accounted for over 80% of the American trade from China.
American diplomacy in China
The American trade in Guangzhou existed primarily through private traders and without the supervision and supporting authority of the United States government. Soon after 1784, an American consul was appointed in Guangzhou and functioned as a reporting agent on trade to the U.S. government. The consul was not recognized by the Chinese authorities or the hoppo, and was not allowed to fly the American flag over its factory until well after 1799. The Americans had to trade with the Chinese as subordinates instead of equals and use the Cohong for any and all demands. Consequently, the Americans did not have the leverage to raise political or legal protests and had to submit themselves to the Chinese justice system that believed in a "life for a life" and holding groups accountable for the actions of individuals. The chief concern of foreign traders was preventing the Chinese from closing trade, as they could threaten to do over legal disputes.
At the end of the First Opium War in 1842, Britain and China signed the Treaty of Nanking, which effectively overthrew the original mercantilist system and opened the ports of Guangzhou, Xiamen ("Amoy"), Fuzhou ("Foochow"), Ningbo ("Ningpo"), and Shanghai to British merchants. Seeing that Britain could easily eliminate foreign competition in China with its new privileges and considerable trading prowess, the Americans found the need to reestablish their diplomatic relations and commercial equality in China. For the previous fifty-nine years, the Americans had been interacting with China merely through their business transactions, without government-to-government communication. As a result, the administration of President John Tyler sent the commissioner Caleb Cushing to negotiate a treaty in which the United States would receive the same privileges as Britain. Cushing, in the Treaty of Wanghsia in 1844, not only achieved this goal but also won the right of extraterritoriality, which meant that Americans accused of crimes in China were to be tried by American courts only. This treaty was monumental in that it laid the foundation for a more extensive and regulated American trade with China; American ships would no longer make the sporadic—and somewhat reckless—voyages to China so characteristic of the Old China trade.
Category of the trade
Fine art
Porcelain
In the late 18th century, Chinese porcelain could be purchased from two sources: the licensed Hong merchants or the porcelain specialized shopkeepers.
Porcelain specialized shopkeepers
From the records, the original porcelain market was concentrated on a street several blocks north of the thirteen factory area. Until 1760, after the Cohong was created, all the small shopkeepers were moved to a new street on the quay which was later referred to as "China Street" (called Jingyuan Jie 静远街/靖远街 in Chinese). There were about 180 different names of porcelain shops from foreign trade records between 1700 and 1800. However, since many of them appear in records only once or for a few years, there were only a total of 25 to 30 shops dealing with the porcelain business. Most of the porcelain dealers in Guangzhou were small, family-run operations with sales of less than 1,000 taels of merchandise a year, while a few of them could manage to reach an annual gross sale of 10,000 taels per year. Each year, porcelain dealers generally placed their order to manufacturers at Jingdezhen from October to December. The items were completed and shipped to Guangzhou in August or September for export. From the early 1780s to the 1810s, the export market started to shrink. Records show that in 1764, there were 20,116 piculs exported, while in 1784, the porcelain export declined to 13,780 piculs. Although it reached 25,890 piculs in 1798, soon the porcelain exports shrank to only 6,175 piculs in 1801. Finally, the amount of porcelain exported remains at an average level of 6,000 piculs per year around the 1820s. The reason for the drastic change in amounts of porcelain exported could result from the increase in the porcelain price due to the increasing labor cost and Chinese duties on exporting porcelain.
Legacy of the Old China Trade in Salem, Massachusetts
In Salem, Massachusetts there are important examples of American colonial architecture and Federal architecture from the Old China Trade in two historic districts, Chestnut Street District, part of the Samuel McIntire Historic District containing 407 buildings and the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, consisting of 12 historic structures and about of land along the waterfront in Salem, Massachusetts.
Noted China Trade merchants
William Henry Aspinwall
George Cabot
John Perkins Cushing
Elias Hasket Derby
Fanning & Coles
John Murray Forbes
Robert Bennet Forbes
Charles W. King
Abiel Abbot Low
Gideon Nye
David Olyphant
Joseph Peabody
Thomas Handasyd Perkins
Russell Sturgis
John Renshaw Thomson
Israel Thorndike
William Shepard Wetmore
John Jacob Astor
Warren Delano Jr.
See also
Foreign relations of Imperial China
History of the west coast of North America
Paul Jones (1843 ship)
Turkey merchant
Jiao (commercial guild)
Further reading
Haddad, John R. America's First Adventure in China: Trade, Treaties, Opium, and Salvation (2013)
Morris, Richard J. "Redefining the economic elite in Salem, Massachusetts, 1759-1799: A tale of evolution, not revolution." New England Quarterly 73.4 (2000): 603–624. online
Richards, Rhys (1994), "United States trade with China, 1784-1814" The American Neptune, a special supplement to Vol 54.
Various reprints.
|
Single tax
|
[
"Property taxes",
"Economic ideologies",
"Tax reform",
"Georgism",
"Land value taxation"
] | 620 | 4,995 |
A single tax is a system of taxation based mainly or exclusively on one tax, typically chosen for its special properties, often being a tax on land value.
Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert and Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban were early advocates for a single tax, but, rejecting the claim that land has certain economic properties which make it uniquely suitable for taxation, they instead proposed a flat tax on all incomes.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, a populist single tax movement emerged which also sought to levy a single tax on the rental value of land and natural resources, but for somewhat different reasons. This "Single Tax" movement later became known as Georgism, after its most famous proponent, Henry George. It proposed a simplified and equitable tax system that upholds natural rights and whose revenue is based exclusively on ground and natural resource rents, with no additional taxation of improvements such as buildings. Some libertarians advocate land value capture as a consistently ethical and non-distortionary means to fund the essential operations of government, the surplus rent being distributed as a type of guaranteed basic income, traditionally called the citizen's dividend, to compensate those members of society who by legal title have been deprived of an equal share of the earth's spatial value and equal access to natural opportunities (see geolibertarianism).
Related taxes derived in principle from the land value tax include Pigouvian taxes to internalize the external costs of pollution more efficiently than litigation, as well as severance taxes on raw material extraction to regulate the depletion of unreplenishable natural resources and to prevent irreparable damage to valuable ecosystems through unsustainable practices such as overfishing.
There have been other proposals for a single tax concerning property, goods, or income. Others have made proposals for a single tax based on other revenue models, such as the FairTax proposal for a consumption tax and various flat tax proposals on personal incomes.
See also
Excess burden of taxation
FairTax
Flat tax
Geolibertarianism
Georgism
Land value tax
List of taxes
Market distortion
Optimal tax
Proportional tax
Single tax parties:
Henry George Justice Party (Australia)
Justice Party of Denmark
Single Tax League (Australia)
Tax equity
Tax incidence
Tax reform
Tax shift
9-9-9 Plan
|
Nike Oshinowo
|
[
"Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria winners",
"Miss World 1991 delegates",
"1968 births",
"Living people",
"Yoruba beauty pageant contestants",
"Alumni of the University of Essex",
"Nigerian socialites",
"Businesspeople from Ibadan",
"20th-century Nigerian businesswomen",
"20th-century Nigerian businesspeople",
"Yoruba women in business",
"Yoruba businesspeople",
"21st-century Nigerian businesswomen",
"21st-century Nigerian businesspeople",
"Nigerian beauty pageant contestants",
"Nigerian television talk show hosts",
"Yoruba women television personalities",
"Yoruba television personalities",
"Nigerian restaurateurs",
"Television personalities from Ibadan",
"Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria contestants"
] | 908 | 10,702 |
Nike Oshinowo (born Adenike Asabi Oshinowo, 1966) is a Nigerian entrepreneur, TV host and former beauty pageant titleholder.
Early life and pageants
Oshinowo was raised in Ibadan and England, where she attended boarding school. Although she had intended to become an air hostess or a doctor, she studied Politics at the University of Essex. Shortly after obtaining her degree, Oshinowo, mentored by former Miss Nigeria Helen Prest, represented Rivers at the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria pageant and became its first Yoruba winner (She was crowned in 1990, but reigned through 1991). Her victory attracted controversy from the audience and showbiz journalists following rumours the contest was rigged in her favor until Oshinowo denied in an interview that Prest had a hand in her MBGN victory.
In 1991, Oshinowo, then representing Nigeria at Miss World, criticised her South African counterpart, Diana Tilden-Davis, after the latter reportedly made derogatory remarks regarding black women. According to The Sowetan, Oshinowo had overheard Tilden-Davis state that native South Africans were absent from her country's national pageant due to their high teen pregnancy rate. Miss World officials banned Tilden-Davis, who subsequently placed third in the contest that year, from arguing against the accusation, dismissing the report as a rumour.
Career
After her reign as MBGN, Oshinowo featured in a commercial for the Venus de Milo beauty range, and hosted a fashion and beauty show on Nigerian television. Her business ventures included African food delivery service Buka Express, and health and beauty day spa Skin Deep which ran for seven years before it was sold after she decided to create her own range of beauty products for the Nigerian market. On January 17, 2010, she released the workout video Nike Oshinowo: Fit, Forty and Fabulous - the first celebrity fitness DVD produced in the country - and launched her own fragrance Asabi.
In 2010, after a six-year attempt, Oshinowo finally bought the Miss Nigeria franchise from former organisers Daily Times, and became chief executive and creative director of the pageant from 2010 to 2012. In 2013, Oshinowo launched the Centenary Pageant, with the winner reigning for a hundred years.
In 2014, Oshinowo launched her talk show Late Night with Nike Oshinowo on AIT.
Personal life
Oshinowo, who speaks five languages (English, French, Japanese, Spanish, and her native Yoruba), married medical doctor Tunde Soleye in 2006, but is now divorced. In 2009, the couple were in the news following a lawsuit instituted by Soleye's ex-wife Funmilayo, who claimed that he had been unfaithful with Oshinowo during their marriage.
In 2013, Oshinowo spoke of her struggle with endometriosis which had plagued her since boarding school at age 13, and at the age of 47 she became the mother of twins via surrogacy in America.
|
Franz Heukamp
|
[
"1973 births",
"Living people",
"Spanish economists",
"Academic staff of the University of Navarra",
"MIT School of Engineering alumni",
"Opus Dei members",
"Business educators",
"Neuroeconomists",
"Technical University of Munich alumni",
"École des Ponts ParisTech alumni",
"IESE Business School faculty"
] | 763 | 6,769 |
Franz Heukamp (born September 6, 1973, Germany) is the dean of IESE Business School and has held this post since 2016. He is also business management scholar and Professor of Managerial Decision Sciences at IESE Business School, University of Navarra.
Biography
Heukamp has been a member of IESE faculty since 2002. In 2016 he was appointed Dean by the President of the University. He holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1999–2002), a degree in Civil Engineering from the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées – ParisTech and a degree in engineering from the Technische Universität München.
Heukamp is a scholar of behavioral decision-making with a special interest in the area of neuroeconomics. He conducts research into neuroeconomics in conjunction with neuroscientists from the University of Navarra's School of Medicine and Hospital. In the post-covid era, Franz Heukamp believes that the economy has to adapt to the processes of decarbonisation and reducing inequality, and that IESE Business School is taking up this challenge.
He is a member of The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the Society For Neuroeconomics.
Heukamp's teaching specialties are decision analysis and forecasting methods. He teaches in the MBA, Global Executive MBA and other executive education programs at IESE, including the Advanced Management Program which is aimed at international business leaders.
Heukamp is a numerary member of the Catholic personal prelature of Opus Dei.
Publications
His articles have appeared in journals including Management Science, Social Indicators Research, Theory and Decision, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and The Journal of Private Equity.
Professor Heukamp has also authored business cases for university teaching and technical notes, among these "Erbitux: A Miracle Drug?" with Miguel A. Ariño, "NILOP Productions" also with Miguel A. Ariño, "Rattunde & Co GmbH" with Cedric Guinaud and others. Technical notes include "Introduction to Monte Carlo Simulation" and "The Value of the Information," both with A. Lewis; "Neuroeconomics," "Option Properties" and "Derivative Markets (2005); and with M. Baucells and Cristina Rata, "Decision Making Under Uncertainty: Risk Preferences and the Role of Intuition".
Academic management
Heukamp was Secretary General of IESE Business School between 2009 and 2012.
Between 2012 and 2016 he was the Associate Dean for the school's MBA Programs.
During his tenure, the IESE full-time MBA has seen a growth in international intake with 85% of its students now coming from outside of Spain and from 60 countries. He has been highly active in expanding the program's academic alliances and exchanges and has spearheaded the addition of overseas modules at IESE campuses and centers in New York, São Paulo, Shanghai and Nairobi. Within its network of alliances, the IESE MBA delivers more than 30 exchange programs with top worldwide MBA programs.
Work as Dean
Heukamp took over from his predecessor Jordi Canals in September 2016. In 2018, IESE launched a 52 million Euro expansion project of its Madrid facilities, to be completed in late 2020. In September 2019, IESE started a Master in Management program on its Madrid Campus and a section of its Executive MBA program on the Munich Campus.
|
Ruth Sebatindira
|
[
"Living people",
"1973 births",
"20th-century Ugandan lawyers",
"Ugandan women lawyers",
"Makerere University alumni",
"Law Development Centre alumni",
"21st-century Ugandan businesswomen",
"21st-century Ugandan businesspeople",
"Alumni of the University of Manchester",
"People from Western Region, Uganda",
"Ugandan women company founders",
"Ugandan company founders",
"21st-century Ugandan lawyers"
] | 798 | 7,730 |
Ruth Sebatindira is a Ugandan corporate and tax lawyer who, effective January 2020, was the administrator of Uganda Telecom Limited (UTL), a government-owned telecommunications company, under court administration since April 2017. She concluded her administration of UTL in November 2022 when she handed over to Evelyn Anite, the State Minister for Privatization, representing the new shareholders following the rebrand of UTL to Uganda Telecommunications Corporation Limited (UTCL).
Background and education
Ruth Sebatindira was born in Kampala, Uganda, in 1973.
She holds a Bachelor of Laws degree, obtained from Makerere University, Uganda's oldest and largest public university. She also holds a postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice, awarded by the Law Development Centre, in Kampala, Uganda's capital city. Her Master of Laws degree was obtained from the University of Manchester, in the United Kingdom.
Career
Sebatindira was called to the bar in 1997, and started her career as an associate at Kalenge, Bwanika, Kimuli & Company, Advocates in Kampala, where she worked for five years. She then worked at Deloitte Uganda as Senior Tax Advisor until 2003, when she founded Ligomarc Advocates. She is the partner in charge of tax and infrastructure at Ligomarc Advocates.
In 2003, Sebatindira founded Ligomarc Advocates, a Kampala-based law firm, as a solo practice. Later others joined the practice, and as of January 2020, the firm has four partners, 18 lawyers and a total staff of 45.
Her work in the 21st-century has included corporate insolvency, shareholder disputes, lender enforcement actions, tax advisory services, intellectual property and commercial projects negotiations and contracts. As of January 2020, she is actively involved in advising clients on tax implications in financing agreements, oil agreements, energy transactions and infrastructure development.
On 2 January 2020, Justice Lydia Mugambe of the Civil Division of the High Court of Uganda appointed Sebatindira as the Administrator of Uganda Telecom Limited, a parastatal company in court-appointed receivership since April 2017. Sebatindira took over the administration of UTL from Bemanya Twebaze on 6 January 2020.
Memberships and affiliations
Sebatindira is a member of the Uganda Law Society, the East Africa Law Society, the International Bar Association, the International Fiscal Association, and the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators.
Other considerations
She served as the president of the Uganda Law Society from 2013 until 2016. She served as founding chairperson of the Women Lawyers Committee at the Uganda Law Society in 2011. She is a Commissioner at the Judicial Service Commission, which advises the President of Uganda on the appointment of judges.
|
Antoine Bozio
|
[
"1978 births",
"French economists",
"Swiss economists",
"Academic staff of the Paris School of Economics",
"Paris-Sorbonne University alumni",
"Living people"
] | 494 | 4,028 |
Antoine Bozio (born April 24, 1978) is a French-Swiss economist who currently works as Associate Professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and Associate Researcher at the Paris School of Economics (PSE), where he directs the Institut des politiques publiques. His research focuses on labour economics and the economics of ageing. In 2017, Bozio was awarded the Prize of the Best Young Economist of France for his research on the structure of pension systems and the impact of social security contributions on the supply of labour and wage levels.
From 1999 to 2004, Antoine Bozio studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, earning a master's degree in economics from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2002 and studying a semester abroad at Harvard University. In 2006, he obtained a PhD with a thesis on the French pension system under the supervision of Thomas Piketty. Following his graduation, Bozio worked first as a research economist (2006–09) and later as a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) (2009–11), while giving lectures as a teaching fellow at the University College London. Since 2011, Bozio has been Associate Researcher at the Paris School of Economics, Director of the Institut des politiques publiques (IPP), and Research Fellow at IFS. Moreover, since 2014, he has been Associate Professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). In addition to his academic positions, he was a member of the Council of Economic Analysis (2012–16). Finally, he performs editorial duties for Fiscal Studies.
Antoine Bozio's research focuses on pensions, taxation, disability insurance and the development of impact evaluation methods for public policies. Among else, he has researched the relationship between labour supply and employment, and compared the extensive and intensive margins of labour supply in the United States, United Kingdom and France.
|
Alan B. Miller
|
[
"Living people",
"1937 births",
"Businesspeople from Brooklyn",
"University of Utah alumni",
"College of William & Mary alumni",
"Wharton School alumni",
"American chief executives of Fortune 500 companies",
"American health care chief executives"
] | 1,157 | 12,817 |
Alan B. Miller (born August 17, 1937) is an American businessman who is the founder of Universal Health Services, and currently serves as the company's executive chairman. Miller founded the company in 1979 and it has grown to become a large provider of hospital and healthcare services in the US and the UK. In September 2020, UHS announced that Miller would step down as CEO.
Early years
Miller was born in Brooklyn, New York City, New York on August 17, 1937. His father owned a dry cleaner store and his mother worked for a millinery company. As a youth, Miller enjoyed playing sports and worked for a delivery clerk for a grocery store. He also worked for Western Union.
Career
In 1973, the company was in financial trouble and Miller's partner had left the company. Miller took over as CEO of American Medicorp and engineered a turnaround that brought attention within the healthcare industry. American Medicorp became the target of a hostile takeover by Humana in 1978.
Miller transformed Universal Health Services, Inc. from a start-up company that had six employees and zero revenue in 1979 into a Fortune 500 company that is one of the nation's largest healthcare corporations.
In September 2020 UHS announced that Alan B. Miller would step down as CEO.
Awards
In 1999, Miller received the William & Mary Medallion, the highest award presented to alumni. In October 2007, the college awarded him the T.C. and Elizabeth Clarke Business medallion, the school's highest honor for business achievement.
Miller received the George Washington University President's Medal in 2002. He also received the Chairman's Award from the United Negro College Fund.
In 2010, Miller received the Horatio Alger Award from the Horatio Alger Association.
In 2019, Miller was presented with the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Freedoms Foundation of Valley Forge, Pa. for his commitment to healthcare, serving others, and his civic leadership. In 2019, Alan B. Miller received the Distinguished Civilian Award from the Ben Franklin Global Forum in recognition of his leadership and accomplishments in providing behavioral healthcare to active duty military, veterans and their families.
Miller has been the list of Modern Healthcare magazine's "100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare" for 17 consecutive years since 2003.
CEO
Financial World magazine listed Miller among the Outstanding 1000 CEOs in 1995 and 1996. In October 2014, Miller was awarded the Innovator Award, Healthcare CEO of the Year by Philadelphia Business Journal. In May 2015, Miller was named to Wall Street Journal's "America's Longest-Serving CEO's." In 2015, Miller was also named among CR Magazine's 2015 Responsible CEOs of the Year. In 2019, Alan B. Miller was named to the Forbes "America's Most Innovative Leaders" ranking (#95). The ranking is created by the Forbes editorial team.
In 2019, Alan B. Miller was named to the Philadelphia Business Journal 2019 Most Admired CEOs list. In 2019, Alan B. Miller was named to the Fox Business list of 10 military veterans who became CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. In 2020, Alan B. Miller was highlighted in Wall Street Journal article: New Thinking Emerges on Optimal Tenure for a CEO. In 2020, Alan B. Miller was named to the longest living CEOs globally in the S&P 500 by International Business Times.
|
Diana Dragutinović
|
[
"1958 births",
"Living people",
"Politicians from Belgrade",
"University of Belgrade Faculty of Economics alumni",
"Democratic Party (Serbia) politicians",
"Finance ministers of Serbia",
"Government ministers of Serbia",
"Women government ministers of Serbia",
"Female finance ministers",
"21st-century Serbian women politicians",
"21st-century Serbian politicians",
"Academic staff of the University of Belgrade"
] | 508 | 4,114 |
Diana Dragutinović (; born 6 May 1958) is a Serbian economist, who was Minister of Finance in the Government of Serbia from 2008 to 2011.
Biography
Dragutinović graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Economics where she also received an MSc and a PhD and still lectures. From 2001 to 2002, she was special advisor at the Ministry of Finance and Economy, as well as a special advisor at the International Monetary Fund (2002–04).
From 1 September 2004 she was the vice governor of the National Bank of Serbia to Radovan Jelašić, in charge of coordination and management of research and statistics, monetary policy and payment systems.
Her main areas of research are macroeconomics, econometric modelling, financial programming, long-term economic growth theory, convergence analysis, inflation, monetary and fiscal policy, poverty and social policy.
Dragutinović was elected to the position of Minister for Finance on 7 July 2008. During the reconstruction of Cvetković's Government on 14 March 2011, she was dismissed from the position of Minister for Finance. Following that, she returned to the National Bank of Serbia and reclaimed the position of the vice governor of the National Bank of Serbia, under Governor Dejan Šoškić and retaining the same position under Governor Jorgovanka Tabaković as well.
Personal life
She is the author of textbooks, ten monographs and over 50 studies, articles and papers.
She is married and a mother of two children.
|
Douglas Burrows
|
[
"1915 births",
"1982 deaths",
"People educated at Newington College",
"Members of the Order of the British Empire",
"Commanders of the Order of the British Empire",
"20th-century Australian philanthropists",
"Australian Army personnel of World War II",
"Australian Army officers",
"Australian stockbrokers",
"Australian accountants"
] | 945 | 7,727 |
Douglas Squire Irving Burrows CBE (Civil) MBE (Military) (7 August 1915 – 10 December 1982) was an Australian stock broker, businessman and philanthropist who from 1970 until his death was President of the Board Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children. With Lorimer Dods and John Fulton he co-founded the Children's Medical Research Foundation of which from 1970 he became the Chairman of the Management Committee.
Early life
Burrows was born in Sydney, the son of Rita (née Squire) and Harry Irving Burrows. He was educated at Newington College (1932–1934) and rowed in the 1st IV at the GPS Head of the River in 1933 and 1934. In 1934 he was stroke of the crew. Burrows was Captain of 1st Rifle Shooting Team in 1934. Under his captaincy, the team were GPS Premiers that year and won the Earl Roberts Trophy.
Working life
Upon finishing school, Burrows gained employment with the chartered accounting firm Priestley & Morris. He stayed with the firm until the beginning of World War II and at war's end rejoined them briefly before joining A J Dawson as an Accountant. In 1951, Burrows became a Member of the Sydney Stock Exchange as a partner of Ernest L Davis & Co. He later served as a director of A J Dawson Ltd, and as Deputy Chairman of Edward Lumley Ltd, Security Life Assurance Ltd and Security & General Insurance Company Ltd.
War service
In 1939, Burrows enlisted in the Australian Army and travelled with the first group of enlisted men on the first boat to leave after the beginning of the war. He served in North Africa, Greece and eventually in New Guinea on the Kokoda Track. As Major Douglas Burrows, he became Deputy Assistant Adjutant General of the Australian 6th Division. In that role he was responsible for co-ordinating the ceremony for the signing of surrender documents by Lieutenant General Hatazō Adachi, Commander of the Japanese 18th Army in New Guinea. After signing the unconditional surrender, Adachi presented his sword to the General Officer Commanding, 6th Division, Major General Horace Robertson. Adachi's aide then surrendered his sword to Burrows and this weapon remains with the Burrows family to this day. On 14 February 1946 he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Military Division for his war service.
Marriage and family
On 15 August 1942, while on a few days army leave, Burrows married Valma Ashcroft who had modelled for advertisements, the Australian Wool Board and women's magazines including covers for The Australian Women's Weekly. They had three children; Mark Douglas Burrows AO; Peter Irving Burrows AO; and Tina Burrows. During their married life, the Burrows were residents of St Ives, New South Wales.
Children's Hospital
In 1952, Burrows joined the board of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children. He served as Treasurer (1959–66) and Vice-President (1966–70) before becoming President and serving in that role for eleven years. His wife, Valma, was also appointed to the board in 1973. Valma Burrows' brother-in-law was Dr Sandy Robertson AM a paediatric surgeon at the Children's Hospital.
Honours
Burrows was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 16 June 1979 in recognition of his services to children's health. The University of Sydney Medical School Foundation's Douglas Burrows Chair of Paediatrics and Child Health was established in 1983 in his honour.
|
Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth
|
[
"1920 documents",
"Austrian School publications",
"Books by Ludwig von Mises",
"Economics articles",
"Economic planning",
"Free market"
] | 946 | 7,715 |
Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth is an article by Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Its critique against economic calculation in a centrally planned economy triggered the decades-long economic calculation debate.
The article was first published 1920 in German under the title Die Wirtschaftsrechnung im sozialistischen Gemeinwesen and based on a lecture Mises gave in 1919 as a response to a book by Otto Neurath, arguing for the feasibility of central planning. Two years later, the essay was incorporated into Mises's book Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis.
Synopsis
Mises laid out that economic calculation requires two fundamental things
A medium of exchange (i.e money)
Markets
According to Mises, although it is possible to perform economic calculation in a proficient manner without these two requirements present, very few circumstances exist. These circumstances include economic calculation within a household.
To him, cost-benefit analysis is not hard to do on a personal scale. It is not hard to pick between a certain amount of wine and a certain amount of oil. However, because marginal utility is not homogeneous and universal, people will have different preferences. For example, a teetotaler may prefer oil to wine, whereas an alcoholic may prefer wine. Thus the central planner or bureaucrat will have trouble distributing resources as prices cannot be set without markets as prices reflect the supply and demand of goods, labour and resources. Buying and selling consumer goods within a socialist state will simply be internal transfers of goods and not "objects of exchange", which sets the price mechanism out of order.
Mises thought that Economic Calculation is only possible (outside of extremely limited circumstances) by information provided by market prices, which reflects the changes of individual subjective values. Bureaucratic, centrally planned methods of resource allocation are inherently irrational and do not allocate resources in the most efficient method, which means that economic calculation in a socialist commonwealth is impossible. Because of the economist's idea that cost-benefit analysis is imperative and crucial, the socialist economy is also impossible.
Left-wing criticism
Marxist computer programmer Paul Cockshott argues that economic calculation is possible within a socialist state as long as computational devices are used. In "Towards a New Socialism'''s "Information and Economics: A Critique of Hayek" and "Against Mises", he argues that central planning is simplified by the use of computers in calculating the component of price not accounted for by Marxian labor theories of value.
Right-wing criticism
One of the few "non-Austrian" anarcho-capitalists, Bryan Caplan, argues that Mises is unable to prove why the socialist economy would be "impossible". While agreeing with the concept of a calculation problem he argues that the Austrian School employs it indistinctly. Caplan argues that:"Ever since Mises, Austrians have overused the economic calculation argument. In the absence of detailed empirical evidence showing that this particular problem is the most important one, it is just another argument out of hundreds on the list of arguments against socialism. How do we know that the problem of work effort, or innovation, or the underground economy, or any number of other problems were not more important than the calculation problem?
The collapse of Communism has led Austrians to loudly proclaim that 'Mises was right.' Yes, he was right that socialism was a terrible economic system - and only the collapse of Communism has shown us how bad it really was. However, current events do nothing to show that economic calculation was the insuperable difficulty of socialist economies. There is no natural experiment of a socialist economy that suffered solely from its lack of economic calculation. Thus, economic history as well as pure economic theory fails to establish that the economic calculation problem was a severe challenge for socialism."
Influence
Many consider Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth to be Mises's most influential work, while others view Human Action: A Treatise on Economics to be more important of a book, as it fills the magnum opus'' role.
Joseph T Salerno, an American Austrian school economist considers it to be among his best works. He writes:"The significance of Mises's 1920 article extends far beyond its devastating demonstration of the impossibility of socialist economy and society. It provides the rationale for the price system, purely free markets, the security of private property against all encroachments, and sound money. Its thesis will continue to be relevant as long as economists and policy-makers want to understand why even minor government economic interventions consistently fail to achieve socially beneficial results. "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" surely ranks among the most important economic articles written this century."
See also
Economic calculation problem
Socialist calculation debate
Cost–benefit analysis
Austrian School
Ludwig von Mises
Criticism of Socialism
|
Jim Pattison
|
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James Allen Pattison (born October 1, 1928) is a Canadian business magnate and investor. He is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he holds the position of chief executive officer, chairman and sole owner of the Jim Pattison Group, Canada's second largest privately-held company, with more than 45,000 employees worldwide, and annual sales of $10.1 billion. The Group is active in 25 divisions, according to Forbes, including packaging, food, and forestry products.
In 2015, he was considered to be Canada's fourth richest person. According to Forbes, Pattison's net worth in late 2018 was $5.7 billion, having increased substantially from the $2.1 billion reported in March 2009. At the time, he was described as Canada's third richest man by Bloomberg News.
Pattison was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in December 2018, having previously been appointed to the Order of Canada (1987) and the Order of British Columbia (1990), and receiving the Governor General’s Commemorative Medal for the 125th Anniversary in Canada. Other recognitions include being inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame and the Canadian Professional Sales Association Hall of Fame, as well as Entrepreneur of the Year – Lifetime Achievement Award (2000), the International Horatio Alger Award (U.S.A., 2004), and the Young Presidents Organization Canadian Icon Award (2007).
Early life and education
Pattison's parents resided in the rural town of Luseland, Saskatchewan, when he was born at the hospital in nearby Saskatoon. The family moved to East Vancouver, British Columbia when Pattison was six years old, but he returned to Saskatchewan during summers.
His first summer job was playing trumpet at a children's church camp and later picking fruit (raspberries, cherries, and peaches) during the summer while in high school. Pattison held many jobs while in high school, including selling doughnuts in the school parking lot, selling seeds door-to-door, delivering newspapers, and working as a page boy at the Georgia Hotel. He graduated from John Oliver Secondary School in 1947.
After high school, he worked in a cannery, a packing house, as a labourer building bridges in the mountains, and then for the Canadian Pacific Railway as a dining car attendant before accepting a job washing cars at a gas station with a small attached used-car lot. By chance, while the regular salesman was away, Pattison sold one of the cars on the lot and found his calling. He parlayed his sales success into a job selling used cars during the summer at one of the largest used-car lots in Vancouver, using his earnings that he made to pay for his tuition while studying at the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business (Pattison did not complete his studies, since he was three classes short of a completing a four-year bachelor's of commerce degree).
Business career
In the summer of 1948, while taking a break from his studies, Pattison was employed at Richmond Motors in the southern Vancouver suburb of Richmond, British Columbia. Although he was primarily responsible for washing cars, his job also involved selling them. In summer 1949, he worked for Kingsway, a used car dealer in Vancouver. "I worked there all summer and then [my boss] gave me a car to drive to university. So, I then started to sell used cars at UBC," Pattison told a reporter.
In 1961 he was able to persuade a Royal Bank manager to lend him $40,000, significantly more than the branch's lending limit, to open a Pontiac dealership on Main Street near his children's elementary school. To complete the funding, he also sold his house, assigned the cash surrender value of his life insurance policy to General Motors and took a loan from GM for $190,000 for preferred shares in the company. 25 years later, he was selling more cars than anyone else in Western Canada.
His company owned 25 car dealerships as of March 2018, Peterbilt truck dealerships, Overwaitea Foods, Save-On-Foods, Quality Foods, Ripley's Believe It or Not!, Guinness World Records, and radio and TV stations in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Pattison entered the media business when he bought Vancouver AM radio station CJOR with five partners. The Broadcast Group was Canada’s largest western-based radio and TV company in 2018, with 43 radio stations and three TV stations. Pattison Agriculture is the second-largest John Deere dealer in Canada, with 19 locations in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
He also owned the Vancouver Blazers of the World Hockey Association.
Pattison led the organization of Expo 86 in Vancouver as the chief executive officer and president of the Expo 86 Corporation. When he was appointed to the Order of British Columbia, the award noted, "Although others may have had the initial vision for Expo ’86, it was Jimmy Pattison who was the expediter – the one more than anyone else who made it happen. He demanded much of his team but no more than he himself was prepared to give. This he did, almost full-time over a five-year period, without compensation..."
On February 15, 2008, Jim Pattison Group announced the purchase of the GWR organization, the company known for its Guinness World Records franchise. Its annual book, published in more than 100 countries in 37 languages, is the world's best-selling copyrighted book. Pattison, who owns approximately 30% of the shares of Canfor, was in a dispute over governance with money manager Stephen A. Jarislowsky, whose firm owned 18%. Pattison won and ousted CEO Jim Shepherd over Canfor's poor performance and declining share price, replacing him for the interim with Jim Shepard (no relation).
He was involved with the committee for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Among other honours, Pattison is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of British Columbia. He was also listed as No. 177 on the 2015 Forbes list of the world's richest people. He was also listed then as the richest Canadian.
In the latter part of 2018, Pattison continued to remain active in his business career, conducting comprehensive visits to various Pattison Agriculture farm equipment dealerships in the western region, which involved covering extensive distances by driving a pickup truck for thousands of kilometres. When questioned by a Bloomberg reporter as to whether he ever took a vacation throughout his business career, Pattison expressed his passion and dedication for business and investing by stating, ""Well, I get 365 days. If you like your work, it’s not work."
In September 2020, at 91 years old, Pattison exhibited an ongoing engagement in his business career and was actively pursuing new investment opportunities. At that time, a news item stated that "Jim Pattison Group Inc. had $10.9 billion in revenue and employed 48,000 people".
Philanthropy
Imagine Canada rated the Jim Pattison Foundation in 2008 as the eighth largest giver of charitable grants by a private foundation in Canada. That year, Pattison made a $1,000,000 donation as a matching gift for funds raised for the Apostolic Church of Pentecost’s creation of a church planting endowment fund.
On April 16, 2009, Jim Pattison announced that Save-On Foods donated $100,000 to CBC Television in order to rent high-definition television trucks for away games during the Vancouver Canucks' 2009 1st round NHL playoff series against the St. Louis Blues. Prior to this donation, CBC stated that it would not broadcast high-definition away games in St. Louis due to the cost of renting high-definition equipment during the current tough economic times and major cuts to funding for the CBC by the federal government.
Pattison is a well-known philanthropist, and an article in The Globe and Mail noted, "He has always given away 10% of his income." In July 2013, he donated up to $5 million to Victoria Hospitals Foundation (Victoria, British Columbia), to support its "Building Care Together" campaign to purchase new equipment for the new patient care tower at the Royal Jubilee Hospital. In recognition, the hospital named the ground floor lobby of the patient care tower "The Jim Pattison Atrium and Concourse." In 2011, Pattison contributed $5 million to add his name and to match public donations for a $10 million 100-day fundraising campaign in Surrey, British Columbia for the new Jim Pattison Outpatient Care and Surgery Centre run by Fraser Health. Other donations in the past included $20 million Vancouver General Hospital in 1999 and $5 million to the Lions Gate Hospital in 2008.
On March 28, 2017, Pattison donated $75 million to the construction of the new St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, a Canadian record for a private donation to a health care provider. On May 30, 2017, Pattison and the Jim Pattison Foundation announced they were donating $50 million, the largest private donation in Saskatchewan history, to the new Children's Hospital of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan which is expected to open in 2019. It was also announced that day the new hospital would be named Jim Pattison Children's Hospital in his honour.
During a March 2018 interview, Pattison made the following comment about his philanthropy. "We’ve got the base of our company – it’s taken us 57 years to build – where we can do some serious things and give serious money away as time goes by. The bigger we get the more money we make, and the more we can give away. We’re just getting into it."
Personal life
Pattison married Mary Hudson, whom he first met at the Swift Current church camp when both were 13. Hudson was from Moose Jaw. Some 66 years later in 2018, Pattison commented, "The secret [to a successful marriage] is to marry somebody from Saskatchewan. Then you won’t have a problem!" The couple has three children.
At a Los Angeles auction on November 17, 2016, Pattison purchased (for $4.8 million) the Jean Louis dress worn by Marilyn Monroe when she sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to President John F. Kennedy at a celebration of his 45th birthday. At the age of 90, in addition to his business endeavours, Pattison remained dedicated to music, finding joy in playing instruments such as the piano, organ, and trumpet. Additionally, he is known to be an avid Yachtsman, and owns the Nova Spirit, a 150-foot superyacht valued at approximately $25 million.
See also
Lists of billionaires
Further reading
Jimmy: An Autobiography by Jim Pattison and Paul Grescoe (1987)
Pattison: Portrait of a capitalist superstar by Russell Kelly (Nov 1986)
|
Nick Ede
|
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] | 580 | 6,047 |
Nick Ede is a Scottish public relations, popular culture expert and television presenter. He runs the London-based PR agency East of Eden and he lives in Hackney.
Biography
Ede was born in Edinburgh, where he attended Edinburgh Academy. He studied at Glasgow School of Art and Bretton Hall College in Leeds. He moved to Stoke Newington in 1996 to try to become an actor, but his mother died from a stroke in 1997 when he was 22 and he moved back to Edinburgh. He did work for the Stroke Foundation and joined Apollo Leisure in marketing, before moving back to Hackney in 1998 to become head of entertainment at Lastminute.com. In 2000, he became a marketing manager at Mondi Associates, then in 2001 he became head of packages at ATC Management.
In 2003, he did six months work experience at Shine Television, including co-presenting The Russell Grant Show on Sky One. Shortly afterwards, actress Jennifer Ellison asked him to host a party to highlight her appearance on Hell's Kitchen, which was his introduction to PR work. He launched Eden Lifestyle in 2004, then worked with Nick Fulford, merging their businesses in 2006. He was named Scottish Communicator of the Year at the 2009 Scottish Fashion Awards.
He has appeared on Project Catwalk since 2008 (gaining the nickname "the Simon Cowell of fashion"), Diet on the Dancefloor and Lorraine Kelly's morning show LK Today. He holds an annual celebrity fundraising night for the Stroke Association called "A Night with Nick", and is a patron for Jeans for Genes; his father, Donald Ede, was a developmental geneticist.
He created the campaign styleforstroke which has fans including Mel B, Kelly Osbourne, Lilah Parsons, Sarah Harding, Ashley James, Vogue Williams and many more. He has been instrumental is building brands and has worked with the philanthropist Eva Longoria and Maria Bravo.
Recently Ede has appeared as a Matchmaker on the hit TV Show Ultimate Matchmaker on W Channel for UK TV. He is currently an expert on the Yahoo show The Royal Box. In 2018, Ede launched Style For Stroke as a charitable foundation and launched THE FALL BALL - a charity gala to raise funds and awareness for those who have suffered from stroke.
He is openly gay.
|
Edward Darell
|
[
"1728 births",
"1814 deaths",
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"Deputy governors of the Bank of England",
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"18th-century English merchants"
] | 295 | 2,782 |
Edward Darell (1728–1814) was an English merchant and Governor of the Bank of England from 1787 to 1789.
He was the son of Robert Darell of Richmond, and his wife Mary Porten, daughter of James Porten, and sister of Judith Porten who was Gibbon's mother. He had a younger brother Robert, born in 1734. He was a first cousin of Edward Gibbon who made Darell one of his three executors in his will of 1791.
Darell acted as a Bank of England director from c.1771 to 1804. He was Deputy Governor from 1785 to 1787. He replaced George Peters as Governor and was succeeded by Mark Weyland.
Darell's London address was New Street, Hanover Square in 1803. His brother Robert, of Sackville Street, had died in 1801, and had served as deputy governor of the South Sea Company. They had been in business together at 4 Union Court, Old Broad Street.
See also
Chief Cashier of the Bank of England
|
Aetna
|
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Aetna Inc. ( ) is an American managed health care company that sells traditional and consumer directed health care insurance and related services, such as medical, pharmaceutical, dental, behavioral health, long-term care, and disability plans, primarily through employer-paid (fully or partly) insurance and benefit programs, and through Medicare. Since November 28, 2018, the company has been a subsidiary of CVS Health.
The company's network includes 22.1 million medical members, 12.7 million dental members, 13.1 million pharmacy benefit management services members, 1.2 million health-care professionals, over 690,000 primary care doctors and specialists, and over 5,700 hospitals.
Aetna is descended from Aetna (Fire) Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut. The name of the company is based on Mount Etna, at the time the most active volcano in Europe.
1800s
1819: Thomas Kimberly Brace became the principal founder and developer of the Aetna (Fire) Insurance Company, established in Hartford. One of his co-founders was Joseph Morgan, father of J. S. Morgan and grandfather of J. P. Morgan. Brace served as the company's first President (and would remain on the Board of Directors until his death in 1860). Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, Yale graduate and attorney, became the second president of Aetna (Fire) Insurance Company, succeeding Thomas Kimberly Brace. Ellsworth, who later became the first U.S. Patent Commissioner, served as Aetna's president until 1821, when he resigned. He continued as a director at the company for another 16 years. Ellsworth's brother, William Wolcott Ellsworth, also served as a director, as well as the company's first general counsel.
1820: Brace authored the rewriting of the company Charter allowing Aetna to underwrite life insurance and annuities, earning Brace the title of "father" of American life insurance.
On May 28, 1853, the Annuity department separated from Aetna Insurance to be incorporated as the Aetna Life Insurance Company, with Eliphalet Bulkeley as president. The fire insurance company went on to become part of Connecticut General, which merged into Cigna.
On November 29, 1853, J. B. Bennett was appointed general agent of the company.
1854: Aetna hired its first full-time employee, Thomas O. Enders, who later became president of the company.
1857: Aetna moved to new offices on Hungerford and Cone Streets in Hartford. The Panic of 1857 caused the closing of many businesses. Eliphalet Bulkeley blocked a move to liquidate the company during the economic downturn.
During the 1850s, The Aetna Insurance Company issued life insurance policies on an undetermined number of African-American slaves, naming their owners as beneficiaries.
1861: Aetna began offering life insurance policies which paid dividends to policyholders just as the mutual life insurance policies did. Aetna introduced its new service with higher commissions for its agents. Life insurance policy sales grew during the American Civil War.
1864: By 1864, Aetna had increased its volume of business by 600% over 1861 and its annual premium income exceeded one million dollars.
1865: Due to the increased financial resources, by 1865 Aetna met the stringent regulatory requirements placed on life insurance companies in Massachusetts and New York and was authorized to begin soliciting business in these states.
1867: Company income rose from $78,000 in 1861 to $5.129 million by 1867. Aetna moved to its third home office at 670 Main Street, Hartford.
1868: Aetna altered its business practices, hiring its first actuary and abandoning the half-note premium system in favor of an all-cash premium plan.
1872: Eliphalet A. Bulkeley died and Thomas O. Enders became president.
1878: Aetna increased its capitalization from $150,000 to $750,000.
1879: Enders resigned as president and Eliphalet Bulkeley's son Morgan G. Bulkeley replaced him.
1888: Aetna purchased its fourth home office at 650 Main Street. It was the first building Aetna actually owned, and Aetna's home office for the next 42 years.
1891: Aetna issued its first accident policy to Morgan Bulkeley.
1892: Aetna held its first general agents conference in Chicago.
1899: Aetna began offering health insurance policies.
1902: Aetna created an Accident and Liability department to offer employers' liability and workmen's collective insurance, alongside the growing strength of the Progressive social reform movement. This would become the cornerstone of the Aetna Accident and Liability Company.
1903: An Engineering and Inspection Division was created to improve workplace safety.
1904: Aetna introduced its first corporate seal. The logo portrayed the company's home office bursting out from within a globe, with large block typeface spelling out Aetna's ranking.
1907: Aetna began offering automobile insurance. This business developed into the Aetna Casualty and Surety Company.
1908: Aetna hired its first home office female employee, Julia Kinghorn, a telephone switchboard operator.
1910: Under the management of E. E. Cammack, Aetna began using Hollerith punched cards machines for tabulating and hired 35 women to input mortality statistics on keypunch machines, the company's first female home office clerks.
1911: Aetna began its first national advertising campaign. The same year, Aetna formed a bond department to market fidelity and surety coverages.
1912: Aetna introduced the first combination automobile policy, with several separate types of coverage combined into one contract. Several Aetna insureds were killed on the RMS Titanic.
1913: Aetna formed its second affiliate, the Automobile Insurance Company, to write fire insurance on cars. This soon expanded to include windstorm, tornado, leasehold, and ocean and inland marine insurance. Aetna formed a Group department to sell group life insurance.
1917: Aetna's name changes to Aetna Casualty and Surety Co.
1924: By 1924, Aetna had $94million, 43% of its assets, invested in farm mortgages. That year, Aetna acquired The Standard Fire Insurance Co.
1960: Aetna expanded outside the U.S., buying a Canadian company, Excelsior Life Insurance Company.
1968: In 1968, Aetna bought a majority interest in Producer's and Citizen's Cooperative Assurance Company of Sydney, Australia. Also in 1968, Aetna's stock debuted on the NYSE.
1970: Aetna's Pension, Casualty and Life Division under the direction of B.E. Burton, President and Lead Actuary, saw billion-dollar growth in the post-ERISA pension administration segment.
1981: In 1981, Aetna bought a 40% interest in two Chilean companies, and soon thereafter invested in ventures in England, Spain, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia and Korea.
1996: Aetna sold its property and casualty subsidiary to The Travelers Companies. Also in 1996, Aetna acquired U.S. Healthcare, founded by Leonard Abramson. The company's name changed to Aetna Inc.
1998: In 1998, Aetna bought NYLCare Health Plans from the New York Life Insurance Company for $1.05billion, adding 2.2million members.
1999: Aetna bought Prudential HealthCare for $1billion, making it the largest provider of health benefits in the U.S., with more than 21million members.
2000: Aetna hired John Rowe as CEO and president. Rowe cut over 10,000 jobs and raised insurance premiums between 11 and 13 percent per year. Under Rowe, the company spent more than $20million to revamp its computer systems, enabling the company to identify and discontinue unprofitable accounts. Within a few years, Aetna shed 8million covered lives due to premiums that customers could no longer afford. Also in 2000, Aetna sold its financial services and international businesses to ING Group for $7.7billion, spun off its health business to its shareholders, thus focusing its business as an independent health and group benefits company. Aetna publicly apologizes for issuing coverage for the lives of slaves during the 1850s.
2001: Aetna recruited global public relations and marketing executive Roy Clason Jr. to lead the company's reputation management strategies during Aetna's multi-year corporate turnaround campaign.
2002: In 2002, Rowe shrunk Aetna's customer base from 19million members to 13million by abandoning unprofitable markets, including almost half of the counties nationwide in which it offered Medicare products.
2006: John Rowe stepped down as CEO and executive chairman of Aetna.
2007: Aetna acquired plan operator Schaller Anderson in July, signaling a push into the growing business of running plans for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
2008: Aetna CEO Ron Williams received $38.12million in executive compensation. Also in 2008, Aetna began offering pet health insurance through Pets Best Insurance Services.
2009: On September 22, more than 200 people gathered in front of Aetna's Hartford headquarters to call for a public health insurance option they said is essential to true national health care reform. On October 2, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and Healthcare Advocate Kevin P. Lembo asked Aetna and four other insurance companies for information the companies may have sent policyholders regarding the impact of proposed legislation on Medicare Advantage and prescription drug programs. According to Blumenthal, some insurance companies exaggerated or stretched the impact of health care reform. On November 3, US Senator Tom Harkin, chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, launched an investigation into health insurance pricing, asking Aetna and three other major insurers to justify their pricing practices. Also in November, Aetna announced the layoff of 3.5% of its work force, 625 employees. On November 30, Aetna CEO Ron Williams told analysts that Aetna would increase prices in 2010 and force 600,000 to 650,000 Aetna customers to drop their coverage. Aetna filed a $4.9billion correction to its 2008 health insurance regulatory filings on December 7, 2009. The new filings showed that Aetna spent less on small business health care than previously reported.
2010: Aetna and Continuum Health Partners had a contract dispute affecting coverage at various New York hospitals, and the contract lapsed. In July, a new contract was signed and coverage applied retroactively to the contract lapse.
2011: Aetna acquired Prodigy Health Group, parent of third-party administrator Meritain Health.
2012: Aetna introduced a new company logo, designed by New York-based Siegel+Gale.
2012: In June 2012, Aetna and Inova Health System announced a joint venture creating a new health insurance company, Innovation Health.
2013: Coventry Health Care was acquired by Aetna for $5.7 billion.
2015: On July 3, 2015, Aetna announced that it planned to acquire Humana for in cash and stock.
2014-2017: Aetna rebranded its Medicaid providers as Aetna Better Health.
2017: On January 23, 2017, John D. Bates, United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, blocked Aetna's merger with Humana, saying it would leave senior citizens with fewer options for Medicare coverage. On February 14, 2017, Aetna and Humana officially ended the $34billion merger agreement, after judges ruled against the merger a second time.
2017: Aetna and Banner Health announced a joint venture creating a new health insurance company, Banner|Aetna.
2017: In June 2017, the company announced plans to move its headquarters to New York City in late 2018. After CVS announced the acquisition of Aetna in December 2017, CVS announced that the company's headquarters would remain in Hartford, scrapping plans to move to New York City.
2017: On December 3, 2017, CVS Health announced the acquisition of Aetna for $69billion. Larry Merlo became chief executive of the two brands. Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini resigned and Aetna President Karen S. Lynch took over Aetna operations.
2018: On November 28, 2018, CVS Health completed the acquisition of Aetna. The company's ticker AET is delisted from the NYSE.
2020s
2020: In November, Karen Lynch was named CEO of CVS.
2021: In February, Lynch announced that Aetna would begin offering individual plans through ACA exchanges in 2022.
Lawsuits and regulatory action
1999
A jury in California awarded $116million in punitive damages for "malice, oppression and fraud" to a patient's widow who contended he died after a subsidiary of Aetna delayed approving treatment for stomach cancer that its own doctors had recommended. Lawyers on both sides called it the largest such verdict against a health maintenance organization. In 2001 a settlement was reached.
2000
The U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a $1.855 million federal jury award for Brokerage Concepts Inc. (BCI) against Aetna U. S. Healthcare (formerly U. S. Healthcare), its Pennsylvania subsidiary, and one of its former senior executives, Richard Wolfson. In its suit, BCI accused Aetna U. S. Healthcare of tortious interference with contractual relations. BCI alleged the managed-care company used its economic power in the business of prescription drug sales to coerce one of BCI's clients, the "I Got It at Gary's" pharmacy chain, into using another Aetna U. S. Healthcare subsidiary, Corporate Health Administrators, as its health benefits management firm. According to the suit, Aetna U. S. Healthcare threatened to drop "I Got it at Gary's" from its pharmacy network if the company didn't switch to Corporate Health Administrators.
2001
The Maryland Insurance Commissioner ordered five Maryland health plans to pay a total of $1.4million in penalties for failing to comply with the state's claims payment practices; Aetna was cited twice and ordered to pay the largest fine of $850,000.
The State of Texas fined Aetna $1.15million for failing to promptly pay doctors and hospitals for services. Texas Insurance Commissioner Jose Montemayor also ordered Aetna to pay restitution to physicians and health care providers who did not receive timely payment for claims.
2002
The New York Department of Insurance fined Aetna US Healthcare and UnitedHealthcare a total of $2.5million, citing mishandled claims, improper treatment denials, unlicensed health insurance agents, and poorly performing claims processors using out-of-date software.
2003
To settle a class-action lawsuit between Aetna and 700,000 physicians and medical societies, Aetna agreed to streamline communications, reduce administrative complexity, and improve the quality of the health care system. The lawsuit was settled for $470million and charged Aetna with systematically reducing payments to physicians and overriding their treatment decisions.
Aetna and the American Dental Association (ADA) announced a class-action settlement by dentists who accused Aetna of interfering with dental procedures to cut costs and required dentists to comply with excessive paperwork. The settlement called for Aetna to pay $4million to 40,000 to 50,000 dentists and $1million to the ADA Foundation, a charitable group.
Georgia Insurance Commissioner John W. Oxendine fined Aetna's Prudential Health Plan $100,000 for violating Georgia's prompt pay law by delaying claims payments. Aetna companies had been fined four previous times by Oxendine's office, in 2000 and again in 2002, for a total of $411,200.
2007
The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance filed an administrative order levying a $9.5million fine against Aetna for refusing to cover certain services provided by out-of-network providers—including emergency treatment—in violation of New Jersey rules and regulations.
2009
Former Aetna employee Cornelius Allison of Darby, Pennsylvania, sued Aetna in U. S. District Court in Pennsylvania after hackers gained access to a company website holding personal data for 450,000 current and former employees, and job applicants. The suit charged Aetna with negligence, breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation and invasion of privacy.
The Arizona Department of Insurance fined Aetna Life Insurance Company and Aetna Health, Inc. after examination of their practices exposed multiple violations of Arizona insurance laws. The department found that Aetna violated state laws governing areas of health insurance operations, including Aetna's: failure to provide policyholders with information about their rights on appeals of medical claims or services denials; failure to acknowledge receipt of policyholder appeals; failure to notify policyholders about appeal decisions/outcomes; and, in some appeals involving the denial of services for potentially life-threatening conditions, failure to inform policyholders of their decision within the required, expedited time frames.
2010
Aetna paid a $750,000 fine as part of a settlement with the New York Insurance Department related to the company administering an affordable healthcare plan for the state. Aetna's violations included: failing to provide a required 30-day notice of rate increases to about 946 members in 2007, failing to provide notice to 1,406 terminated workers of their rights to convert to another policy, failing to report enrollment data from May 2007 through August 2008, and failing to respond to Insurance Department requests for data in March 2008.
2018
On February 11, 2018, CNN reported that the California Department of Insurance launched an investigation into Aetna following sworn testimony from Dr. Jay Ken Iinuma, a former medical director for the insurer, in a lawsuit against the insurer in which he revealed he never reviewed any patients' medical records when deciding whether to approve or deny claims for coverage. The California Insurance Commissioner, Dave Jones, issued a statement confirming the investigation the following day. On February 27, 2018, the ranking members of the Senate Committee on Finance and Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Senators Ron Wyden and Patty Murray, issued a letter to Aetna demanding further information regarding Dr. Iinuma's testimony and the insurer's medical claims determination and patient appeal processes. In 2019, Aetna settled the lawsuit, but the California investigation continued.
In 2018, a state jury in Oklahoma ruled against Aetna for $26.5 million in Ron Cunningham v. Aetna, with much of the damages arising from insurance bad faith.
2021
On September 11, 2021, attorney Brian Adesman filed suit against Aetna in a federal class action lawsuit, alleging that "in administering the Aetna Plans, Aetna treats mental health as less important than physical health". Regarding the lawsuit, attorney Brian Adesman was reported in the media saying, "Insurance companies are not above the law and profits can't come before people."
Life insurance policies on slaves
In 2000, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, head of the nonprofit Restitution Study Group of Hoboken, New Jersey, disclosed that, from approximately 1853 to 1860 Aetna, had issued life insurance policies to slaveowners covering the lives of their slaves.
The same year, Aetna acknowledged that concrete evidence exists for Aetna issuing coverage for the lives of slaves and released a public apology.
In 2002, Farmer-Paellmann brought suit against Aetna and two other companies in federal court asking for reparations for the descendants of slaves. The lawsuit said Aetna, CSX and Fleet were "unjustly enriched" by "a system that enslaved, tortured, starved and exploited human beings." It argued that African-Americans are still suffering the effects of two and a half centuries of enslavement followed by more than a century of institutionalized racism. The complaint blamed slavery for present-day disparities between blacks and whites in income, education, literacy, health, life expectancy and crime.
This suit was dismissed, and the dismissal largely upheld on appeal.
In 2006, Farmer-Paellmann announced a nationwide boycott of Aetna over the issue of reparations for its policies covering slaves. Aetna stated that its commitment to diversity in the workplace and its investment of over $36 million in such areas as education, health, economic development, community partnerships, and minority-owned business initiatives in the African-American community are more effective at aiding descendants of slaves and African-Americans in general than making restitutions for Aetna's life insurance policies on slaves.
Lobbying and campaign contributions
Aetna spent more than $2.0 million in 2009 on lobbying. The company spent $809,793 between January 2009 and the end of March 2009—up 41 percent from the same period in 2008. Aetna's campaign contributions include more than $110,000 (~$ in ) to US Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) in 2009. From 2005 through 2009, Aetna contributed $56,250 to Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, making Aetna the senator's seventh highest contributor over that time period.
See also
Eight Forty One (formerly Aetna Building)
List of United States insurance companies
Related topics
Drivotrainer
Health care reform in the United States
Health care reform debate in the United States
Health insurance
Life insurance
Managed health care
Medicare Advantage
Pet insurance
Public health insurance option
|
David Malpass
|
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] | 3,128 | 31,427 |
David Robert Malpass (born March 8, 1956) is an American economic analyst and former government official who served as President of the World Bank Group from 2019 to 2023. He previously served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs under Donald Trump, having served as an economic advisor to Trump during the 2016 U.S. presidential election; Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary under Ronald Reagan; and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under George H. W. Bush. He was chief international economist at Bear Stearns from 1993 to 2002, and chief economist from 2002 to the firm's collapse in 2008.
As of 2024, Malpass is Distinguished Fellow of International Finance at the Daniels School of Business at Purdue University.
Early life and education
Malpass was born in 1956 in Petoskey, Michigan.
He earned a BA in physics at Colorado College in 1976, and an MBA at the University of Denver in 1978. In 1983, he was a mid-career fellow studying international economics at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.
Career
Early career
From 1976 to 1981, Malpass worked in Portland, Oregon, as a contract administrator for Esco Corporation, a computer systems consultant for Arthur Andersen, and controller/CFO for Consolidated Supply.
Economist
From 1984 through 1993, in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, Malpass worked on an array of economic, budget, and foreign policy issues including the 1986 tax cut, NAFTA, and the Brady Plan for Latin American debt. From 1984 to 1986, he was Senior Analyst for Taxes and Trade and International Economist of the Senate Budget Committee. At the U.S. Treasury Department, he was Legislative Manager from 1986 to 1988, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Developing Nations 1988 to 1989. He was Republican staff director of the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee from 1989 to 1990. At the U.S. State Department, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Latin America Economic Affairs from 1990 to 1993.
Malpass was chief international economist at Bear Stearns from 1993 to 2002. From 2002 to 2008, he was chief economist at the firm.
In 2008, after Bear Stearns failed during the financial crisis, Malpass founded his own economics firm, Encima Global. In 2010, he ran for the Republican nomination for United States Senate in that year's special election in New York; he placed second in the three-way primary with 38% of the vote after former Congressman Joe DioGuardi's 42%. In 2012, he wrote a chapter titled "Sound Money, Sound Policy" in The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs, published by the George W. Bush Presidential Center.
Malpass has written regularly for Forbes and has been a contributor to the op-ed section of The Wall Street Journal. He is also a frequent television commentator.
In August 2007, before the housing market collapse that triggered the financial crisis of 2007–2008, Malpass wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that "Housing and debt markets are not that big a part of the U.S. economy, or of job creation ... the housing- and debt-market corrections will probably add to the length of the U.S. economic expansion." In 2012, in the New York Times Economix blog, Bruce Bartlett cited Malpass's mid-2008 forecast of economic growth and his September 2012 forecast of recession as examples of partisan bias in economic forecasts.
During the Obama administration, Malpass frequently warned against quantitative easing, the preferred approach of the Federal Reserve during that time period; he said that it would inhibit growth.
Trump advisor
On August 5, 2016 Malpass was announced as a senior economic advisor to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. He appeared on television and radio to support Trump's message of faster growth through policy reforms. Four of his pre-election Forbes columns discussed the need for political reform or upheaval. His September 1, 2016 op-ed in The New York Times, "Why This Economy Needs Donald Trump", described potential faster growth through a policy upheaval covering economic policy, taxes, trade, and regulations. After the election, Malpass headed the transition team's work on economic policy and the Treasury Department.
Under Secretary of the Treasury
In March 2017, the White House announced Malpass as President Trump's nominee for Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs. Malpass was confirmed for the position by the United States Senate on August 3, 2017.
Malpass took a critical position on China during his tenure. In July 2018, he was described by Bloomberg News as "a champion of President Donald Trump's protectionist message".
World Bank President
In February 2019, Trump announced Malpass as the nominee for President of the World Bank, succeeding Jim Yong Kim, who had announced in January 2019 that he would be stepping down three years prior to the end of his second five-year term. Malpass was unanimously approved by the executive board on April 5, 2019, and began his term on April 9. During the start of his tenure, Malpass focused in his early public comments on the global economy and debt transparency.
Malpass spent a year realigning the World Bank's staff to better meet client countries' real needs. He also stabilized the institution, and reorganized the disarray that had been left by his predecessor, Kim. By the end of 2022 he had nearly doubled the bank's lending from what it had been when he took over. By the end of 2022 he had also doubled its climate financing, and oversaw a growing portfolio of loans designed to help countries adapt to climate change and transition to renewable power.
During his tenure, he led the World Bank in lending more than $150 billion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and rising food and energy prices. He also helped low-income countries achieve debt sustainability through debt reduction, and pressured China to provide more debt relief for developing nations.
In his first two years as World Bank president, he treaded carefully when discussing the causes of global warming. After the inauguration of Joe Biden in early 2021, American policy shifted towards prioritizing efforts against climate change, and Malpass increasingly began working and speaking on climate policy. In April 2021, the World Bank released a five-year Climate Change Action Plan that pledged 35% of World Bank financing to climate co-benefits and 50% of its climate financing to climate change adaptation, and pledged to fully align the World Bank's financing goals with the Paris Agreement by 2023. The plan was praised, with some concern that 35% could be too low or that the plan did not halt all World Bank fossil fuel projects.
On September 20, 2022, former U.S. Vice President and environmentalist Al Gore labelled Malpass a climate change denier and called for Biden to replace him during an event focusing on climate change hosted by The New York Times. Appearing separately from Gore at the event, Malpass was asked three times by journalist David Gelles if he accepted the scientific consensus on climate change that "the man-made burning of fossil fuels is rapidly and dangerously warming the planet"; Malpass replied, "I'm not a scientist." This answer prompted criticism from climate policy makers such as Rachel Kyte and Mark Carney, and calls for his resignation from the Rocky Mountain Institute and Christiana Figueres, among others. On September 21, the United States Department of the Treasury issued a statement that it expected World Bank leadership to take a leading role on climate issues. On September 22, Malpass said in both an internal memo to World Bank staff and on an interview with CNN International that he accepted the scientific consensus on human activity causing climate change and that he was not a "denier".
In mid-February 2023, Malpass announced his intention to end his term as president of the bank by the end of the bank's fiscal year in June 2023.
Additional posts
In 2024, Malpass became Distinguished Fellow of International Finance at the Daniels School of Business at Purdue University, and the inaugural Fellow of Global Business and Infrastructure at Purdue@DC.
Malpass is on the board of trustees of UBS Investment Trust.
He is a former member of the board of directors of the National Committee on United States–China Relations, the Council of the Americas, and the Economic Club of New York, and a former member of the board of trustees of the Manhattan Institute. He was also formerly a member of board of directors of the New Mountain Financial Corporation.
Personal life
Malpass and his wife Adele live in Washington, D.C. and have four children.
Adele Malpass is the daughter of Herman Obermayer. She was appointed as the chairwoman of the Manhattan Republican Party in January 2015 and was elected to a two-year term in September 2015. She resigned in August 2017 to move to Washington when Malpass was appointed to his role in the Treasury Department under President Trump. , she was the president of The Daily Caller News Foundation, a non-profit organization linked with the eponymous news organization.
Malpass speaks Spanish, Russian, and French.
|
Sky (New Zealand)
|
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] | 6,857 | 73,783 |
Sky Network Television Limited, more commonly known as Sky, is a New Zealand broadcasting company that provides pay television services via satellite, media streaming services, and broadband internet services. Sky had 1,023,378 residential television subscribers consisting of 517,003 satellite subscribers and 506,375 streaming subscribers. Additionally, Sky had 23,156 broadband customers. Despite the similarity of name, branding and services, such as Sky Go and MySky shared with its European equivalent, Sky Group, there is no connection between the companies.
The company was founded by Craig Heatley, Terry Jarvis, Trevor Farmer and Alan Gibbs in May 1987 as Sky Media Limited. It was later incorporated on 26 November, five weeks after the stock market crash. It was formed to investigate beaming sports programming into nightclubs and pubs using high performance 4-metre (13') satellite dishes by Jarvis and an engineering associate Brian Green, but was redirected into pay television following successful bidding in early 1990 for four groups of UHF frequencies in the Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga regions. Initially operating only in the Auckland region, Sky contracted Broadcast Communications (now Kordia) to provide the broadcast service and transmission from its Panorama Road studios, formerly owned by defunct broadcaster Northern Television. The first Sky subscriber was former Speaker of the House of Representatives Jonathan Hunt, according to Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand.
The concept of a pay television service was new to New Zealand and Sky had early problems. These included viewer acceptance of subscriber television. It faced difficulty in educating retailers and customers on the use of the original decoders. However, this problem was eased with the introduction of easier-to-use decoders that allowed greater viewer flexibility.
On 10 December 1997, the company was listed on NZX.
UHF service
Sky originally launched on 8 May 1990 as an analogue UHF service. Subscribers required a VideoCrypt decoder and a UHF aerial, both of which were supplied upon joining Sky. The signal was sent with the picture scrambled using VideoCrypt technology; the decoder was used to unscramble the picture. Sky Movies was the only channel broadcast in NICAM stereo; Sky Sport and Sky News were broadcast in mono. The original decoder didn't actually support stereo sound; if a subscriber wanted to watch Sky Movies in stereo, the subscriber had to feed the audio from another source such as a NICAM stereo capable VCR.
Free-to-air broadcasts were shown in the early morning hours on Sky News and between 5 pm and 6 pm on Sky Sport until mid-1991 which meant those without a Sky subscription could view the broadcasts without a UHF decoder by tuning their TV to the Sky News or Sky Sport UHF channel, as the signals were not scrambled during those times.
The original channel lineup consisted of three channels, Sky Movies (later renamed to HBO before reverting to its original name), Sky Sport and Sky News. Sky rapidly won long term rights from US sports network ESPN (which became a 1% shareholder) as well as CNN and HBO providing it with a supply of sports, news and movies for the three channels. Sky News screened a mixture of CNN International and BBC news bulletins and a replay of the 6 pm One Network News bulletin from TVNZ, later changing to a replay of the 3 News 6 pm bulletin from TV3. The Sky News channel was later discontinued and became branded as a CNN channel.
In 1994, Sky launched two further channels Discovery Channel and Orange; Orange later became known as Sky 1 and then The Box. Discovery Channel broadcast on a channel already used by Trackside. The Trackside service was available free to air to anyone who could receive the UHF signal without the need for a Sky decoder, Discovery Channel screened outside of racing hours and was only available to Sky subscribers.
Orange broadcast from 10 am onwards each day with Juice TV screening outside of Orange's broadcast hours, Juice TV was available originally free to air. Cartoon Network shared the same channel as Orange from 1997 to 2000 screening between 6 am and 4 pm with Orange screening after 4 pm. In 2000, Cartoon Network was replaced with Nickelodeon. Juice ended its UHF carriage in 2002, after a three-year period where it was encrypted on the service.
Later, funding allowed Sky to extend its coverage throughout most of New Zealand: In 1991, the company expanded to Rotorua, Wellington and Christchurch. Then in 1994, the company expanded to Hawke's Bay, Manawatu, Southland and Otago, followed by the Wairarapa, Taupō, and Wanganui regions in 1995. Its final UHF expansion, in 1996, was to Taranaki, Whangārei, and eastern Bay of Plenty Region.
An agreement with The Warehouse saw the retailer selling UHF subscriptions in 67 of its 78 outlets from October 2002. These were all located within Sky's UHF service zones.
Following the launch of the digital satellite service in 1998 (see below), Sky began reducing services on the UHF platform. NICAM stereo was eventually removed from Sky Movies in 2001 after moving its transmitter network from Telecom NZ to BCL (currently Kordia) while the CNN channel was discontinued in 2004 with the UHF frequencies issued to Māori Television. It was also relatively easy to hack, when, in 2002, descriptions of a computer program descrambling the signals was mentioned on Jeremy Bertenshaw's website circulated beyond his friend circle.
Sky announced in July 2009 that it would no longer accept new UHF subscriptions and that the equipment to replace the UHF transmitters had become impossible to find due to lack of production, as some of its transmitters began to collapse. There were reportedly 25,000 subscribers to the UHF service in 2009, a far cry from the 300,000 of 1995.
Sky switched off its analogue UHF TV service on 11 March 2010 at midnight.
Sky used a portion of the freed up UHF and radio spectrum to launch its joint venture, Igloo, in December 2012. The remaining unused spectrum was relinquished back to the Government and will be recycled to support new broadcasting ventures.
Satellite service
In April 1997, Sky introduced a nationwide analogue direct broadcasting via satellite (DBS) service over the Optus B1 satellite. This allowed it to offer more channels and interactive options, as well as nationwide coverage. It upgraded it to a digital service in December 1998.
While some channels on the UHF platform were shared with other channels, Sky Digital screened the same channels 24 hours a day. Orange (later known as Sky 1 and The Box) extended to screening 24 hours a day on Sky Digital but was only available to Sky UHF subscribers between 4 pm and 6 am. Discovery Channel was available to Sky Digital subscribers 24 hours a day but UHF subscribers could only receive the channel outside of Trackside's broadcast hours.
Digital versions of free-to-air channels have always been available on Sky Digital meaning that some subscribers did not need to purchase any equipment to receive digital TV when New Zealand switched off its analogue service. While most free-to-air channels have been available on Sky Digital, TVNZ channels TVNZ 1 and TVNZ 2 did not become available until the end of 2001, when the two parties entered an agreement to carry the channels in November of that year. This caused the channel line-up to be rearranged; in addition, BBC World was added, in a non-exclusive deal, which did not affect overnight carriage of the channel on TV One.
A SkyMail email service was featured for a time starting November 2002, but was later pulled due to lack of interest (including the wireless keyboards they had produced for it).
The unreliability of the ageing Optus B1 satellite was highlighted when the DBS service went offline just before 7 p.m. NZST (8 a.m. London, 3 a.m. New York) on 30 March 2006. The interruption affected service to over 550,000 customers and caused many decoders to advise customers of "rain fade." Due to excessive volume of calls to the Sky toll-free help-desk, Sky posted update messages on their website advising customers that they were working with Optus to restore service by midnight. Sky credited customers with one day's subscription fees as compensation for the downtime at a cost to the company of NZ$1.5 million. Sky switched its DBS service to the Optus D1 satellite, announced in July, on 15 November 2006. It later expanded its transponder capacity on this satellite to allow for extra channels and HD broadcasts.
My Sky launch
On 5 December 2005, Sky released its own digital video recorder (DVR), which was an upgraded set top box similar to Foxtel IQ in Australia or TiVo in the United States, called My Sky. The PVR's hard disc had a storage of 160 GB (60 hours). About 10,000 units were sent in its first year, which was half of what was planned due to logistical issues.
Early boxes had flaws in the EPG, which did not work in real time, causing disruption to recordings, while the default channel when switched on was Sky's preview channel, instead of the last channel the viewer watched.
This generation of boxes was replaced by My Sky HDi when it launched on 1 July 2008. These boxes allow connection of up to four satellites which can work with its four TV tuner cards in any combination. The device has a 320GB HDD. The quality of My Sky HDi is 576i via component and 720/1080i via HDMI.
On 1 July 2011, a version of the same decoder with a 1TB hard drive was launched as My Sky+. Much like what happened with the previous My Sky model, the launch was plagued by similar problems, with some subscribers not receiving their units until after 9 September 2011, ten days after the start of the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
Purchase of Prime Television
In November 2005, Sky announced it had purchased the free-to-air channel Prime TV for NZ$30 million. Sky uses Prime TV to promote its pay content and to show delayed sports coverage. New Zealand's Commerce Commission issued clearance for the purchase on 8 February 2006. Prime was renamed to Sky Open in 2023.
Purchase of Onsite Broadcasting
In July 2010, Sky purchased Onsite Broadcasting, later Outside Broadcasting (OSB), from Australia's Prime Media Group. The sale price was $35 million but once liabilities were taken into account the net amount was $13.5 million. Since 2001, OSB provided outside broadcast facilities for Sky's sporting coverage and was also contracted out by Sky to other broadcasters like TVNZ, TV3, Warner Bros., Fox Sports, Channel 9, Ten Network, Channel 7 and BBC among others. It effectively replaced Moving Pictures, which was TVNZ's outside broadcast division, that had dominated the market. Moving Picture's assets were eventually sold when Sky's sports rights increased in the mid 2000s and OSB took hold.
OSB owned the following vehicles (until 2020's sale), based in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch;
HD1 and HD3: 14.3m semi-trailer production unit with expanding side, capable of holding 20+ cameras. They are supporter by tender vehicles. HD1 is based in Christchurch.
HD2: 14.3m semi-trailer production unit with the capability of holding up to 16+ cameras. It is supported by a tender vehicle with extra production facilities. This unit is based in Wellington.
HD4: 15m semi-trailer production unit with the capability of using 16+ cameras. It too is supported by a tender vehicle with additional production space.
HD5: 12.5m rigid truck and can input 8+ cameras supported by a similar sized tender vehicle with additional production room.
HD6: Small van which is capable of 6+ cameras. It is supported by a similar sized van for storage and linking
AUX1: Was an original outside broadcast production unit (OSB1), however it has been converted into a specialised production trailer (not a stand-alone OB trailer) for specialty cameras, additional graphics and houses any overflow production areas for larger broadcasts
OSB2: An original standard definition 13.5m semi-trailer production unit capable of 14+ cameras. This is supported by a tender truck with additional production space.
HD/SD Fly Away kits: Suitable for broadcasts overseas
On 12 August 2020, Sky announced it had sold Outside Broadcasting to NEP New Zealand, part of American production company NEP Group. As part of the transaction, NEP will be Sky's outsourced technical production partner in New Zealand until at least 2030. The sale was cleared by the Commerce Commission on 5 February 2021.
News Corp sale
In February 2013, News Corp announced it would be selling the 44 percent stake in Sky TV that it acquired via a merger with Independent Newspapers Ltd in 2005.
Replacement of legacy hardware
From November 2015, Sky started replacing the legacy standard digital decoders and original 2005 My Sky decoders with a new digital decoder, manufactured by Kaon.
The Kaon Sky box includes built-in Wi-Fi. The Kaon box has an ability to block recording features and storage capacity. The decoder upgrade allowed Sky to cease broadcasting scrambled channels using H.262 video compression in favor of H.264.
The software upgrade to My Sky boxes contained many bugs and caused thousands of customers to become disgruntled. The major issue was with the screen font which Sky later addressed in a future upgrade.
Proposed merger with Vodafone New Zealand
In June 2016, Sky TV and Vodafone New Zealand (now One NZ) agreed to merge, with Sky TV purchasing 100% of Vodafone NZ operations for a cash payment of $1.25 billion NZD and issuing new shares to the Vodafone Group. Vodafone UK will get 51% stake of the company. However, the proposed merger was rejected by the Commerce Commission which saw a plunge in Sky TV's shares. Sky continued to be a wholesale channel provider to Vodafone until 31 March 2023.
Unbundling, IVP project and departure of CEO
In late February 2018, Sky TV announced that it would be splitting its existing Sky Basic service into two new packages called Sky Starter and Sky Entertainment, giving new and existing customers the option of building bundles. The Sky Starter package would cost $24.91 monthly, replacing the earlier Sky Basic service which cost $49.91 monthly with extra charges for sports, movie, and other premier channels. The price reduction came in response to fierce competition from streaming services such as Netflix, Lightbox, and Amazon Prime Video, which had caused the loss of 38,000 satellite subscribers the previous year. Unlike its competitors, Sky TV was dependent on a linear broadcasting model and its exclusive rights to rugby union, rugby league, netball, and cricket content. While Sky TV hoped that this change would attract new customers, the company's stock market shares dropped by 10% in response to investor concerns about future revenue, knocking NZ$100 million off its market value.
In early March 2018, it was reported that Sky TV CEO John Fellet was pursuing talks with Netflix and Amazon Prime to share content and services. Fellet hoped to mimic the UK-based television company Sky plc's success in negotiating a bundling package with Netflix.
On 26 March 2018, John Fellet announced his intention to step down from his position, after being CEO for 17 years. Fellet had been with the company since 1991, first as chief operating officer before taking on the chief executive role in January 2001. On 21 February 2019, Martin Stewart replaced John Fellet as CEO. He had previously worked for BSkyB, The Football Association and OSN. On 1 December 2020, Stewart left the company to return home to Europe. Sophie Maloney was immediately appointed to the CEO position.
Focus on streaming
In February 2015, Sky launched its own subscription-based video streaming service called Neon. Sky had initially planned to launch Neon in 2014 but was delayed by systems bugs.
On 16 August 2019, Sky announced it had purchased Coliseum Sports Media's global rugby streaming service RugbyPass for approximately US$40 million.
The Disney channels (Disney Channel and Disney Junior) were removed on 30 November 2019, causing anger from subscribers. Sky Movies Disney was replaced by Sky Movies Family from 1 November 2019. The company still had some Disney titles stocked "well into 2020".
On 19 December 2019, it was announced that Sky would be purchasing Spark New Zealand's streaming service Lightbox. On 14 June 2020, Sky confirmed that Lightbox would be merged into the Neon app on 7 July 2020. The merged service retains the Neon brand but uses Lightbox's interface and includes content drawn from both Neon and the old Lightbox.
Launch of broadband service
On 21 May 2020, Sky announced its plans to launch fibre broadband internet plans in 2021. Sky raised $157 million from investors with a discounted share issue to cover the cost of entering the broadband market.
On 24 March 2021, Sky launched the broadband service initially for existing satellite customers only. Sky later expanded the offering to new customers on 17 May 2021.
Pursuing partnerships
On 22 August 2019, it was announced that Sky had signed a six-year agreement to take over from Westpac as the naming sponsor of Wellington Regional Stadium, effective 1 January 2020.
On 28 November 2019, Sky announced that TVNZ would be its free-to-air broadcast partner for the 2020 Summer Olympics, instead of its own free-to-air channel Prime.
On 27 October 2020, Sky announced a partnership with Spark, where the Sky Sport Now streaming service would be bundled with Spark Sport for a NZ$49.99 monthly subscription.
On 9 June 2021, Sky announced an exclusive partnership with Disney to provide Sky Broadband customers with a 12-month subscription to the Disney+ streaming service.
On 24 June 2021, Sky announced a partnership with Discovery New Zealand to provide coverage of The Championships, Wimbledon for free-to-air channel Three.
In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sky removed Russian state TV channel RT from its programming. Sky spokesperson Chris Major stated that their decision to remove RT came following complaints from customers and consultation with the Broadcasting Standards Authority.
In July 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery renewed its HBO Max programme supply agreement with Sky but decline to confirm whether it would launch its own streaming service in New Zealand. On 22 October 2024, Sky and Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed a new partnership that would allow Sky to remain the exclusive distributor of HBO and Max content in New Zealand. SoHo would also be revamped as a linear HBO channel showing HBO Original content. The Max hub and the revamped HBO channel would be hosted on Sky Box, Sky Pod and Sky Go. The Neon streaming service would also host the Max hub.
On 19 January 2025, The New Zealand Herald reported that, with the takeover of former sister platform Foxtel by DAZN, analysts in New Zealand were predicting a similar move for Sky, under the grounds that the provider was undervalued.
Satellite relocation
In November 2024, Sky satellite customers began to notice a decline in the quality of their video, due to the end of support for Optus D2 due May 2025. This issue worsened over time, and in January 2025, Sky officially announced its intention to switch from Optus D2 to Koreasat 6. Initially, Sky had planned to make a change to another Optus satellite in 2027-29, but Optus’s satellite would not be operational by then. Customers were advised to tune in to channels 888 and 777 for satellite testing purposes.
Sky started Koreasat 6 services on the morning of 14 April 2025, putting an end to months of signal loss.
Acquisition of Discovery New Zealand
On 22 July, Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed it would sell its New Zealand assets including the Three TV channel and ThreeNow streaming service to Sky TV, effective 1 August. On 28 July, Sky TV confirmed that Discovery New Zealand would be renamed Sky Free following the acquisition due to legal reasons. Sky also filed trademark applications for the names and logos for Sky Free and SkyFree with the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand. Sky also confirmed that it would retain the Three TV and ThreeNow brands.
Products and services
Satellite television channels
The channels owned by Sky Network Television are the following:
Sky 5 is the flagship entertainment channel of Sky Network Television, and is available only for pay-per view Sky customers. The channel was first launched on 3 December 1994 as Orange. The channel would rebrand as Sky 1 in 1998 and introduce The Simpsons. After that just a decade later in 2008 the channel would rebrand as The Box Network and would finally rebrand to Sky 5 just another decade later.
Sky Open is Sky's free-to-air channel. It was first launched in 1998 as Prime and was owned by Prime Television Ltd. Prime Television Ltd would then go into a partnership with Nine Network Australia in 2002, and in March 2002, Prime was relaunched to air Nine Network's programmes. causing the graphics of the channel to look like Nine Network's. The channel was bought by Sky Network Television in 2006. The channel was rebranded to its current name in 2023.
Vibe is a female-oriented channel for 25+ year-olds by Sky. The channel was launched in 2007.
Sky Lineup
Sky defines a virtual channel order that groups channels by their content.
Prior to 30 November 2019, Sky also provided the Disney and Disney Junior channels but discontinued these channels following the launch of the Disney+ streaming service in New Zealand on 19 November. In addition, Sky replaced the Sky Movies Disney channel with Sky Movies Family. Sky still continued to broadcast Disney's National Geographic channel until 31 March 2023.
Streaming services
Sky Go
Sky Go is Sky's video on demand and live streaming service, which was launched in 2011 as iSky.
Remote record
In August 2009 an online service was launched where customers can log on and set their My Sky boxes to record programmes.
Sky TV Guide app
Sky has released a mobile app which works on iOS devices such as iPhone, iPad and iPod Touches, Android devices & Windows 8.
Sky Sport Now
On 27 October 2020, Sky announced that it would be bundling its Sky Sport Now streaming service with Spark Sport.
In February 2015, Sky launched Neon (branded as NEON), a subscription video on demand service. Prior to September 2019, Neon offered two packages: the TV package or the TV & Movies package. In September 2019, Neon shifted to a single TV & Movies package.
In mid December 2019, it was announced that Sky would be purchasing rival streaming service Lightbox. For that period, Spark will continue to provide services to Lightbox customers. On 7 July 2020, Sky formally merged the Lightbox app into Neon.
Discontinued products and services
Igloo
On 24 November 2011 Sky announced they had formed a partnership with Television New Zealand to launch a new low-cost pay television service during the first half of 2012. This was called Igloo and Sky had a 51% share in the venture. Details were announced on 8 December via a press release. Sky offered a selection of channels on a pre-pay basis.
The Igloo service was closed on 1 March 2017, and Igloo boxes can still be used to access free-to-air channels by updating the system software of the box.
Sky also owned an Online DVD and video game rental service called Fatso. It discontinued business in December 2017.
Magazine publishing
Sky provided a Skywatch monthly magazine to all its customers, published by Stuff and printed by Ovato. Skywatch once had a readership of 965,000 which made it the largest magazine read in New Zealand, and the largest monthly magazine. The magazine provided monthly listings for Sky channels, as well as highlights and features. The publication moved to digital only in April 2020 and was discontinued in August 2020.
Technical
Sky switched from the ageing Optus B1 to the Optus D1 satellite for its DBS service on 15 November 2006. Initially, Sky used vertically polarised transponders on Optus D1 (as it had on Optus B1). However, on 31 July 2007 it moved its programming to horizontally polarised transponders with New Zealand-specific beams to be consistent with Freeview and to gain access to more transmission capacity. Sky have also purchased some of the capacity of Optus D3, which was launched mid August 2009, this gives Sky the ability to add more channels and upgrade existing channels to HD in the future. However, due to the LNB switching that would be required the single D3 transponder lease was later dropped in 2011.
Reputation
The 2016 NZ Corporate Reputation Index placed Sky in last place. The Corporate Reputation Index lists the top 25 companies in New Zealand based on revenue sourced from the 2015 Deloitte Top 200 list, and is judged by consumers with no company input. In the 2016 list Sky had dropped two places to number 25 from 2015.
In the 2020 Brand Reputation Index, Sky came in at Number 9 in the Top 10 Brands Delivering Brand Purpose.
Sky Satellite Issues
In late 2024, Sky NZ satellite customers began experiencing a decline in video quality due to issues with the Optus D2 satellite, which was nearing the end of its operational life. In August 2024, Sky announced plans to transition to a new satellite earlier than initially scheduled, following delays with the Optus 11 satellite’s deployment. The accelerated migration aimed to ensure uninterrupted service for customers.
In mid-March 2025, Sky began deploying a critical update to Pace and Kaon Sky boxes to ensure a seamless transition to the new satellite.
Sky acknowledged that approximately 5% of its customers, equating to around 20,000–25,000 individuals, were affected by these signal issues.
See also
Optus satellite failures
|
Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders
|
[
"Indian Navy",
"Shipbuilding companies of India",
"Government-owned companies of India",
"Manufacturing companies based in Mumbai",
"Mumbai docks",
"Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1934",
"Companies nationalised by the Government of India",
"Indian companies established in 1934",
"Companies listed on the National Stock Exchange of India",
"Companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange"
] | 3,003 | 30,186 |
Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) (IAST: Majhagānv Dawk Shipbuilders Limiṭeḍ), formerly called Mazagon Dock Limited, is a company with shipyards situated in Mazagaon, Mumbai. It manufactures warships and submarines for the Indian Navy and offshore platforms and associated support vessels for offshore oil drilling. It also builds tankers, cargo bulk carriers, passenger ships and ferries.
MDL is a public sector undertaking managed by the Ministry of Defence, with the Government of India holding an 80.82% stake. Its shipbuilding segment has indigenously built stealth frigates, destroyers, guided-missile destroyers, corvettes, landing platform docks, missile boats, patrol boats, trailing suction hopper dredgers, cargo ships, cargo-passenger ships, platform supply vessels, Voith tugs and BOP vessels, while its submarine segment has built conventional submarines and stealth submarines. Both segments have also performed repair and refit activities.
History
The company's shipyards were established in the 18th century. Ownership of the yards passed through entities including the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company and the British-India Steam Navigation Company. Eventually, 'Mazagon Dock Limited' was registered as a public company in 1934.
The shipyard was nationalised in 1960 and is now a public sector undertaking (PSU) of the Government of India. In 2024, it became India's 18th PSU to receive the Navratna status from the Indian government.
Vice Admiral Narayan Prasad, AVSM, NM, IN (Retd), is the Chairman & Managing Director (CMD) of Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited. The retired naval officer took over his current position on 30 December 2019.
The Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) has appointed Captain Jagmohan (Retd.) as the Chairman and Managing Director of Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited. He will lead the company until his retirement on 30 September 2029. The former Navy captain is currently serving as the Director, Corporate Planning, Projects and Business Development at Goa Shipyard Limited.
As of April 2025, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited is negotiating to acquire a majority stake of Colombo Dockyard PLC (CDPLC). MDL will reportedly purchase 51% stakes from Japan's Onomichi Dockyard Co. Ltd. after the continuous losses from CDPLC. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is expected by the end of the month.
The dockyard was originally established 1774 while it was acquired by the Government of India in 1960 and celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2025. As of then, the yard built 800 ships overall including 31 capital warships and eight submarines along with an export record of 214 vessels to international clients. The shipyard will also expected to play a major role in the Indian Navy's goal to reach a size of 175 Capital Ships with 100% indigenisation within 2047.
Activities
The company's activities are shipbuilding, submarine building, and fabrication of offshore structures. It has manufacturing facilities on both the Mumbai peninsula and on the mainland.
The yard can build warships, submarines, and merchant ships up to 30,000 deadweight tons (DWT). It can also fabricate wellhead platforms, process and production platforms, and jack-up rigs for oil exploration.
As of 2025, the shipyard has the capacity to handle 11 submarines and 10 warships at a time.
Beside the existing facility, MDL developed a shipbuilding cum ship repair facility on of land which is leased from Mumbai Port Authority for 29 years. As reported on July 2025, shipbuilding operations have commenced in the facility,
Expansion
The shipyard has expansion plans worth to focus on securing and executing export orders. Of this, a major share of over is to be invested at its 40-acre-Nhava facility near Mumbai. This includes development of jetty and a facility for holding the vessel, dredging, and other associated works. MDL has awarded a contract worth to private-run Shoft Shipyard in Gujarat to erect a floating dry dock in the facility. Six blocks are to be built by Shoft, which will be transported to Nhava for erection. As of now, 4 blocks has been completed. The dock will have dimensions by by in length, breadth and height, respectively and will be able to handle eight 12,800 tonne-class ships simultaneously. The dock will be used for the construction and repair of larger commercial ships as well as for the Next Generation Destroyers. As of July 2025, it is being reported that MDL will also reclaim in its Mumbai facility to create two new basins for the simultaneous construction of larger ships and submarines. The overall expansion would double the shipyard's deadweight handling capacity from 40,000 tonnes to 80,000 tonnes. With the additional of land acquired at Nhava Sheva port, MDL aims to achieve a deadweight handling capacity from 2 lakh tonnes. The Ministry of Defence ensured that this facility will ensure the timely construction as well as the repair and overhaul of warships.
There are also plans to erect another graving dry dock of approximately by dimensions, and other ancillary facilities to double up shipbuilding and ship repairs capacity. Additionally, the new submarine orders could be executed in the existing facilities due to their inherently smaller dimensions.
Colombo Dockyard acquisition
The Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, in its regulatory filing on 27 June 2025, announced its decision of acquisition of a controlling (51%) stake in Sri Lankan peer Colombo Dockyard in a deal worth up to ₹450 crore (US$52.96 million) in order to grow its shipbuilding and repair business.The transaction will be completed within six months following which the Sri Lankan shipbuilder will become a part of Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders. At the end of November 2024, Japan’s Onomichi Dockyard exited its majority stake in Colombo Dockyard. Following this, Colombo reportedly sought New Delhi’s assistance in encouraging Indian investment to avoid default. Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd was subsequently shortlisted due to its shipbuilding experience and financial capability.
Naval projects
Nilgiri-class frigate (1972)
The first warship built by MDL was the 2,900-ton displacement INS Nilgiri, the lead ship of her class. She was launched on 15 October 1966 and commissioned on 23 June 1972. Five more frigates of this class were built over the next nine years for the Indian Navy.
Godavari-class frigate
While construction of the Nilgiri class was being completed, the Indian Navy proposed requirements for an indigenously designed and built frigate. This new frigate was to be of wholly Indian design and manufacture. To address these requirements, MDL designed and built the guided-missile frigates with a 3,800-tonne displacement and the ability to embark two helicopters. MDL built three ships of the class – the lead ship, , , and .
Khukri-class corvettes
MDL designed and built the first two vessels of the s for the Indian Navy. The lead vessel of the class was commissioned on 23 August 1989, and the second, , on 7 June 1990. The remainder of the class was built at Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) following a transfer of technology from MDL to diversify warship building capabilities to other yards, as well as to make room at MDL for larger projects.
Delhi-class destroyers
The next class of vessels designed and built by MDL was Project 15 guided-missile destroyers. These were powered by gas turbines and displaced 6,200 tonnes. The first of the class, , was launched in February 1991 and commissioned on 15 November 1997. The second, , was commissioned on 2 June 1999, followed by the last ship in the series, , on 22 January 2001.
Shivalik-class frigates
The 6000-ton (Project 17) frigates are the first warships with stealth features to be designed and built in India. These multi-role, guided-missile frigates have reduced radar signatures and have entered service from 2010 onwards. At least three of this class have been constructed at MDL. The lead vessel of the class was commissioned on 29 April 2010. The last ship of the class, INS Sahyadri, was launched on 27 May 2005 and commissioned on 21 July 2012.
Kolkata-class destroyers
vessels are the next-generation of guided-missile destroyers in the 7,400-tonne range to be designed and built at MDL. They incorporate stealth features. The lead vessel of the class was launched on 30 March 2006. At least three vessels of the class were planned. All three are in active service.
Visakhapatnam-class destroyers
vessels are the next-generation of guided-missile destroyers in the 7,500-tonne range to be designed and built at MDL. They incorporate stealth features and improved weapons and avionics compared to the Kolkata class. The lead vessel of the class was launched in 2018. At least four vessels of the class are planned.
Nilgiri-class frigates
vessels are the next-generation of guided-missile frigates in the 6,500-tonne range to be designed and built at MDL and GRSE. They incorporate stealth features. The lead vessel of the class was launched on 28 September 2019. Seven vessels of the class were built by MDL and GRSE. INS Mahendragiri, the seventh and final ship of the class was launched in Mumbai on 1 September 2023.
Coast Guard vessels
The yard builds offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) for the Indian Coast Guard. These vessels are specialised ships built for patrolling, policing, and search and rescue operations in India's exclusive economic zone. Each carries a helicopter on board. Seven such ships have been delivered.
Floating police stations
Based on the order from the Border Security Force (BSF), the yard started construction of floating border outposts (BOPs). Essentially these BOPs are floating police stations with four high-speed boats. The yard has delivered 9 out of an order of 14 BOPs.
Other vessels
Among other ships, the yard has built three fast missile boats, a cadet training ship, and other utility ships for the Indian Navy. It has also built water tankers for the Iranian naval forces.
Shishumar-class submarine
The s are a variant of the Type 209 diesel-electric submarine designed by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft. Two vessels of this class were constructed at MDL, which are the first indigenously built submarines in India. was commissioned on 7 February 1992 and was commissioned on 28 May 1994.
Kalvari-class submarine
MDL has built six diesel-electric submarines of the under a technology-transfer agreement with Naval Group. , the first in this class, was commissioned on 14 December 2017 from Naval Dockyard in Mumbai.
US Navy
In September 2023, MDL became the second Indian shipyard after the Kattupalli Shipyard of Larsen & Toubro to sign a Master Ship Repair Agreement (MSRA) with the US Government, represented by NAVSUP Fleet Logistics Center (FLC) Yokosuka, for United States Navy's Military Sealift Command Fleet Support Ships. The ships operated by MSC are non-commissioned US Navy “support vessels” with civilian crews bearing the prefix “USNS”. Under the agreement, the US Naval ships of the Central Command that are in voyage are to be repaired in India.
Upcoming projects
P-75(I) submarine
MDL's joint venture with ThyssenKrupp, a German conglomerate, is the sole contender for the Indian Navy's P-75(I) submarine program. Commercial negotiations with the Ministry of Defence began in January 2025.
Commercial projects
Offshore platforms
MDL builds offshore oil drilling platforms. It operates facilities at Alcock, Mumbai, and Nhava Yard for the construction of platforms with wellhead, water injection and production separator and glycol process capabilities, as well as jackup rigs, SBMs and other offshore structures.
Repair and maintenance jobs on offshore rigs are undertaken at Alcock; jackets up to length and 2,200-tonne weight can be constructed. At Nhava, jackets up to length and 2,300-tonne weight, main decks up to 550-tonne weight, and helipads of 160-tonne weight can be constructed.
The yard builds specialist vessels able to clean oil spills and fight fires on offshore drilling platforms.
A welding training school develops and maintains welding techniques and procedures.
See also
Cochin Shipyard
Colombo Dockyard
Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers
Goa Shipyard Limited
Hindustan Shipyard
|
Ingeburg Herz
|
[
"1920 births",
"German businesspeople",
"German women in business",
"Businesspeople from Hamburg",
"2015 deaths",
"German billionaires",
"Herz family"
] | 431 | 3,880 |
Ingeburg Herz, née König (born February 23, 1920 Hamburg; - September 30, 2015) was a German entrepreneur and philanthropist. The wife of Tchibo founder Max Herz was one of the richest Germans with an estimated fortune of over five billion euros in 2005.
Ingeburg König, who lived in Hamburg, married Max Herz in 1939; they had five children together: Günter Herz (* 1940), Joachim Herz (1941–2008), Michael Herz (* 1943), Wolfgang Herz and Daniela Herz-Schnoeckel.
After the death of the company founder in 1965, the entire estate passed to his wife and children, but the will did not clearly regulate the company's succession. A dispute arose between the children. Günter Herz, as the eldest, took over the management of the Tchibo company, while the mother and the other children held further shares.
Ingeburg Herz turned to charitable work and established the Max and Ingeburg Herz Foundation, which primarily supports facilities for the medical treatment and care of the elderly, but is also active in other areas, such as awarding scholarships to German students.
At the beginning of 2001, Günter Herz had to resign as chairman of the management board of the then Tchibo Holding AG (now maxingvest ag) due to ongoing disputes within the family. For months, the dispute also paralyzed the company and the intended acquisition of a majority stake in the cosmetics group Beiersdorf AG. In August 2003, the family members signed a contract that made mother Ingeburg Herz and the three brothers Michael, Wolfgang and Joachim the sole owners of the family group. Former boss Günter Herz and his sister Daniela were paid out an estimated four billion euros.
Ingeburg Herz died in Hamburg on September 30, 2015, at the age of 95.
The asteroid (185164) Ingeburgherz was named in her honor.
|
Chu Shijian
|
[
"1928 births",
"2019 deaths",
"Chinese chief executives",
"Chinese company founders",
"Chinese white-collar criminals",
"People convicted of corruption",
"Businesspeople from Yunnan",
"Businesspeople in agriculture",
"People from Yuxi",
"Businesspeople in tourism",
"Victims of the Anti-Rightist Campaign",
"Chinese prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment",
"Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the People's Republic of China"
] | 1,039 | 9,151 |
Chu Shijian (; 24 December 1927 – 5 March 2019) was a Chinese business executive and entrepreneur, known as the "king of tobacco" and the "king of oranges". He turned the near-bankrupt Yuxi Cigarette Factory into one of China's most profitable state-owned companies and developed its Hongtashan cigarette into one of the country's most valuable brands. At its peak, the company contributed 60% of total revenues of the Yunnan provincial government.
Chu supplemented his low official salary by taking bribes. He was arrested for corruption in 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1999. After being released on medical parole in 2002, he started his second company at age 75, an orange plantation with the brand name "Chu Orange". It became a nationally famous brand, giving Chu a new nickname as the "king of oranges". His achievements and unyielding spirit made him "one of China's most iconic entrepreneurs".
Early life
Chu was born on 24 December 1927 in Yuxi, Yunnan, Republic of China. He participated in the Chinese Communist Revolution in his youth, but was later denounced as a "rightist" during the Anti-Rightist Campaign, and was not politically rehabilitated until the end of the Cultural Revolution. He managed a sugar cane factory in his early career.
Career
Yuxi Tobacco
In October 1979, Chu was appointed head of Yuxi Cigarette Factory (later known as Yuxi Tobacco Company and Hongta Group). Yuxi was a near-bankrupt state-owned factory that made the Hongtashan (Red Pagoda Hill) brand of cigarettes, with an annual revenue of less than US$1 million.
Chu recognized that as China's economy was starting to grow, more people could afford cigarettes, and he began to promote the Hongtashan brand all over the country. The brand became famous and demand grew quickly. Chu was able to sell the cigarettes for US$1.5 to $2 per pack, although the official price was fixed at $1. He spent the unreported profit on buying state-of-the-art equipment and building new offices and apartments for his employees.
By 1995, the company produced more than 100 billion cigarettes per year but still could not meet the demand even at the higher unofficial prices. Wholesalers were willing to pay bribes to Chu and his family members to secure supplies of Hongtashan. While Yuxi Tobacco generated more than 99 billion yuan in profits and taxes for the government during his 16-year tenure, Chu's official monthly salary was less than US$250. He and his family members could not resist the temptation of augmenting their income by taking bribes. In February 1995, an informant sent evidence of the illegal payments to the government. Chu's wife Ma Jingfen () and their daughter Chu Yingqun () were arrested, and Yingqun committed suicide in prison.
Chu was arrested in 1996. In 1999, he was convicted of embezzling US$1.74 million and diverting more than $145 million to company accounts from state coffers. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, although many considered it unjust and he remained a popular hero in Yuxi. His sentence was later reduced several times and officially ended in 2011.
Chu Orange
Chu developed diabetes while in prison and was released in 2002 on medical parole. Already 74, he decided to start his second company, an orange farm.
In June 2003, he leased of land in Xinping County and hired 300 employees. He employed the same management methods as at Yuxi Tobacco, such as the emphasis of quality over quantity and linking workers' income to the company's profits. As the company grew, his employees were able to earn several times the average local wage. He used the Internet to market his "Chu Oranges" nationally, and attracted wealthier customers who were willing to pay higher prices for a premium brand perceived as nutritious and safe. The company became highly successful, selling 10,000 tons of oranges a year by 2013. He also developed his orange plantation in the Ailao Mountains into an ecotourism resort. Chu, already known as the "tobacco king" of China, gained another title as the "king of oranges".
On 17 January 2018, his 90th birthday, Chu appointed his son Chu Yibin () as chief executive officer of Chu's Fruit Company Limited, while he retained the title of chairman.
Death
On 5 March 2019, Chu died from complications from diabetes at Yuxi People's Hospital. He was 91.
|
Economy of the Confederate States of America
|
[
"Economic history of the Confederate States of America",
"Economic history of the American Civil War",
"Economies by former country"
] | 8,367 | 59,849 |
The Confederate States of America (1861–1865) started with an agrarian-based economy that relied heavily on slave-worked plantations for the production of cotton for export to Europe and to the Northern US. If classed as an independent country, the area of the Confederate States would have ranked as the fourth-richest country of the world in 1860. But, when the Union began its blockade of Confederate ports in the summer of 1861, exports of cotton fell 95% and the South had to restructure itself to emphasize the production of food and munitions for internal use. After losing control of its main rivers and ports, the Confederacy had to depend on a delicate railroad system for transport that, with few repairs being made, no new equipment, and destructive raids, crumbled away. The financial infrastructure collapsed during the war as inflation destroyed banks and forced a move toward a barter economy for civilians. The Confederate government seized needed supplies and livestock (paying with certificates that were promised to be paid off after the war, but never were). By 1865, the Confederate economy was in ruins.
Agriculture
+Cotton production and export from 1861 to 1865Sources and EndsBales(mil-lions)Production 6.8 EndsUsed in the South0.4to U.K. & Europe 0.5to the North0.9Destroyed3.3Sold Postwar1.8
The main prewar agricultural products of the Confederate States were cotton, tobacco, and sugarcane, with hogs, cattle, grain and vegetable plots. Pre-war agricultural production estimated for the Southern states is as follows (Union states in parentheses for comparison): 1.7 million horses (3.4 million), 800,000 mules (100,000), 2.7 million dairy cows (5 million), 5 million sheep (14 million), 7 million cattle (5.4 million), 15.5 million swine (11.3 million), 187 million pounds of rice, 199 million pounds of tobacco (58 million), 5 million bales of cotton, 20 million bushels of oats (138 million bushels), 31 million bushels of wheat (114 million bushels), and 280 million bushels of corn (396 million bushels).
In 1862, there was a severe drought that, despite efforts to switch from cotton planting to grain farming, caused food shortages and even bread riots in 1863–64. The harvests were fairly abundant after 1862, but often went to waste as they could not be harvested or moved to markets. Corn was raised in large quantities, and, in general, the raising of food products instead of tobacco and cotton was a necessity.
The scarcity of food in the armies and cities was due mostly to the shortage of male labor and the disruption of transportation and finance. Compounding the problem was the ever-increasing number of refugees flooding into cities; food distribution became increasingly harder, and at times, impossible.
The progressive destruction of the Southern railroad network, along with rapid inflation, affected women in the cities especially hard as they found food prices too high to afford. In Richmond, at the end of a long supply chain, the crisis exploded in bread riots in April 1863, when a large mob of starving women in the city looted stores for food, ignoring the pleas of President Jefferson Davis who stood upon a cart to toss coins to the women, who dispersed only after he threatened to order a company of militia to open fire. In dozens of small towns across Georgia in 1863, working-class women raided stores and captured supply wagons to get such necessities as bacon, corn, flour, and cotton yarn. Soldiers at the front did not need to read newspaper accounts. They were all getting letters from home about the rapidly deteriorating situation affecting their own families. Temporary desertion was one solution as "thousands of husbands discharged themselves" to save their families over the course of the war.
Despite the Confederacy's strength in cotton production, it produced too little cloth to cover its ragged soldiers. Northern manufacturers dominated North American textile production in the antebellum period, and by the end of the first year of war most of the productive textile manufacturing regions of the South were also in the hands of the Union.
Urbanization
The Confederacy had very few cities of any size. Using figures from the 1860 census, New Orleans was the largest city under Confederate control. It was the sixth-largest city listed in the census with a population of about one hundred and sixty thousand. New Orleans and its industrial capacity fell to the Union after only 455 days. The next largest city in the Confederacy was Charleston, South Carolina, with only forty thousand and ranked twenty-second in the United States. Richmond, the capital and the industrial center of the Confederacy, was twenty-fifth.
During the war, Columbus, Georgia became one of the most important centers of industry in the Confederacy, ranked second to Richmond in the manufacture of supplies for the Confederate army.
The Confederacy's industrial workforce, like its agricultural workforce, was characterized by its wide and extensive use of slaves. In the 1850s, anywhere from 150,000 to 200,000 slaves were used in industrial work. Most, almost 80%, were owned directly by industrial owners, with the remainder being bonded out by plantation owners. Often, manual labor performed by slaves was combined with skilled white artisans to better compete with northern and foreign industry.
The total number of factories in the antebellum South numbered 20,600 (100,500 in the north), 11,000 non-slave workers (1.1 million in the north) and a total value of products amounting to $155 million ($1.5 billion in the northern states).
Because of the profitability of slave industry, Southern industry had been undercapitalized for years by the time of the outbreak of the war. Besides a social preference for the lifestyle that accompanied plantation slavery, agriculture in staple goods was considered the easiest route to profitability; thus agriculture always outbid industry when it came to capital allocation. As early as 1830, Southern industry was a generation behind, and by the Civil War, was vastly inferior to Northern and foreign manufacturing. When the war turned negative, many industries in the South struggled as they faced steadily growing shortages of raw materials and skilled labor, as well as worsening financial opportunities.
In Wilmington, North Carolina, Louis Froelich (1817–1873), a German immigrant, opened the Confederate States Arms Factory. His firm made bayonets, sabers, Bowie knives, and sheathes or scabbards for these weapons, as well as thousands of metal buttons for military uniforms.
Shipbuilding
At the outset of hostilities, only two government-owned naval yards were located in the South. Between 36 and 145 private shipyards existed, of varying capacity and skill. While sawmills were readily available to supply the construction of wooden boats, iron processing in the South was limited. The result was that few ships were built. The most famous was the CSS Virginia, a steam-powered ironclad warship built in 1861-62 using the raised and cut down original lower hull and steam engines of the scuttled . Virginia fought in the Battle of Hampton Roads against the Union's in March, 1862, in what was the world's first battle between ironclads.
Iron Industry
The Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond was the third-largest iron manufacturer in the United States by 1860. During the war it was the primary iron and artillery production facility of the Confederacy.
Birmingham, Alabama, although an important industrial center of the South after the war, did not produce iron until 1864. Production from this region was minor throughout the war.
Gallego Flour Mills
The Gallego Flour Mills in Richmond gained international reputation for the superior type of flour which it shipped to Europe and South America. At the time of their destruction in 1865, they were the largest of their kind in the world.
Mining/Mineral Resources
Salt was a crucial resource during the Civil War. Salt not only preserved food in the days before refrigeration, but was also vital in the curing of leather. The salt could be extracted from natural rock salt deposits (such as those in underground salt domes) and through the boiling and evaporation of salt water, usually seawater. The main salt works and known natural salt deposits of the Confederacy were located in Virginia, Louisiana, and Florida.
Textiles
Early in the war, the government used cottage and home-based industry to manufacture textiles such as shirts and shoes. Finding this approach inadequate, the government moved to consolidate finished-goods production into military-run textile shops concentrated in larger cities. These textile shops, with the exception of those captured or destroyed, continued to run until the end of the war. Private mills generally supplied raw textiles to these shops for refinement.
Privately owned textile mills found themselves in a very lucrative market. Rising prices due to scarcity and high levels of demand made sales to the public far more profitable than fixed-price contract sales to the military, so much so that in the first year private mills often refused or cut back on fulfillments ordered by Confederate quartermasters.
Government control
While the general political sentiment in the Confederacy was reluctance toward government involvement in private business, the exigencies of the war forced the Confederate government to exert a strong control over industry related to war aims. The bureau of conscription, empowered by the Conscription Acts of 1862 and 1864, dispensed exemptions to those in industry, if necessary, which provided a powerful incentive to private industry to fulfill government contracts. Owners who refused would find themselves quickly without their labor force, free or slave.
Business leaders
William Gregg (industrialist)
Samuel Griswold
Hannibal Kimball
Samuel Morgan
John L. Porter
Francis A. Pratt
William T. Sutherlin
Navigation
Before the war the South had a good system of transportation by riverboats on a huge network of navigable rivers, plus a dozen ocean ports. In May 1861 the Union naval blockade shut down almost all port activity except for blockade runners. International and coastal traffic fell 90% or more.
In peacetime, the vast system of navigable rivers allowed for cheap and easy transportation of farm products. The vast geography made for difficult Union logistics, and Union soldiers were used to garrison captured areas and protect rail lines. But the Union Navy seized most of the navigable rivers by 1862, making its own logistics easy and Confederate movements difficult. After the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, it became nearly impossible for all but small military units to cross the Mississippi with Union gunboats constantly on patrol. The Eastern and Western parts of the Confederacy were thereafter never satisfactorily connected.
The outbreak of war had a depressing effect on the economic fortunes of the Confederate railroad industry. With the cotton crop being hoarded in an attempt to entice European intervention, railroads were bereft of their main source of income. Many were forced to lay off employees, and in particular, let go skilled technicians and engineers. For the early years of the war, the Confederate government had a hands off approach to the railroads. It wasn't until mid-1863 that the Confederate government initiated an overall policy, and it was confined solely to aiding the war effort. With legislation authorizing "impressment" (commandeering) that same year, railroads and their rolling stock came under de facto control of the military.
At the beginning of the war (1861), the Northern states included 20,000 miles of railroad while the Confederate states had 9,000 miles (1,700 miles total in the three border states of Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland).
The Confederate Army of the Shenandoah used their railroad system effectively at the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run) on July 21, 1861. Confederate reinforcements under Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston arrived from the Shenandoah Valley by railroad and the course of the battle quickly changed.
Gen. Braxton Bragg also effectively used the Southern railway system to amass forces in central Tennessee against the Union forces of Gen. Don Carlos Buell in July, 1862. The rail system was used to move some 35,000 men down the length of the state of Mississippi, then across Mobile Bay to Mobile, Alabama and then up the length of the state of Alabama arriving finally at Dalton, Georgia. This was a total distance of about 766 miles and involved "more than half a dozen" railroads. This circuitous route had to be used because the Union Army controlled a key railroad which would have offered a more direct route. According to Jean Edward Smith, "Bragg had moved men farther and faster than troops had ever been moved before. He had united two Confederate armies, his own and Smith's [Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith] and stood poised to change the direction of the war."
In the fall of 1863 the Army of Northern Virginia sent most of Gen. James Longstreet's First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia via rail from Virginia to northern Georgia in order to reinforce Gen. Bragg's Army of Tennessee just prior to the Battle of Chickamauga. Approximately 15,000 men were transported about 900 miles to the Georgia theater of operations. This operation involved sixteen different railroads and took a total of seven days (9–16 September) for the entire corps to arrive in Georgia.
In the last year of the war (1865), the Confederate railroad system was on the verge of collapse. The impressment policy of quartermasters ran the rails ragged. Feeder lines were scrapped to replace iron for trunk lines, and the continual use of ill-maintained rolling stock wore them down faster than they could be replaced.
Foreign trade
The Confederate States accounted for 70% of total US exports by dollar value. Confederate leaders believed that this would give the new nation a firm financial basis. Cotton was the primary export, accounting for 75% of Southern trade in 1860. The Confederate States entered the war with the hope that its near monopoly of the world cotton trade would force the European importing countries, especially Great Britain and France, to intervene in the war on her behalf. In 1861, Southerners at the local level imposed a "King Cotton" embargo on cotton shipments—it was not the government's policy. Millions of bales of cotton went unshipped, and by summer 1861 the blockade, known as the Anaconda Plan, closed down all normal trade.
A small amount of cotton was exported through blockade runners. In the course of the war, 446,000 bales of cotton were exported to England and Europe. Ironically, the largest amount of cotton exports went to the United States. Most cotton however, would never be traded during the Confederacy's brief existence, either being destroyed during the war or hoarded until the end.
Disputes over the proper tariff rate had been a sectional political issue between Northern and Southern states at one point almost leading to a prior dissolution of the Union. Southerners mostly opposed protectionist tariffs for finished goods, fearing they would lessen the value of their raw material exports, as foreign manufactures would be blocked sale back to the United States. Southern political pressure kept the tariffs at low levels from 1847 through 1860. The founders of the Confederate States codified this opposition in the Constitution of the Confederate States with a prohibition of protectionist tariffs. One of the first acts of the Confederate Congress was the lowering of import tariffs from the then current US average rate of 20% to 10%.
However the Confederacy proposed to impose its tariffs on all imports from the US, which would have been a vast increase in taxes for the Southerners. In practice almost no tariffs were collected; the total customs revenue collected was about $3.3 million (Confederate dollars), from 1861 through 1864. [Historical Statistics (2006) series Eh201]
Just as the blockade had made export of Confederate goods prohibitive, so did it frustrate the importation of vital goods to the Confederate war-effort. Importers often had to use transshipment points, such as ports in the Caribbean, transferring and splitting cargo onto smaller ships for the final leg. Thus shipments became sporadic and delayed.
In the immediate aftermath of Fort Sumter, agents, headed by Major Caleb Huse, were sent abroad to Europe to procure weapons and other necessary supplies. Despite these efforts, the first shipment did not leave England until August, and didn't arrive in the South till November, a full 8 months after the outbreak of hostilities. The slow rate of importation continued from September 1861 to February 1862, with a grand total of 15,000 small arms procured for the Confederate's war effort.
After February, the Confederacy's fortunes in weapons procurement changed dramatically. From April 1862 till August of that year, the Confederacy was able to procure some 48,150 arms, over three times the amount gained in the same period the year before. By February 1863, the total number of guns purchased had raised to a total of 174,129. While some of these weapons were seized by the Union Navy in the blockade, a slight majority made it through, with 40.9% of all privateers being caught in 1862.
The South acquired raw minerals through trade with Mexico, most notably sulphur, copper, powder, and niter. Union officials recognized the extent of trade with Mexico, and aggressively tried to interrupt it. Despite their efforts, and the fall of the Mississippi into Union hands, flow of goods from Mexico to the Confederacy was unabated until the end of the war.
While attempts were made to engage shipbuilders on the Pacific coast, in an attempt to access ports in South America, none of the plans came to fruition. Only the Confederate steamer, the Alabama, after finding the Atlantic too hostile, set sail for Pacific waters in an attempt to wreck America's Far-East trade. Though it succeeded in its mission to harass American trade interests, it did not manage to open new ports or engage in trade for the Confederacy, and it was sunk before it could return home with its captured goods.
Blockade runners who sold to the public dealt almost exclusively in luxury and other high-profit items, despite the ever-present need for staple goods. The practice was so egregious that the Confederate Congress came to ban the import of luxury items, though the law was not effectively enforced. Smuggling over land, from either Mexico or Union territory, also provided a profitable trade in luxury items, though it also became a useful means of acquiring much-needed medicine.
Finance
Most of the available capital in the Confederate states was invested in slaves or in cotton land. There was no way to monetize these to support the war effort. The weak banking system, unable to handle the financial demands, largely collapsed. The main international bankers in Europe were reluctant to finance the Confederacy, so Richmond turned to smaller houses and speculators, who bought $15,000,000 in Confederate bonds with gold. The gold was used to buy warships and supplies to be brought in by blockade runners. By highlighting Britain's economic links to the Northern states and pointing to the potential dangers of meddling in the conflict, financiers in the City of London provided the U.K. Parliament with a powerful economic justification for the policy of neutrality.
At the beginning of the war the Confederacy had some $47 million in bank deposits (compared to $189 million in Northern banks), and $27 million in specie (gold and silver coins) holdings (compared to $45 million worth in the northern states).
Bad money drives out good, and supplies of gold and silver were hoarded, driven out of circulation by the rising flood of paper money. The first Confederate notes were issued in March 1861, and bore interest. They were soon followed by others, bearing no interest and payable in two years, others payable six months after peace. New issues were continually provided, so that from an initial million dollars in circulation in July 1861, the amount rose to thirty million before December 1861; to one-hundred million by March 1862; to two-hundred million by August 1862; to perhaps four-hundred and fifty million dollars by December 1862; to seven-hundred million dollars by the autumn of 1863; and to a much larger figure before the end of the war.
The individual states and other political bodies copied this policy of issuing irredeemable paper money. Alabama began by issuing a million dollars in notes in February 1861, and added to this amount during each subsequent session of the legislature. The other states followed suit. Cities also sought to replenish their treasuries in the same way. Corporations and other business concerns tried to meet the rising tide of prices with the issue of their individual promissory notes intended to circulate from hand to hand.
As a result of this redundancy of the currency, its value collapsed. Gold was quoted at a premium in Confederate notes in April 1861. By the end of that year, a paper dollar was quoted at 90 cents in gold; during 1862 that figure fell to 40 cents; during 1863, to 6 cents; and still lower during the last two years of the war. The downward course of this figure, with occasional recoveries, reflected the popular estimate of the Confederacy's chance of winning independence.
The oversupply of currency drove prices to exorbitant heights and disarranged all commerce. Savings in nominal dollars lost 90% or more of their value. It affected different classes of commodities differently. Imports like coffee became very expensive, and ersatz substitutes were found (Massey 1952). Confederate asset-price stabilization policies appear to have increased the velocity of circulation, and counterproductively channeled inflationary pressures into other areas of the economy. Three successive monetary reforms encouraged holders of treasury notes to exchange these notes for bonds by imposing deadlines on their convertibility. Confederate efforts aimed at precipitating the conversion of currency into bonds did temporarily suppress currency depreciation. These acts also triggered upsurges in commodity prices, however, because note holders rushed to spend the currency before their exchange rights were reduced.
Speculation, prices and hunger
Blockade runners made much more profit by importing liquor, fancy dresses, and other luxuries instead of munitions. Tobacco and cotton, which found few foreign buyers owing to the blockade, actually fell in value as quoted in gold. The great divergence of the price of these two commodities in the CSA and abroad—the New York price of cotton increased more than tenfold during the war—offered the strongest inducement to evade the blockade and export them. A small amount of Confederate cotton reached the world market by way of the blockade runners or via Mexico, netting handsome profits. By 1862 federal Treasury Department agents were buying cotton, offering high prices in gold. Tobacco and cotton were smuggled through the military lines in exchange for hospital stores, coffee and similar articles. The Confederate military authorities tried to suppress this illicit trade, but at times even they were carried away by the desire to secure the much-desired foreign supplies. The disturbances of prices, their local differences and fluctuations, produced wild speculation in the Confederate States. Normal commercial activity became almost impossible, and a gambling element was forced into every transaction. Speculation in gold became especially pronounced. Legislation and popular feeling targeted speculators, but to no avail. Even the government itself felt compelled to speculate in gold. Speculation in food and other articles was equally inevitable and was much decried. Laws passed to curb the speculators had no effect.
Shortages grew worse and worse, especially in the cities, leading to bread riots and significant malnutrition. Food rations in the Confederate army were cut; the cavalry was reduced because of a lack of fodder. Night blindness caused by malnutrition reduced the combat effectiveness of Confederate troops, who also lacked adequate blankets, clothing, and shoes. They read letters from home reporting on the worsening situation, as workers were lethargic and children were getting skinnier.
Price controls and impressment
Economic historians blame the relentless soaring of retail prices on the government's printing of more and more paper money—some $2.25 billion in all. The people at the time however primarily blamed speculators, who acquired an evil victorious image they could never shake off, as typified by the character Rhett Butler in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind. Increasingly the farmers, who were refusing to sell their product at low prices fixed by the government came under attack. Other critics claimed the Commissary Department because of its inefficiency and corruption, the collapse of the internal transportation system, with priority given to military needs over shipment of farm products, and the lack of cloth sacks and plows and the declining supervision of slaves, deliberate destruction caused by stragglers and union raids, as well as wasteful harvesting methods by inexperienced poorly supervised workers.
The rebel government made the shortages and inflation much worse by the policy of impressment, through which a military unit could seize food, horses, mules, wagons, and supplies—and sometimes of slaves to work on military fortifications. The impressment parties paid low fixed price using paper certificates that promised actual payment later. Flour sold for $100 per hundred pounds in Alexandria, Louisiana, in late 1863, but the impressment price was only $12. Farmers were outraged, and reduced their plantings, hid their crops, and moved their livestock out of reach of the impressment parties. If the Union lines were nearby, farmers could sell to the enemy for high prices paid in gold coin. In Georgia farmers hid a two-year supply of corn rather than sell to the government—but the weevils ruined the grain so much it was only good for the distillery. Increasingly the Confederacy adopted a taxation system based on tithing, that is, 10% of the crop to be turned over to the government. Voluntary compliance was hard to achieve, and violent resistance broke out in the mountain districts. Poor people were especially hard-hit by the runaway inflation, which led legislatures to pass laws making the collection of debts much harder. That of course antagonized the business class, sharply reduce the credits and loans they traditionally had made.
Government revenues
The effectiveness of the Union blockade and the peculiar industrial development of the Confederate States removed the possibility of an ample government revenue. Though import duties were levied, the proceeds amounted to almost nothing. A small export-duty on cotton was expected to produce a large revenue sufficient to base a loan upon, but the small amount of cotton exports reduced this source of revenue to an insignificant figure. Moreover, since few manufactures existed to tax under an internal revenue system such as the US government adopted, the Confederacy was cut off from deriving any considerable revenue from indirect taxation. The first Confederate tax law levied a direct tax of twenty million dollars, apportioned among the states. These, with the exception of Texas, contributed their apportioned share to the central government by issuing bonds or notes, so that the tax was in reality but a disguised form of loan. Real taxation was postponed until the spring of 1863, when a stringent measure was adopted taxing property and earnings. It was slowly and with difficulty put into effect, and was re-enacted in February 1864. In the states and cities there was a strong tendency to relax or postpone taxation in view of the other demands upon the people.
With no revenue from taxation, and with the disastrous effects of the wholesale issue of paper money before it, the Confederate government made every effort to borrow money by issuing bonds. The initial $15 million loan was soon followed by an issue of one hundred million in bonds, which was, however, difficult to place. There followed even larger loans. The bonds rapidly fell in value, and were quoted during the war at approximately the value of the paper money, in which medium they were paid for by subscribers. To avoid this circumstance, a system of produce loans was devised by which the bonds were subscribed for in cotton, tobacco and food products. This policy was subsequently enlarged, and enabled the government to secure at least a part of the armies' food supplies. But the bulk of the subscriptions for these bonds was made in cotton, for which the planters were thus enabled to find a market.
The South hoped to keep the currency within bounds by having holders of paper money exchange it for bonds, which the law allowed and encouraged—but as notes and bonds fell in value simultaneously, there was no inducement for holders to make that exchange. On the contrary, a note-holder had an advantage over a bond-holder, in that he could use his currency for speculation or for purchases in general.
In the autumn of 1862 Confederate law attempted to compel note-holders to fund their notes in bonds to reduce the redundancy of the currency and to lower prices. Disappointed in the result of this legislation, the Congress, in February 1864, went much farther in the same direction by passing a law requiring note-holders to fund their notes before a certain date, after which notes would be taxed a third or more of their face value. This drastic measure was accepted as meaning a partial repudiation of the Confederate debt, and though it for a time reduced the currency outstanding and lowered prices, it wrecked the government's credit, and made it impossible for the Treasury to float any more loans. During the last months of the war, the Treasury led a most precarious existence, and its actual operations can only be surmised.
During the entire war the notion that the CSA possessed a most efficient engine of war in its monopoly of cotton (the "King Cotton" idea) buoyed up the hopes of the Confederates. The government in Richmond strained every effort to induce the great powers of Europe to recognize the Confederacy as a nation (see Cotton diplomacy). It also—more successfully—secured individual foreigners' financial recognition of the Confederate States by effecting a foreign loan based on cotton. This favorite notion went into practice in the spring of 1863. The French banking house of Erlanger & Company undertook to float a loan of $3,000,000, redeemable after the war in cotton at the rate of sixpence a pound. According to one source, Baron Rothschild informed W. W. Murphy, American consul-general in Frankfort, that "all Germany condemned this act of lending money to establish a slaveholding government, and so great was public opinion against it that Erlanger and Company dare not offer it on the Frankfort bourse". As cotton at the time was selling at nearly four times that figure, and would presumably be quoted far above sixpence long after the establishment of peace, the bonds offered strong attractions to those speculatively inclined and in sympathy with the Confederate cause. The Confederate agents mismanaged the placing of the bonds in Europe, but notwithstanding, a considerable sum was secured from the public and used for the purchase of naval and military stores. This was aided in part by the (incorrect) assumption of some investors that, even should the Confederacy lose the war, the United States government would honor and redeem the bonds. However, at the close of the war the re-established Federal authorities ignored these foreign bonds, like all the other bonds of the Confederate government, or of state governments under the Confederacy.
Long term weaknesses
By 1863, after two years of warfare, the North was finally fully mobilizing its economy, while the Southern economy had peaked and was waning. General William T. Sherman, an acute observer of the war, had predicted this development even before Sumter, telling a rebel acquaintance in late 1860:
The North can make a steam-engine, locomotive or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or a pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical and determined people on earth—right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared. … At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, and shut out from the markets of Europe by blockade as you will be, your cause will begin to wane.
See also
Confederate war finance
Confederate States dollar
King Cotton
General reference
Carter, Susan B., ed. The Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition (5 vols), 2006.
Coulter, E. Merton. The Confederate States of America, 1861–1865, (1950), survey
Current, Richard N., et al. eds. Encyclopedia of the Confederacy (1993) (4 Volume set; also 1 vol abridged version); articles by scholars.
Heidler, David S., et al. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, (2002). 2740 pages ()
Schwab, John Christopher. The Confederate States of America, 1861–1865: A Financial and Industrial History of the South (1901) good survey of finances by a Yale economics professor;
Thomas, Emory M. Confederate Nation: 1861–1865, 1979. Standard political-economic-social history
Specialized studies
Andreano; Ralph ed. The Economic Impact of the American Civil War 1962, essays by economic historians
Ball, Douglas B. Financial Failure and Confederate Defeat, 1991.
Bensel, Richard Franklin. Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859–1877 (1990) ch 3
Black, Robert C., III. The Railroads of the Confederacy, 1988.
Bonner, Michael Brem. Confederate Political Economy: Creating and Managing a Southern Corporatist Nation (LSU Press, 2016)
Burdekin, Richard C. K. and Farrokh Langdana. "War Finance in the Southern Confederacy, 1861–1865," Explorations in Economic History 30 (July 1993), with tables
Burdekin, Richard C. K. and Marc D. Weidenmier, "Suppressing Asset Price Inflation: the Confederate Experience, 1861–1865" Economic Inquiry 2003 41(3): 420–432.
Davis, William C. and Robertson, James I. Jr., eds. Virginia at War, 1861. U. Press of Kentucky, 2005. 241 pp.
Dew, Charles B. Ironmaker to the Confederacy: Joseph R. Anderson and the Tredegar Iron Works Yale University Press 1966
Diamond, William. "Imports of the Confederate Government from Europe and Mexico," Journal of Southern History (1940) 6#4, pp. 470–503
Gates, Paul W. Agriculture and the Civil War (1965)
Massey, Mary. Ersatz in the Confederacy: Shortages and Substitutes on the Southern Homefront (1952)
Morgan, Chad. Planters' Progress: Modernizing Confederate Georgia. U. Press of Florida, 2005. 164 pp.
Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union, vol 5. The Improvised War, 1861–1862; vol 6. War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863; vol 7. The Organized War, 1863–1864; vol 8. The Organized War to Victory, 1864–1865. (1970)
Norman, Matthew W. Colonel Burton's Spiller & Burr Revolver: an Untimely Venture in Confederate Small-arms Manufacturing Mercer U. Press 1996.
Ramsdell, Charles W. Behind the Lines in the Southern Confederacy (1944), short history
Ramsdell, Charles W. "The Confederate Government and the Railroads," American Historical Review, (1917), 22#4 pp. 794–810
Resch, John P. et al., Americans at War: Society, Culture and the Homefront vol 2: 1816–1900 (2005)
Rubin, Anne Sarah. A Shattered Nation: the Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, 1861–68 North Carolina Press, 2005.
Sellers, James L. "The Economic Incidence of the Civil War in the South." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 14 (1927):179–191.
Taylor, Robert A. Rebel Storehouse: Florida in the Confederate Economy U. of Alabama Press 1995
Thomas, Emory M. The Confederacy As a Revolutionary Experience (1971)
Turner, Charles W. "The Virginia Central Railroad at War, 1861–1865," Journal of Southern History (1946) 12#4, pp. 510–533
Vandiver, Frank. Ploughshares into Swords: Josiah Gorgas and Confederate Ordnance University of Texas Press, 1952
Wakelyn, Jon L. Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy Greenwood Press
Wallenstein, Peter and Wyatt-Brown, Bertram, eds. Virginia's Civil War. U. Press of Virginia, 2005. 303 pp.
Wallenstein, Peter. "Rich Man's War, Rich Man's Fight: Civil War and the Transformation of Public Finance in Georgia." Journal of Southern History 50 (1984):15–43.
Wiley, Bell Irwin. The Plain People of the Confederacy, 1944.
Wilson, Harold S. Confederate Industry: Manufacturers and Quartermasters in the Civil War U. Press of Mississippi, 2002.
Primary sources
, 1864, a Confederate Congress document
Economic data sets
All data sets are in Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition Online (2006) available in academic libraries.
See also available on-line from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Chapter Eh – Confederate States of America.
Population of the slave states, by state, race, and slave status: 1860–1870 Series Eh1-7
Farms, farm implements, livestock, and home manufactures in the slave states, by state: 1860–1870 Series Eh8-23
Selected crop outputs of the slave states, by state: 1860–1870 Series Eh24-39
Manufacturing in the slave states-establishments, capital invested, product value, and employment, by state: 1860–1870 Series Eh40-49
Taxable property in the Confederacy, by state: 1861 Series Eh50-58
Confederate blockade running-ships engaged, ships lost, and successful runs, by vessel type and port: 1861–1865 Series Eh59-94
Quantity and price of cotton imported into the United Kingdom: 1855–1875 Series Eh95-102
European cotton imports, by country of origin: 1860–1875 Series Eh103-110
Money and Prices, Series Eh111-193
Confederate money stock: 1860–1862 [Godfrey, nine states] Series Eh111-117
Confederate money stock: 1860–1865 [Godfrey, seven states] Series Eh118-124
Confederate money stock: 1861–1864 [Lerner] Series Eh125-127
Prices and wage indexes for the eastern Confederacy: 1861–1865 Series Eh128-130
Monthly index of Richmond wholesale commodity prices: 1861–1865 Series Eh131
Wholesale commodity price indexes in Richmond, the eastern Confederacy, New York City and San Francisco: 1861–1865 Series Eh132-135
Monthly wholesale price quotations for selected commodities in Richmond: 1856–1865 Series Eh136-165
Monthly commodity price indexes for the Confederate states: 1861–1865 Series Eh166-193
Government Finances, Series Eh194-228
Confederate government revenues and expenditures: 1861–1864 Series Eh194-215
Bond yields on domestic loans in the Confederacy: 1862–1864 Series Eh216-220
Weekly prices of Confederate cotton bonds and sterling bonds in Amsterdam: 1863–1865 Series Eh221-222
Gold prices in the Confederacy: 1861–1865 Series Eh223-228
Historiography
Gallagher, Gary W. "Home Front and Battlefield: Some Recent Literature Relating to Virginia and the Confederacy," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Vol. 98, No. 2, pp. 135–168
Massey, Mary Elizabeth. "The Confederate States of America: The Homefront," in Rembert Patrick, ed., Writing Southern History: Essays in Historiography (1965), pp. 249–272
Steven E. Woodworth, ed. The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research, 1996. 750 pages of historiography and bibliography
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Unione Fiduciaria
|
[
"Banks established in 1958",
"Italian companies established in 1958",
"Banks of Italy",
"Companies based in Milan",
"BPER Banca"
] | 592 | 6,151 |
Unione Fiduciaria S.p.A. – Società Fiduciaria e di Servizi delle Banche Popolari Italiane (literally Fiduciary Union) is an Italian custodial bank that specialized in custodial services.
History
The bank was formed by 8 People's Banks () of Italy in 1958 to act as custodian for those banks.
On 30 April 2015 UBI Banca sold the business in UBI Fiduciaria to Unione Fiduciaria. In 2016 Unione Fiduciaria acquired Istifid, which was owned by Banco di Desio e della Brianza, Credito Valtellinese, Canova Investissements, Allianz Bank Financial Advisors S.p.A., Banco Azzoaglio and others. After the deal Credito Valtellinese and Banco Desio increased their stakes in Unione Fiduciaria. Istifid acquired Aperta Fiduciaria, a wholly owned subsidiary of Credito Valtellinese in 2013.
Shareholders
In 2013 UBI Banca sold all its stake (10.501%) for €3.4 million.
the bank had the following shareholders:
Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna (24%)
Banca Popolare di Sondrio (24%)
DepoBank (24%)
Banca Popolare di Puglia e Basilicata (0.79%)
Banca Popolare di Cortona (0.0185%)
other shareholders
Banca Agricola Popolare di Ragusa
Banca Valsabbina
Banca di Credito Popolare di Torre del Greco
Banca Popolare di Bari
Banca Popolare del Cassinate
Banca Popolare di Cividale
UBI Banca
Banca Popolare di Fondi
Banca Popolare di Lajatico
Banca Popolare del Lazio
Banco BPM
Banca Popolare Pugliese
Banca Popolare Sant'Angelo
Banca Popolare Valconca
Banca di Piacenza
Credito Valtellinese
SanFelice 1893 Banca Popolare
Südtiroler Volksbank (plus ex-Banca Popolare di Marostica)
See also
Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari Italiane
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Inside Job (2010 film)
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[
"2010 documentary films",
"2010 films",
"2010s American films",
"2010s English-language films",
"American business films",
"American documentary films",
"Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners",
"Documentary films about American politics",
"Documentary films about business",
"Documentary films about the subprime mortgage crisis",
"English-language documentary films",
"Films scored by Alex Heffes",
"Sony Pictures Classics films",
"Wall Street films"
] | 2,951 | 24,761 |
Inside Job is a 2010 American documentary film, directed by Charles Ferguson, about the 2008 financial crisis. Ferguson, who began researching in 2008, said the film is about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption", amongst them conflicts of interest of academic research, which led to improved disclosure standards by the American Economic Association. In five parts, the film explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices led to the 2008 financial crisis.
The film was acclaimed by film critics, who praised its pacing, research, and exposition of complex material. It was screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in May 2010 and, on February 27, 2011, won Best Documentary Feature at the 83rd Academy Awards.
The film begins by examining the effects of the government of Iceland's shift toward deregulation in 2000, which included the privatization of its banks. When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and AIG collapsed, Iceland and the rest of the world went into a global recession.
Part I: How We Got Here
The American financial industry was regulated from 1941 to 1981, followed by a long period of deregulation. At the end of the 1980s, a savings and loan crisis cost taxpayers approximately $124 billion. In the late 1990s, the financial sector had consolidated into a few giant firms. In March 2000, the Internet Stock Bubble burst because investment banks promoted Internet companies they knew would fail, resulting in $5 trillion in investor losses. In the 1990s, derivatives became popular in the industry and added instability. Efforts to regulate derivatives were thwarted by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, backed by several key officials. In the 2000s, the industry was dominated by five investment banks (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Bear Stearns), two financial conglomerates (Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase), three securitized insurance companies (AIG, MBIA, AMBAC) and the three rating agencies (Moody's, Standard & Poor's, Fitch). Investment banks bundled mortgages with other loans and debts into collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), which they sold to investors. Rating agencies gave many CDOs AAA ratings. Subprime loans led to predatory lending. Many home owners were given loans they could never repay.
Part II: The Bubble (2001–2007)
During the housing boom, the ratio of money borrowed by investment banks versus the banks' own assets reached unprecedented levels. Speculators could buy credit default swaps (CDSs), which were akin to an insurance policy, to bet against CDOs they did not own. Numerous CDOs were backed by subprime mortgages. Goldman-Sachs sold more than $3 billion worth of CDOs in the first half of 2006. Goldman also bet against the low-value CDOs, telling investors they were high-quality. The three biggest ratings agencies contributed to the problem, with AAA-rated instruments rocketing from a mere handful in 2000 to over 4,000 in 2006. There were some warnings about the growing risks in the financial system, including from Raghuram Rajan, then the chief economist of the IMF, who, at the Federal Reserve's 2005 Jackson Hole conference, identified some risks and proposed policies to address them, though former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers called his warnings "misguided" and Rajan himself a "luddite".
Part III: The Crisis
The market for CDOs collapsed and investment banks were left with hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, CDOs, and real estate they could not unload. The Great Recession began in November 2007, and in March 2008, Bear Stearns ran out of cash. In September, the federal government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which had been on the brink of collapse. Two days later, Lehman Brothers collapsed. These entities all had AA or AAA ratings within days of being bailed out. Merrill Lynch, on the edge of collapse, was acquired by Bank of America. Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner decided that Lehman must go into bankruptcy, which resulted in a collapse of the commercial paper market. On September 17, the insolvent AIG was taken over by the government. The next day, Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke asked Congress for $700 billion to bail out the banks. The global financial system became paralyzed. On October 3, 2008, President George W. Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program, but global stock markets continued to fall. Layoffs and foreclosures continued with unemployment rising to 10% in the US and the European Union. By December 2008, GM and Chrysler also faced bankruptcy. Foreclosures in the U.S. reached unprecedented levels.
Part IV: Accountability
Top executives of the insolvent companies walked away with their personal fortunes intact and avoided prosecution. The executives had hand-picked their boards of directors, which handed out billions in bonuses after the government bailout. The major banks grew in power and doubled anti-reform efforts. Many academic economists who had advocated for deregulation for decades and helped shape U.S. policy still opposed reform following the 2008 financial crisis. Firms involved were the Analysis Group, Charles River Associates, Compass Lexecon, and the Law and Economics Consulting Group (LECG). Many of these economists were paid consultants to companies and other groups involved in the financial crisis, conflicts of interest that were often not disclosed in their research papers.
Part V: Where We Are Now
Tens of thousands of U.S. factory workers were laid off. The incoming Obama administration's financial reforms were weak, and there was no significant proposed regulation of the practices of ratings agencies, lobbyists, or executive compensation. Geithner became Treasury Secretary. Martin Feldstein, Laura Tyson, and Lawrence Summers were all top economic advisers to Obama. Bernanke was reappointed Chair of the Federal Reserve. European nations imposed strict regulations on bank compensation, but the U.S. resisted them.
Matt Damon as Self – Narrator (voice)
Gylfi Zoega as Self – Professor of Economics, University of Iceland
Andri Snær Magnasonas Self – Writer & Filmmaker
Sigridur Benediktsdottir as Self – Special Investigative Committee, Icelandic Parliament
Paul Volcker as Self – Former Federal Reserve Chairman
Dominique Strauss-Kahn as Self – Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
George Soros as Self – Chairman, Soros Fund Management
Barney Frank as Self – Chairman, Financial Services Committee
David McCormick as Self – Under Secretary of the Treasury, Bush Administration
Scott Talbott as Self – Chief Lobbyist, Financial Services Roundtable
Andrew Sheng as Self – Chief Adviser, China Banking Regulatory Commission
Lee Hsien Loong as Self – Prime Minister, Singapore (as Hsien Loong Lee)
Christine Lagarde as Self – Finance Minister, France
Gillian Tett as Self – U.S. Managing Editor, The Financial Times
Nouriel Roubini as Self – Professor, NYU Business School
R. Glenn Hubbard as Self – Chief Economic Adviser, Bush Administration
Eliot Spitzer as Self – Former Governor, New York
Samuel Hayes as Self – Professor Emeritus of Investment Banking, Harvard Business School
Charles Morris as Self – Author, The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown
Robert Gnaizda as Self – Former Director, Greenlining Institute
Willem Buiter as Self – Chief Economist, Citigroup
Andrew Lo as Self – Professor & Director, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering
Michael Greenberger as Self – Former Deputy Director, Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Satyajit Das as Self – Derivatives Consultant
Frank Partnoy as Self – Professor of Law & Finance, University of California, San Diego
Eric Halperin as Self – Director, Center for Responsible Learning
Martin Wolf as Self – Chief Economics Commentator, The Financial Times
Kenneth Rogoff as Self – Professor of Economics, Harvard (as Prof. Ken Rogoff)
Daniel Alpert as Self – Managing Director, Westwood Capital
Raghuram Rajan as Self – Chief Economist, International Monetary Fund
Lawrence McDonald as Self – Former Vice President, Lehman Brothers
Harvey Miller as Self – Lehman's Bankruptcy Lawyer
Jeffrey Lane as Self – Vice Chairman, Lehman Brothers
Jonathan Alpert as Self – Therapist
Kristin M. Davis as Self – Manhattan Madam
Allan Sloan as Self – Senior Editor, Fortune Magazine
William Ackman as Self – Hedge Fund Manager (as Bill Ackman)
Jerome Fons as Self – Former Managing Director, Moody's Rating Agency
Frederic Mishkin as Self – Governor, Federal Reserve
Simon Johnson as Self – Professor, MIT
Joanna Xu as Self – Former Factory Worker
Patrick Daniel as Self – Editor-in-Chief, Singapore Press Holdings
Columba Ramos as Self – Victim of Fraud
Eric Evanouskas as Self – Volunteer, Catholic Charities
Steven A. Stephen as Self – Former Construction Worker
Martin Feldstein as Self – Professor of Economics, Harvard
John Campbell as Self – Chairman, Harvard Economics Department
Favorable response
The film was met with critical acclaim. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it holds an approval rating of 98% based on 148 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Disheartening but essential viewing, Charles Ferguson's documentary explores the 2008 Global Financial Crisis with exemplary rigor." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 88 out of 100 based on 27 critics, indicating "universal acclaim", and, in 2011, Jason Dietz of Metacritic ranked the film as the best film yet made about the "ongoing financial crisis".
Roger Ebert described the film as "an angry, well-argued documentary about how the American housing industry set out deliberately to defraud the ordinary American investor". A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that "Mr. Ferguson has summoned the scourging moral force of a pulpit-shaking sermon. That he delivers it with rigor, restraint and good humor makes his case all the more devastating". Logan Hill of New York magazine characterized the film as a "rip-snorting, indignant documentary", noting the "effective presence" of narrator Matt Damon. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said it was "as gripping as any thriller", and also noted the influence of Michael Moore on the film, which he described as "a Moore film with the gags and stunts removed". Duane Byrge of the Hollywood Reporter said it deserved a "triple-A rating," writing: "'Inside Job' is no talking-heads drone. It's a lively, droll and acidic shakedown of the insiders who perpetrated this crisis." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times hailed the documentary as a "powerhouse" that presents its complex subject matter with "cinematic verve."
The film was selected for a special screening at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. A reviewer writing from Cannes characterized it as "a complex story told exceedingly well and with a great deal of unalloyed anger".
Critical response
In 2010, economist Gene Epstein, writing for Barron's, criticized the documentary for presenting an incomplete and biased view of the 2008 financial crisis. While acknowledging elements of truth in the narrative about Wall Street greed, Epstein argued that it failed to adequately explore the proactive role of government policy in the crisis, particularly the influence of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Shawn Levy of The Oregonian rated the film B-, writing: "Whether the film's anatomy and analysis of the crash are accurate, they haven't been rendered in a way that's genuinely worth paying contemporary movie ticket prices to learn about it."
Accolades
Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Academy Awards February 27, 2011 Best Documentary Feature Charles H. Ferguson and Audrey Marrs Chicago Film Critics Association Awards December 20, 2010 Best Documentary Feature Directors Guild of America Awards December 29, 2010 Best Documentary Gotham Independent Film Awards November 29, 2010 Best Documentary Online Film Critics Society Awards January 3, 2011 Best Documentary Writers Guild of America Awards February 5, 2011 Best Documentary Screenplay
See also
Films and series related to the 2008 financial crisis
|
Bonnie McElveen-Hunter
|
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"20th-century American women philanthropists",
"20th-century American philanthropists"
] | 1,657 | 15,254 |
Mary Bonneau "Bonnie" McElveen-Hunter (born June 29, 1950) is an American businesswoman, philanthropist, and diplomat who was the first female chair of the board of governors of the American Red Cross. She is the founder and CEO of Pace Communications, a content and integrated marketing agency, and was the U.S. Ambassador to Finland from 2001 to 2003. She served as the finance chairwoman of Elizabeth Dole's campaign for the Republican nomination for U.S. president. She also started the first billion dollar women's leadership campaign in America for the United Way.
Early life
McElveen-Hunter's father was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force and a P-51 pilot during World War II. Her mother was a school teacher. Her father joined the Air National Guard and was activated during the Korean War. He was one of the original seven U2 pilots who flew over the Soviet Union during the Cold War. When she was 18 months old, her family moved to Germany. They continued to move throughout her childhood to Washington, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, California, and Nebraska. She is the older sister of Dr. John Thomas McElveen Jr. (neurotologist) and Tweed McElveen-Bogache.
She graduated in 1968 from Bellevue High School in Nebraska. She attended Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri where she started to study fashion design but later switched to business law and marketing. In 1970 she won the Miss Nebraska USA title and competed at Miss USA, a competition her sister also competed in as Miss Missouri USA in 1974. After graduating she moved to Charlotte, North Carolina and worked for Bank of America where she was the first woman in their executive training program. She then worked for Community Publishing, as an advertising executive for Charlotte Magazine. In 1972 she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina to work for Republican congressman Walter E. Johnston, III and started Pace Magazine, which later became Pace Communications . Pace was ranked by Working Woman Magazine as one of the top 175 women-owned businesses in America.
Career
McElveen-Hunter founded Pace Communications, Inc. in 1973 and serves as the current chief executive officer and owner. She currently also serves as the chairwoman of the board of the American Red Cross and as a member of the board of trustees at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She has also served as a trustee of the RAND Corporation and is a founder of the United Way Billion Dollar National Women's Leadership Initiative. In 2003 she initiated Stop Child Trafficking: End Modern-Day Slavery and Children of Karelia. She served as chairperson of the Alexis de Tocqueville Society and served on the United Way of America board as a member of its national leadership council. She was also a member of the international board of directors of Habitat for Humanity. She served as co-chairwoman of the annual national meeting of the Young Presidents' Organization in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has also served on the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Advisory Board, the Greensboro Development Corporation, the Renaissance Campaign of the United Arts Council, and the board of First Union National Bank. McElveen-Hunter has also served on the boards for iCivics, The Collectors Committee of the National Gallery of Art, the Washington National Opera, Blair House, Macedonian Ministry, Inc., National Portrait Gallery, Max Planck Florida Institute, and on the executive committee of The Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach.
McElveen-Hunter was appointed as the U.S. ambassador to Finland by President George W. Bush, a position she held from 2001 to 2004. As the United States Ambassador to Finland, McElveen-Hunter organized the Helsinki Women Business Leaders Summit, where female CEOs from the United States, Baltic region, and Russia created a business model to be replicated in other parts of the world. In 2004 she hosted a second Summit in Riga, Latvia and a third Summit in 2007 in Amman, Jordan with Queen Rania for women from Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries. Tarja Halonen, the President of Finland, awarded her with the honor of Commander Grand Cross of the Order of the Lion.
In 2004, McElveen-Hunter was appointed the first female chairperson of the American Red Cross. As chairperson, she has led the American Red Cross through the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and Hurricane Sandy. She has also since served on the boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the North Carolina Museum of Art. She also serves on the leadership council for ServiceNation. In 2013, McElveen-Hunter served as the Honorary Chairman of the 74th annual Wyndham Championship. She is on the National Advisory Board for High Point University and Elon University School of Law and has been a guest lecturer at Wake Forest University School of Business. She is a Lifetime Member of the Association and Junior Leagues International, Inc., a Lifetime Member of Hadassah, and a current member of Chief Executives Organization. She has given many commencement addresses in her career, including the 1988 University of North Carolina at Greensboro address, 2008 Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management, 2010 Coastal Carolina University, and 2012 North Carolina State University address.
Bonnie McElveen-Hunter joined the National Board of Advisors at in 2014.
Awards
Commander Grand Cross of the Order of the Lion of Finland
United Way's 2004 National Alexis de Tocqueville Society Award
Ellis Island Medal of Honor (2005)
Personal life
In 1980, McElveen married Bynum Merritt Hunter (1925–2018), an attorney. Together they had three children. She owns homes in Irving Park Historic District, Greensboro; Palm Beach; and Washington, DC. She is a member of First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro and The Royal Poinciana Chapel in Palm Beach.
|
Aviva Group Ireland
|
[
"Aviva",
"Financial services companies established in 1908",
"1908 establishments in Ireland",
"Insurance companies of Ireland",
"Medical and health organisations based in the Republic of Ireland",
"Irish subsidiaries of foreign companies",
"Financial services companies based in Dublin (city)"
] | 675 | 6,611 |
Aviva Group Ireland plc is the Irish arm of British insurance firm Aviva plc. Its headquarters are in Dublin. The company also provides investment management and pension services.
D&B Hoovers reported in October 2010 that Aviva is the largest general insurer in Ireland, with a market share of more than 20% in the country.
History
The company was established in 1908 as Hibernian. In 1925, the Guardian Assurance Company Ltd purchased a majority shareholding in the company and by 1931, it was offering fire, accident, motor, fidelity guarantee and plate glass insurance. Guardian Assurance sold the company to a consortium of Irish firms, including the Bank of Ireland, in 1935.
The company started to transact engineering business in 1940, and in 1946 added marine insurance in partnership with the Irish National Insurance Company Ltd. In 1964, the Commercial Union Assurance Company Ltd acquired the majority shareholding from the Bank of Ireland and two years later changed the company’s name to the Hibernian Insurance Company Ltd. By 1969, Commercial Union owned 99.9% of shares in the company.
A consortium of Irish investors acquired the majority shareholding in the company in 1979, while Commercial Union retained a 30% share of the company. The company was acquired by CGU plc in November 1999. It later became part of Aviva.
In June 2008, the company announced that it was to transfer much of its operations to Bangalore, India with the loss of 580 jobs. In the same year, Hibernian announced that it would be rebranding as Aviva as part of a global rebranding campaign to have all Aviva’s subsidiaries operate under the same name. Also in 2008, the Central Bank of Ireland fined the company for various breaches of the Consumer Protection Code.
The company dismantled its Dublin-based European holding company in April 2011, moving the operation from London. In the same year, the Central Bank of Ireland again fined Aviva for failing to have proper controls and procedures surrounding the safeguarding of client assets.
In 2018, Aviva acquired the business of Friends' First from Dutch company Achmea. The business had earlier been part of Friends Provident until it was demutualised in 1992, rolled into Eureko and later rebranded as Friends' First in 1998.
Aviva Stadium
It was announced in February 2009 that the new stadium on Lansdowne Road in Dublin would be called the Aviva Stadium as a result of a ten-year deal with Aviva reported to be worth €40million.
See also
Healthcare in the Republic of Ireland
|
Ihor Mityukov
|
[
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"Ambassadors of Ukraine to the United Kingdom",
"Permanent representatives of Ukraine to the International Maritime Organization",
"Diplomats from Kyiv",
"Finance ministers of Ukraine",
"Ambassadors of Ukraine to the European Union",
"20th-century Ukrainian economists",
"Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv alumni"
] | 519 | 4,597 |
Ihor Oleksandrovich Mitiukov (born 27 September 1952) is a Ukrainian diplomat. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine. Minister of Finance of Ukraine (1997-2001). Has been Head of Kyiv office and Managing Director of Morgan Stanley since March 2008.
Education
Ihor Mitiukov graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 1975, the cybernetics department; Institute of Economy, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. (PhD).
Career
In 1990 - prior to that, he held various positions at Agrarian-Industrial Bank Ukraina, before being appointed as its Deputy Governor.
In 1994 - he was successively Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine and Vice-Prime Minister of Ukraine for banking and finance.
From 1995 to 1997 - as Ukraine's Special Representative to the European Union in Brussels, with Vice-Prime Ministerial status.
From 1997 to 2001 - he served as Minister of Finance of Ukraine.
From 2002 to 2005 - served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine in the United Kingdom, also represented Ukraine in the International Maritime Organization.
Since June 14, 2007 - he has been an Independent Non-Executive Director at Ferrexpo Plc.
Since March 2008 - has been Head of Kyiv office and Managing Director of Morgan Stanley.
|
Alistair Grant
|
[
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"2001 deaths",
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"Alumni of the University of Edinburgh",
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"Governors of the Bank of Scotland",
"Anglo-Scots",
"People from Haddington, East Lothian",
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"20th-century Scottish businesspeople"
] | 558 | 4,679 |
Sir Matthew Alistair Grant (6 March 1937 – 22 January 2001) was a British businessman.
He was born in Haddington, East Lothian, the eldest of six children. His father was an RAF PE instructor and was initially educated at Knox Academy. The family moved to Bradford and he finished his education at Woodhouse Grove School in Yorkshire. He received a commission in the Royal Signal Corps whilst serving his National Service, with a view to thereafter go to Edinburgh University. However, he instead began as a management trainee for Unilever. His first position was at Batchelors pea and soup factory in Sheffield. In 1963 he moved to J Lyons & Co, then spent some time in advertising.
He then began working in the retail trade in the Argyll Group under James Gulliver and was evolved in the revival of the now extinct retail chain "Fine Fare". He rose to be Chief Executive of the Argyll Group from 1986 to 1998, including taking over the "Safeway" chain in 1987. He was knighted in the 1992 New Year Honours.
In 1986 the company made an unsuccessful but expensive bid to take over the Distillers' Company, but were beaten by their rival Guinness PLC. This brought an effective end to the career of Jimmy Gulliver but Grant went on to great success expanding Safeway to the point where it became the third largest retail chain in Scotland. He retired from Safeway and the Argyll Group in 1997 and then became chairman of Scottish & Newcastle 1997–2000.
He served as Governor of the Bank of Scotland from 1998 to 1999 when he was forced to resign due to ill-health.
In 1997 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Michael J Baker, Sir John Arbuthnott, John Spence and Neil Hood.
Grant lived in the library wing of Tyninghame House. He died of cancer on 22 January 2001 aged 63. He is buried close to Tyninghame, in Whitekirk churchyard, in the new cemetery north of the church.
In 1963 he married Judith Mary Dent. They had two sons, William and Matthew and one daughter, Victoria.
|
Nick Grouf
|
[
"Year of birth missing (living people)",
"Living people",
"American venture capitalists",
"Yale University alumni",
"Harvard Business School alumni",
"Businesspeople from New York City"
] | 2,109 | 20,222 |
Nick Grouf is an American entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. Described as a "pioneer of the Web 1.0 generation", Grouf is the co-founder and managing director of Alpha Edison, a venture capital fund, and the founder of Clementine Capital, LLC, a technology-focused incubator.
Grouf co-founded Firefly, an outgrowth of the RINGO project at the MIT Media Lab. Firefly invented collaborative filtering and developed the first online collaborative recommendation software, and helped to define online privacy standards as a contributor to the Platform for Privacy Preferences. He later co-founded PeoplePC, which bundled personal computers with internet service and access to other discounted products and services, and Spot Runner, an internet-based platform to produce, buy, place, and distribute targeted cable TV ads. In 2013, he co-founded Pluto TV, which was sold to Viacom in 2019.
Early life and education
Grouf was born and grew up in New York City. The son of Jon Grouf, a lawyer, and Dale Berger, an entrepreneur, he attended the Horace Mann School. He was interested in both music and business, and attended Yale University. He graduated with a degree in American Studies in 1990; his senior thesis, an opera, won Yale's Norman Holmes Pearson Prize.
After Yale, Grouf was accepted at the Harvard Business School. He deferred admission for three years, and instead returned to New York in September 1990, where he focused on media and technology as a business analyst at McKinsey and Company. In addition, he pursued a career as a musician, performing as a singer-songwriter. In 1993, he moved to Cambridge and enrolled at Harvard. Prior to earning his MBA in 1995, he served as an associate in Mergers & Acquisitions at Goldman Sachs.
Firefly
In January 1995, Grouf met David Waxman on a flight from San Francisco to Boston. Waxman, a master's candidate at the MIT Media Lab, was also a musician. They began working together shortly after they met, and in March 1995, with MIT professor Pattie Maes, engineer Max Metral, Upendra Shardanand, and Yezdi Lashkari, Grouf and Waxman founded Firefly. Originally known as Agents, Inc., Firefly invented collaborative filtering personalization technology which could predict a user's tastes based on previously gathered preferences. First focused on music, it launched as ffly.com in October 1995 and by 1996 it had built a community of more than 3 million users. As the CEO and president of Firefly, Entertainment Weekly wrote that Grouf gave "cold artificial intelligence a warm glow."
Firefly, which collected large amounts of personal data, implemented tools and systems for users to manage and note privacy preferences. Key contributors to OPS (Open Profiling Standard), the company developed the underlying data management technology which was later known as the P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences). "In order for personalization technologies to be effective, people have to be in an environment they can trust," Grouf said in a 1998 interview.
In April 1998, the company was acquired by Microsoft, and Grouf and approximately 70 Firefly employees moved to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington to work on .NET. The Firefly Passport became the Microsoft Passport. Per the terms of the acquisition, Grouf remained at Microsoft for a year, serving in a role that Esther Dyson described as Microsoft's "privacy conscience."
PeoplePC
After leaving Microsoft, Grouf moved to Northern California, where he was an entrepreneur-in-residence at SoftBank Technology Ventures. In 1999, Grouf, Waxman and Metral founded PeoplePC, which bundled personal computers with internet service and access to discounted products and services and PeopleGive, a separate 501(C)3 entity which provided computers and connectivity to low income people. Initially funded by SoftBank in a round led by its partner, Brad Feld, the company's mission was to "democratize technology." Its business model included collective buying, which allowed the company to generate additional revenue from advertising, partnerships, and premium products.
In February 2000 the company announced that they would provide PCs and Internet access to all of the employees of Ford Motor Co. and Delta Air Lines, and in October it was announced that it would open European subsidiaries to enable overseas corporations and governments to offer their employees low-cost home computers and Internet access and later developed partnerships with Vivendi Universal, The New York Times, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and the National Trades Union of Singapore. PeoplePC donated internet access to low-income families through President Clinton's ClickStart initiative, and provided both computers and computer training to economically disadvantaged students through its PeopleGive program.
PeoplePC debuted on NASDAQ in August 2000, and in 2002 the company was acquired by Earthlink.
Spot Runner
In 2003, Waxman and Grouf reunited to work on IT and online-fundraising strategies for John Kerry's presidential campaign. As they researched the television advertising infrastructure, they encountered barriers which made the process of buying media and targeting ads difficult. Knowledgeable about keyword-based online advertising, such as Google Adwords, they realized that no similar program for television advertising had been developed. Based on their experience with the Kerry campaign, Grouf and Waxman founded Spot Runner, a service which allowed business to customize a pre-produced television ads, set a budget, and target specific markets. The commercials were run primarily on cable television, where they could be targeted from large urban areas to small suburban neighborhoods, and the platform recommended where and when the commercials would be most effective. The majority of the process was automated through a web interface. Fast Company wrote: "The pair wedded the democratic spirit that underpinned PeoplePC to a variation on the recommendation engine that powered Firefly. Call it Google AdWords for TV."
Grouf led the development of Spot Runner’s Malibu Media Platform, a marketplace for buying and selling national and regional ad time. Media buying agencies were concerned with the Malibu platform, which automated processes traditionally done through ad agencies, because “it would mean giving up their reason for being."
In 2009, investor WPP filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against Spot Runner. WPP claimed that Spot Runner's founders made secondary sales without disclosure to other investors, and that the company, its outside directors, and its major venture capital investors facilitated those sales. WPP's lawsuit against the company was dismissed by a federal court in October 2009; in 2010 WPP refiled the suit and it was again dismissed. In 2011, in addition to other claims, the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed all of the shareholder derivative claims, and the insurers decided to settle the dispute on confidential terms. Spot Runner's Malibu Media Platform was acquired by Harris Broadcasting Communications in 2011.
Clementine Capital, Alpha Edison
In 2011, Grouf founded Clementine Capital, a Los Angeles-based technology incubator. Through Clementine, Grouf has provided resources, capital and strategic guidance for independent entrepreneurs and early-stage companies in both the consumer and business-to-business sector. Among others, he has worked with The BabyBox Company, Loot Crate, and Fig, which was acquired by eBay.
In 2016, Grouf teamed with former Goldman Sachs technology banker Michael Parekh and venture capitalist Nate Redmond to form Alpha Edison, a venture capital fund. In May, The Los Angeles Times reported that Alpha Edison was raising $300 million to invest in startups in addition to a $30 million side fund. Alpha Edison has invested in companies including United Dwelling, which helps homeowners convert underutilized garages or backyards into affordable housing, and House Canary, which uses AI for residential real estate data and home valuation.
Philanthropy
Grouf has established scholarships related to social entrepreneurship and public health at Harvard University, Yale University, and the Horace Mann School. He also funded a neurology study at Cornell University. He has been affiliated with the National Center for Women and Information Technology and the education-focused SEED Foundation. He serves on the board of directors for The Hammer Museum, LAXART, Trajal Harrell Dance Company, and Larchmont Charter Schools. In 2014 Grouf helped to create the Walther School Foundation, where he also sits on the board.
Personal life
Grouf and his wife, Shana Eddy-Grouf, live in Los Angeles. She is a senior executive at StudioCanal.
|
Bank of Saint George
|
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"Banks disestablished in 1805",
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"15th-century establishments in the Republic of Genoa",
"1805 disestablishments"
] | 2,226 | 16,419 |
The Bank of Saint George ( or informally as Ufficio di San Giorgio or Banco) was a financial institution of the Republic of Genoa. It was founded on 23 April 1407 to consolidate the public debt, which had been escalating due to the war with Venice for trading and financial dominance. The Bank's primary mission was to facilitate the management of the San Giorgio shares (luoghi). It was one of the oldest chartered banks in Europe and of the world. The Bank's headquarters were at the Palazzo San Giorgio, which was built in the 13th century by the order of Guglielmo Boccanegra, uncle of Simone Boccanegra, the first Doge of Genoa.
On 11 June 1857 the ancient lock from the vault of the bank of St George was presented to the Philadelphia historical society by Lieutenant George H. Hare USN. The Financial Times hailed it as "the world's first modern, public bank", partly due to its innovative character.
Its parent, Casa di San Giorgio, administered the Bank and needed frequent liquidity injections to support the war against Venice and Genoa's ailing public finance. By 1445, the Bank suspended operations, focusing on servicing the Genoese state. However, it managed to reopen for business with the general public in 1530. Many of Genoa's overseas territories were governed either directly or indirectly by the Bank. In 1453 the Republic handed over governance of Corsica, Gazaria, and a number of other possessions to Bank officials, though over the course of the fifteenth century, the Republic gradually reclaimed many of its territories from Bank control. The Taman peninsula remained in the control of the de Ghisolfi family, but the princes of that clan now reported to the Bank.
The Bank lent considerable sums of money to many rulers throughout Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, gaining widespread influence. Ferdinand and Isabella maintained accounts there, as did Christopher Columbus. Before leaving for his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote a letter to the Governors of the Bank of St. George, Genoa, dated at Seville, 2 April 1502. He wrote, "Although my body is here my heart is always near you." Charles V was heavily in debt to the Bank during much of his reign. Niccolò Machiavelli wrote in book VIII, chapter XXIX of Florentine Histories (1532):
This establishment presents an instance of what in all the republics, either described or imagined by philosophers, has never been thought of; exhibiting within the same community, and among the same citizens, liberty and tyranny, integrity and corruption, justice and injustice; for this establishment preserves in the city many ancient and venerable customs; and should it happen (as in time it easily may) that the San Giorgio should have possession of the whole city, the republic will become more distinguished than that of Venice.
In 1701, Joseph Addison noticed it during his travels in Italy:
I know nothing more remarkable in the government of Genoa, than the bank of St. George, made up of such branches of the revenues, as have been set apart and appropriated to the discharging of several sums, that have been borrowed from private persons, during the exigencies of the commonwealth. Whatever inconveniences the state has labored under, they have never entertained a thought of violating the public credit, or of alienating any part of these revenues to other uses, than to what they have been thus assigned. The administration of this bank is for life, and partly in the hands of the chief citizens, which gives them a great authority in the state, and a powerful influence over the common people. This bank is generally thought the greatest load on the Genoese, and the managers of it have been represented as a second kind of senate, that break the uniformity of government, and destroy in some measure the fundamental constitution of the state. It is, however, very certain, that the people reap no small advantages from it, as it distributes the power among more particular members of the republic, and gives the commons a figure: So that it is no small check upon the aristocracy, and may be one reason why the Genoese Senate carries it with greater moderation towards their subjects than the Venetian.
Montesquieu in his The Spirit of Law (1748) discussed the laws relative to the nature of aristocracy (Book II, Chapter III):
It would be a very happy thing in the aristocracy, if by some indirect method the people could be emancipated from their state of annihilation, Thus at Genoa the bank of St. George being administered by the people, gives them a certain influence in the government, from whence their whole prosperity arises.
David Hume mentioned it in his Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1758):
Legislators, therefore, ought not to trust the future government of a state entirely to chance, but ought to provide a system of laws to regulate the administration of public affairs. Effects will always correspond to causes; and wise regulations in any commonwealth are the most valuable legacy that can be left to future ages. In the smallest court or office, the stated forms and methods, by which business must be conducted, are found to be a considerable check on the natural depravity of mankind. Why should not the case be the same in public affairs? Can we ascribe the stability and wisdom of the Venetian government, through so many ages, to any thing but the form of government? And is it not easy to point out those defects in the original constitution, which produced the tumultuous governments of Athens and Rome, and ended at last in the ruin of these two famous republics? And so little dependance has this affair on the humours and education of particular men, that one part of the same republic may be wisely conducted, and another weakly, by the same men, merely on account of the difference of the forms and institutions, by which these parts are regulated. Historians inform us that this was actually the case of Genoa. For while the state was always full of sedition, and tumult, and disorder, the bank of St. George, which had become a considerable part of the people, was conducted, for several ages, with the utmost integrity and wisdom.
Thomas Babington Macaulay in his work The History of England (1848) referred to the Bank of Saint George in relation to the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694:No sooner had banking become a separate and important trade, than men began to discuss with earnestness the question whether it would be expedient to erect a national bank... Two public banks had long been renowned throughout Europe, the Bank of Saint George at Genoa, and the Bank of Amsterdam. The immense wealth which was in the keeping of those establishments, the confidence they inspired, the prosperity which they had created, their stability, tried by panics, by wars, by revolutions and found proof against all, were favourite topics. The Bank of Saint George had nearly completed its third century. It had begun to receive deposits and to make loans before Columbus had crossed the Atlantic, before Gama had turned the Cape, when Christian Emperor was reigning at Constantinople, when a Mahomedan Sultan was reigning at Granada, when Florence was a Republic, when Holland obeyed a hereditary prince. All these things has changed. New continents and new oceans had been discovered. The Turk was at Constantinople: the Castilian was at Granada: Florence had its hereditary Prince: Holland was a Republic: but the Bank of Saint George was still receiving deposits and making loans... Why should not the Bank of London be as great and as durable as the Banks of Genoa and of Amsterdam?
In the seventeenth century, the Bank became heavily involved in maritime trade, and for a time competed with such concerns as the Dutch East India Company and the English East India Company.
After Napoleon invaded Italy, he suppressed independent banks, and this led to the Bank's closure in 1805.
See also
Banco di San Giorgio (1987–2012), an unrelated bank that existed from 1987 to 2012
List of central banks
Further reading
Shaw, Christine, "Principles and Practice in the Civic Government of Fifteenth-Century Genoa", Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Spring 2005), pp. 45–90, The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of America, DOI: 10.1353/ren.2008.0666,
|
Tara Lemmey
|
[
"Living people",
"21st-century American inventors",
"21st-century American women inventors",
"American designers",
"American technology company founders",
"American technology chief executives",
"American women chief executives",
"American women company founders",
"American educators",
"Business speakers",
"American venture capitalists",
"American women investors",
"Year of birth missing (living people)",
"21st-century American businesswomen",
"21st-century American businesspeople"
] | 1,553 | 19,446 |
Tara L. Lemméy ( ) is an American entrepreneur, inventor, designer, technology expert and innovation strategist. She is CEO and founder of 'LENS Ventures', an innovation and investment firm based in San Francisco.
In 2013, Lemméy was named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company (magazine) and one of the MCP 1000: The Most Creative People in Business. She holds over seventy U.S. and international utility and design patents.
She has provided guidance to senior executives at nonprofits and Fortune 500 companies such as Intel, American Express and the Lumina Foundation on innovation, forward-looking strategies, emerging markets, and investment and acquisition opportunities.
Innovation and economic policy
Lemméy is a member of Rework America, the Markle Economic Future Initiative created by the Markle Foundation to invent new strategies and scalable services for jobs, broad participation in economic prosperity, economic security and growth in America. Lemméy is a co-author of America’s Moment. Creating Opportunity in the Connected Age (2015), a book by Rework America.
Lemméy has spoken on risk and innovation — at DO USA, Techonomy, TED India, Fortune Brainstorm Tech, Future in Review, Digital Media and Learning Conference, and has been published in Wired, Business Week, and the Harvard Business Review.
Lemméy is the CEO and Founder of LENS, an innovation and investment firm that works with institutions to create next markets. Lemméy was CEO and founder of Net Power & Light, a developer of patented technology for high-fidelity video collaboration and live experiences in sports, entertainment, education, and healthcare.
Lemméy was profiled in The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion (John Hagel III, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison), in 2010 (Bloomberg BusinessWeek). She is a regular participant at the Aspen Institute, contributing to "Solving the Dilbert Paradox," a report from the Aspen Round Table on Talent Development.
National security, technology and privacy
Lemméy served as a co-chair of the Technology Working Group on the Markle Foundation's Task Force on National Security in the Information Age and was the lead architect of the SHARE information environment recommendation which became the ISE, the new way of information sharing for the intelligence and national security community post 9/11.
Lemméy was on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Privacy Advisory Committee, which provides external advice to the Department's Secretary and the Chief Privacy Officer on matters relating to privacy and civil liberties preservation in relation to national security improvements. Earlier, Lemméy was President of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and was a member of the founding board of TRUSTe.
Public diplomacy
Lemméy has collaborated with the United States Department of State on public diplomacy and outreach programs around the world with her speaking tours on entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic growth in Switzerland and Turkey.
In 2009 she was part of the U.S. State Department's Technology Delegation to Mexico, which explored ways for U.S. technology companies to support Mexican citizens’ resistance against the country's drug cartels.
In 2010 she was a delegate to the White House Council on Women and Girls Women's Entrepreneurship Conference, which was formed to address critical challenges and opportunities. The purpose was to identify public policy initiatives needed to move the women's business agendas forward.
Previously, Lemméy was a Commissioner on the Embassy of the Future Task Force at the Center for Strategic and International Studies as the "Ambassador from Silicon Valley" contributing to the commission's report, that provided recommendations for making the diplomatic pursuit of U.S. interests abroad more effective in the 21st century.
Future of learning and higher education
Lemméy created DGREE.ORG, an initiative funded by the Lumina Foundation to explore innovative, student-centered learning models. In 2010 Lemméy hosted the DGREE Summit which brought together business leaders, venture capitalists, education foundations, and university leaders and accreditors to focus on student-centric learning in a sustainable educational ecosystem. L
Lemméy has collaborated with Harvard Professor Michael Sandel to create a Global Classroom to pioneer the use of mobile technology and mobile video for global live debates about justice, rights, and democracy. The series of live experiences in the fall semester of 2012 brought together students of Sandel's Justice course with those in China, India, Japan and Brazil, featuring a guest appearance by philosopher Peter Singer joining the Harvard audience in Sanders Theater live from New York.
The video of the Global Classroom experiment was featured in Sandel's EdX massive open online course in 2013. The Global Classroom experiment was covered by the BBC, Fast Company and was recognized by ComputerWorld's 2013 Honors award program.
Health and integrative medicine
Lemméy is part of the leadership team at the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine of the University of Arizona, with her role at the Center focused on innovation. Lemméy has collaborated with Andrew Weil and Victoria Maizes on Public Forum on nutrition and health, part of the center's annual Nutrition and Health Conference. Lemméy moderated the Public Forum on “Food and Health: Public Policy and Personal Choice” with Weil, Robert Lustig and Michael Pollan, held in 2011 in San Francisco.
Awards and honors
Fast Company MCP 1000: Most Creative People in Business
Fast Company 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2013
2013 ComputerWorld Honors Laureates (Mobile Access)
|
Ascend Communications
|
[
"1988 establishments in California",
"1999 disestablishments in California",
"1999 mergers and acquisitions",
"American companies disestablished in 1999",
"American companies established in 1988",
"Companies based in Alameda, California",
"Computer companies disestablished in 1999",
"Computer companies established in 1988",
"Defunct computer companies of the United States",
"Defunct computer hardware companies",
"Defunct manufacturing companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area",
"Defunct networking companies",
"Defunct telecommunications companies of the United States",
"Lucent Technologies",
"Networking hardware companies",
"Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area",
"Telecommunications companies disestablished in 1999",
"Telecommunications companies established in 1988",
"1994 initial public offerings",
"Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq"
] | 651 | 7,205 |
Ascend Communications, Inc. was an Alameda, California-based manufacturer of communications equipment that was later purchased by Lucent Technologies in 1999.
Ascend Communications was founded in 1988 and taken public in 1994. Initial investors included Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers (KPCB); Greylock Partners; and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
Ascend Communications designed and manufactured equipment for high-density dialup installations, most notably the MAX TNT, which allowed for a DS3 of dialup lines to be terminated in a few rack units. Customers such as AOL, Earthlink, Demon Internet, and UUnet purchased over two million dialup ports worth of MAX TNT access servers during the dialup days of the internet. Many companies still use MAX TNT for dialup (look for TNT in dialup hostnames). In the mid-1990s, the company was one of the leading vendors of ISDN modems and concentrators.
Ascend Communications also acquired several companies. In 1996, it acquired NetStar, an Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based publicly traded manufacturer of ultra-high-performance, switched backplane, backbone routers capable 16 Gbit/s throughput.
In 1997, Ascend acquired Cascade Communications. Cascade designed and manufactured high-density carrier packet switches, including the B-STDX9000 frame relay switch and the CBX-500 and GX-550 ATM switches. The B-STDX and CBX/GX lines were the workhorses of most RBOC Frame Relay and ATM networks throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century.
In February 1997, Ascend released the DSLPipe series.
In August 1998, Ascend bought Stratus Computers for $822 million in stock. Stratus was primarily a maker of fault-tolerant computer systems but it owned a Service Control Point technology critical to the convergence of voice and data networks that Ascend valued. The server business was sold off to private equity investors within months, following the Lucent deal. It now operates as Stratus Technologies.
The company was acquired by Lucent Technologies in 1999. The $24 billion merger was the largest technology merger in history up to that time. Former executives of Ascend founded the company Zhone Technologies.
Ascend's stock traded under the Nasdaq symbol ASND.
See also
Livingston Enterprises
|
Gerald Kasaato
|
[
"Living people",
"Alumni of Oxford Brookes University",
"Alumni of Nottingham Trent University",
"Alumni of London South Bank University",
"Alumni of the University of Exeter",
"Ugandan lawyers",
"Ugandan accountants",
"CFA charterholders",
"Ugandan business executives",
"Year of birth missing (living people)"
] | 546 | 4,782 |
Gerald Paul Kasato is a Ugandan accountant, lawyer, chartered financial analyst, and business executive. He is the deputy managing director and deputy chief executive officer of NSSF Uganda, since 21 June 2024. He worked in the same position in acting capacity from August 2023 until June 2024. Before that, he was the chief investment officer (CIO) at the same institution between 2014 and August 2023.
Background and education
He is a Ugandan national. His degree of Bachelor of Science in accounting was awarded by the Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom. He also holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from Nottingham Trent University. His degree of Master of Science in International Finance and Investments, was awarded by the London South Bank University. His Master of Business Administration was obtained from the University of Exeter. He also attended advanced leadership and management courses from the Harvard Business School and from the Wharton School, both in the United States, and from the London Business School in the United Kingdom.
Kasaato is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute of the United Kingdom, a Chartered Certified Accountant of the UK and a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) of Uganda.
Work history
He worked in various entities in the United Kingdom before relocating to Uganda in the mid 2000s. He worked with National Housing and Construction Company, as Finance and Investment Manager and with National Insurance Company Limited, as Manager Investment and Treasury.
He joined NSSF Uganda in 2011 as Portfolio Manager, Equities. In 2014 he was promoted to Chief Investment Officer. In August 2023, he was appointed as Acting Deputy Managing Director to replace Patrick Ayota who was elevated to managing director/ceo at the company. After ten months in acting capacity the Uganda NSSF board recommended that Kasaato be appointed as the substantive Deputy CEO.
|
Chuck Testa
|
[
"Internet memes",
"1956 births",
"Living people",
"Taxidermists",
"People from Ojai, California",
"Businesspeople from California",
"20th-century American businesspeople",
"21st-century American businesspeople",
"Viral videos"
] | 662 | 6,434 |
Charles A. Testa (born 1956) is an American taxidermist and owner of Ojai Valley Taxidermy in California. A commercial for Testa's business created by Rhett & Link for the show Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings became a viral video, and the catchphrase "Nope, Chuck Testa!" became an Internet meme.
Life and career
Testa was born and raised in the Ojai Valley. He managed his father's Baskin-Robbins store in Venice Beach, California before he began preserving wildlife.
Commercial and response
In summer 2011, Testa's future son-in-law posted a commercial for Testa's business on YouTube. The video was originally created by Rhett & Link for the show Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings on IFC. The commercial asserts that Testa's work is so realistic that people will assume the animals are still alive. It depicts people reacting to what they believe are live animals in unusual situations, e.g., "Look at that antelope driving a car!", only to have Testa appear and declare, "Nope, it's just Chuck Testa!" The phrase became popular on websites such as Reddit and Tumblr, spurring mainstream media coverage, including Fox News and CBS. The video was also ranked as the #10 best meme of 2011 by Time magazine's Nick Carbone.
Television appearances
In 2012, Testa appeared in two episodes of Rhett & Link's Web series, Good Mythical Morning. His shop, Ojai Valley Taxidermy, was promoted in earlier episodes. He again appeared in 2020 as a tie breaking judge during the Ice Cream Taste Test Tournament.
In 2015, Testa was featured in Season 1, Episode 1 of CarbonTV's original series, American Elements.
In 2016, Testa and Ojai Valley Taxidermy were featured in the Web documentary Mounted: Chuck Testa and Friends on CarbonTV.
Music
Testa was featured in Logan Hugueny-Clark's 2013 "Nuketown the Musical". It is a Call of Duty: Black Ops II musical parody of the 2013 song Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke.
The 2019 song "Whip a Tesla" by Yung Gravy and bbno$ mentions Testa in the chorus, referencing the "Nope" meme.Told your bitch, "Nope," like I'm fuckin' Chuck TestaTesta makes a cameo in the music video.
|
Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act
|
[
"Tax resistance",
"Tax resistance in the United States",
"United States proposed federal taxation legislation",
"Proposed legislation of the 117th United States Congress"
] | 1,150 | 8,607 |
The Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act is legislation proposed in the United States Congress that would legalize a form of conscientious objection to military taxation.
This act would establish a "peace tax fund" that parallels the general fund which the government draws upon to pay its expenses. But the peace tax fund, unlike the general fund, could only be used for non-military spending:
the term "military purpose" means any activity or program which any agency of the Government conducts, administers, or sponsors and which effects an augmentation of military forces or of defensive and offensive intelligence activities, or enhances the capability of any person or nation to wage war, including the appropriation of funds by the United States for 1) the Department of Defense; 2) the Central Intelligence Agency; 3) the National Security Council; 4) the Selective Service System; 5) activities of the Department of Energy that have a military purpose; 6) activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that have a military purpose; 7) foreign military aid; and 8) the training, supplying, or maintaining of military personnel, or the manufacture, construction, maintenance, or development of military weapons, installations, or strategies.
The peace tax fund would be funded by the "income, gift, and estate taxes paid by or on behalf" of designated conscientious objectors:
the term "designated conscientious objector" means a taxpayer who is opposed to participation in war in any form based upon the taxpayer's deeply held moral, ethical, or religious beliefs or training (within the meaning of the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. App. 450 et seq.)), and who has certified these beliefs in writing to the Secretary of the Treasury in such form and manner as the Secretary provides.
The relevant section of "50 U.S.C. App. 450 et seq." defined a designated conscientious objector as one:
...who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form. As used in this subsection, the term "religious training and belief" does not include essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views, or a merely personal moral code
However, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Seeger v. U.S. (1965) and Welsh v. U.S. (1970), ruled that sincere and deep objections to war did not have to come from formal religious training or even from a belief that the conscientious objector himself considers to be "religious" in order to meet this test. Seeger, for instance, said that he had a "belief in and devotion to goodness and virtue for their own sakes, and a religious faith in a purely ethical creed," and the Supreme Court said that this was sufficient. A non-religious conscientious objector can qualify, despite what the law says, as long as his
opposition to war stem[s] from the registrant's moral, ethical, or religious beliefs about what is right and wrong and that these beliefs [are] held with the strength of traditional religious convictions.
Effect on government revenue and spending
The legislation itself notes that "The Joint Committee on Taxation has certified that a tax trust fund, providing for conscientious objector taxpayers to pay their full taxes for non-military purposes, would increase Federal revenues." This presumably because some war tax resisters would return to paying taxes.
There would be some additional cost in implementing and accounting for such a distinct fund and in providing mechanisms for taxpayers to use it.
The act would not directly reduce either the amount of money the federal government spends on the military nor the percentage of the federal budget that goes to military spending. The National Priorities Project, using a similar definition of "military purpose" as is in this bill, estimates that "[m]ilitary spending consumes 26 cents out of every individual income tax dollar. It makes up about 20% of total federal spending and over half of the discretionary budget."
The bill would only directly affect the amount of military spending if the general fund were to become smaller than the amount to be spent on the military. If that were to happen, the government would either have to borrow money to make up the difference, illegally dip into the Peace Tax Fund, or reduce military spending.
How many people would have to become conscientious objectors to military taxation for this to happen? If, for simplicity's sake, we assume that likely conscientious objectors to military taxation currently pay on average about the same amount of taxes as everyone else, in order to make any reduction to the 26% of every tax dollar that is spent for military purposes, more than 74% of taxpayers would have to declare themselves conscientious objectors. If we factor in deficit spending and taxes that are not covered by the Act (such as the corporate income tax and excise taxes), that percentage rises to over 90%.
In the United States, legislation that would establish a "Peace Tax Fund" has been proposed in Congress since 1972. The United States House of Representatives held hearings on the proposal in 1992 and 1995. In the 117th Congress, the bill, , was sponsored by Representative James P. McGovern and had no cosponsors.
Some taxpayers asserted that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which became law in 1993, should necessitate legalizing conscientious objection to military taxation. The Second Circuit Court and Third Circuit Court are the highest courts to hear this argument, and they disagreed. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear such a case in 2000.
See also
Civilian Bonds
National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund
Peace Churches
Render unto Caesar...
Tax choice
Tax resistance
|
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