Business & Finance: Oldest

The year 1925 will prove the 255th birthday of the Hudson's Bay Co.— the oldest commercial company in the world. This ancient concern was organized in 1670, after Pierre Radisson, French promoter, had persuaded Charles II of England to send a small 50-ton ship, the Nonsuch, across the Atlantic to investigate the financial possibilities of Canada. The royal charter issued to the Company, still preserved in London, presented it with about a third of modern Canada. During the next 200 years, the "Company of Merchant Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay" conducted...

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