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BP plc was incorporated in 1909 as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company Ltd (renamed in 1935 the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company Ltd) to exploit the discovery of oil in Iran in 1908 by the Concessions Syndicate Ltd, which had been largely owned by The Burmah Oil Company Ltd (BOC). Anglo-Persian was also largely owned by BOC, but because it was floated on the stock exchange, BOC soon lost majority control, and BOC was, under its new name of Burmah Castrol plc, itself taken over by BP in 2000. Anglo-Persian was the first company to produce oil in commercial quantities in the Middle East. In 1914 the British Government invested £2 million in the Company, as part of a deal to secure a source of fuel for the Royal Navy, but the Company was never nationalised. The government relinquished its majority shareholding in 1967, and sold almost all its remaining shareholding in 1987.

Until the 1990s the government-controlled public company known since May 1988 as Telefónica de España, S.A. (Telefónica), was the dominant player in the Spanish telecommunications industry. Like many of its international counterparts, however, Telefónica was fully privatized in 1997 and became known as Telefónica S.A. the following year when basic telephony in Spain was deregulated. By 2001, Telefónica S.A. operated as the leading telecommunications concern in the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking regions of the globe. Acting as a parent company for ten major subsidiary companies, including the likes of Telefónica de España, Telefónica Latinoamericana, Telefónica Móviles S.A., Terra Lycos S.A., Telefónica DataCorp S.A., Atento, and Admira, the company had business interests in fixed telephony, mobile telephony, Internet content and services, audiovisual media content, and various other telecommunications and e-commerce-related services.

Early History: Late 1800s through the 1920s

Sonic Corp. franchises and operates the United States' largest chain of drive-in restaurants and the fifth largest hamburger chain. As of August 31, 2000 there were 2,172 Sonic restaurants, of which 1,860 were owned and operated by independent franchisees; the remainder were majority-owned by Sonic Corp. Company-owned restaurants averaged $702,000 a year in 1999; franchised restaurants took in about $842,000 each. Under the slogan 'America's Drive-In,' a Sonic restaurant features fast service by roller-skating carhops and a limited menu of cooked-to-order items, including hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, tater tots, and onion rings, and a wide variety of soft drinks and frozen desserts. Sonic restaurants operate in 27 states in the Bible Belt and Sun Belt.

Oklahoma Origins

The Sonic concept originated in Shawnee, Oklahoma in the early 1950s. Troy Smith, a World War II veteran, operated a small diner called the Cottage Cafe, which, with only four booths and 12 counter seats, could not support him and his family. Smith sold the diner and opened a larger restaurant, called Troy's Panful of Chicken. His attempts to expand into multiple locations were not successful, and by 1953 Smith's chicken restaurants had failed.

Ralph Lauren, born Ralph Lifshitz, in 1939 in the Bronx, NY, studied art and design at the City College of New York and business at City College in Manhattan. A student by night, he worked for a necktie manufacturer during the day. After a tour of military duty, he was married and had three children.

Lauren’s experience in the necktie market led him to a staggering idea. Why not make them wider? With this idea and some financing, he founded the Polo label in 1967. He founded Polo Fashions of New York with the quote

“A tie was the way a man expressed himself. I believed

that men were ready for something new and different.

They didn’t want to look as if they worked for IBM. A beautiful tie was an expression of quality, taste, style.”

The name Polo came from a sport that embodies a world of discreet elegance and style.

In 1970, Ralph Lauren won the Coty Award for Menswear. He continued that decade by releasing a daring line of suit for women tailored in a classic men’s style. The Polo player’s emblem was first seen on the cuff of one of these woman’s suits. In 1972 Polo’s famous short sleeve mesh shirt appeared with the omnipresent Polo player logo. Debuting in 24 colors it offered variet, quality and style and became an overnight classic. A line of copy from an original ad read “Every team has its color-Polo has 24”.

Royal Dutch Shell plc, commonly known simply as Shell, is a multinational oil company of Dutch and British origins. It is the second largest private sector energy corporation in the world, and one of the six "supermajors" (vertically integrated private sector oil exploration, natural gas, and petroleum product marketing companies). The company's headquarters are in The Hague, Netherlands, with its registered office in London (Shell Centre).

The company's main business is the exploration for and the production, processing, transportation, and marketing of hydrocarbons (oil and gas). Shell also has a significant petrochemicals business (Shell Chemicals), and an embryonic renewable energy sector developing wind, hydrogen and solar power opportunities. Shell is incorporated in the UK with its corporate headquarters in The Hague, its tax residence is in Netherlands, and its primary listings on the London Stock Exchange and Euronext Amsterdam (only "A" shares are part of the AEX index).

Forbes Global 2000 in 2007 ranked Shell the eighth largest company in the world. Also in 2007, Fortune magazine ranked Shell as the third-largest corporation in the world, behind Wal-Mart and ExxonMobil.

Shell operates in over 140 countries. In the United States, its Shell Oil Company subsidiary, headquartered in Houston, Texas, United States, is one of Shell's largest businesses.

History

The Royal Dutch Shell Group was created in February 1907 when the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company (legal name in Dutch, N.V. Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij) and the "Shell" Transport and Trading Company Ltd of the United Kingdom merged their operations – a move largely driven by the need to compete globally with the then predominant American oil company, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. The terms of the merger gave 60% of the new Group to the Dutch arm and 40% to the British and is now mostly seen as a Dutch company in line with the original ownership. To celebrate its centenary in 2007 Shell launched a scholarship fund.

Revlon Inc. operates as one of the world's leading cosmetics companies and markets its products in over 100 countries under such familiar brands as Revlon, ColorStay, Age Defying, Almay, and Skinlights. Revlon also sells skin care products (Ultima II, Vitamin C Absolutes, Eterna 27), fragrances (Charlie), and personal care products (High Dimension, Flex, Mitchum, Colorsilk). Ronald Perelman, who gained control of the company in a nasty hostile takeover in 1985, owns approximately 83 percent of Revlon.

A Nail Polish Company Is Founded in 1932

Revlon's first beauty item was nail enamel. Opaque and long-lasting, it was an improvement over the more transparent, dye-based products of other manufacturers. Revlon's nail polish owed its superiority to the use of pigments, which also allowed a wider color range than the light red, medium red, and dark red then available. Initially, the revolutionary "cream enamel" came from the tiny Elka company, in Newark, New Jersey, a polish supplier to beauty salons for whom Charles Revson began to work as a sales representative in 1931. Charles Revson and his older brother Joseph distributed Elka nail polish as Revson Brothers. Within a year, however, Charles Revson decided to open his own nail polish company, going into partnership with his brother and a nail polish supplier named Charles R. Lachman, who contributed the "l" to the Revlon name. Revlon was formed on March 1, 1932.

Revson had a keen fashion instinct, honed by his seven years of sales experience at the Pickwick Dress Company in New York. Coupling this with his experience at Elka, he noted that the permanent wave boom was making beauty salons more popular and that demand for manicures was rising in tandem. He therefore targeted beauty salons as a market niche--a fortunate choice whose importance would grow.

The history of Puma is a journey through some of the world’s greatest sports achievements of the last fifty years or so. Not only that, but trainers with the sign of the leaping cat with the Puma ‘Form Stripe’ log have been on the feet of most of the cutting-edge youth movements of each generation during that same time

The story of Puma and its founder, Rudolph (Rudi) Dassler, began in Germany in 1948 but, as has been discussed previously, the roots of the company go right back to the 1920s and are inextricably linked with those of adidas, founded by Rudolph’s brother Adolph (Adi). However there more to Puma than a tale of sibling rivalry. Interestingly, Puma is more ready than adidas to shed light on the split of the Dassler brothers, but this will be looked at later.

Back in 1924, in more harmonious times, Rudi and Adi Dassler, the sons of a cobbler, formed the company Gebruder Dassler OHG (Dassler Brothers Ltd) after a period of collaboration on sports shoes development in their hometown of Herzogenaurach, near Nuremberg. ‘You cannot play sports wearing shoes that you would walk around with’ were the words of Puma’s founder, and it was this sentiment that became the driving force behind the sports shoe improvements that the Dassler brothers introduced.

Company History:

PayPal Inc., a subsidiary of online auctioneer eBay, Inc., provides users with a means of exchanging funds via the Internet, a revolutionary step in the development of electronic commerce. By obtaining a PayPal account, consumers and businesses may send and receive payments vie e-mail. PayPal users make payments securely online using credit cards or bank transfers, as well as by maintaining funds in personal interest-bearing PayPal accounts. PayPal handled approximately $3.1 billion in payments in 2001, with an average daily volume of about 189,000 payments totaling $9.6 million. Its user base that year included 10.2 million personal accounts and 2.6 million business accounts in 39 countries.

Late 1990s Origins

The company which later became PayPal was founded by Max Levchin, an online security specialist, and Peter Thiel, a hedge fund manager. The two met in 1998 when Levchin approached Thiel in New York for financial backing for a company that would develop a system for transferring money using such wireless devices as cell phones and palm pilots. Levchin and Thiel joined forces, obtained $3 million in backing from the Nokia Corporation, relocated to Silicon Valley, and opened Field Link, a firm which produced encryption software for handhelds. Unfortunately, what seemed to be a good idea in theory evoked next to no response from consumers.

So Thiel and Levchin regrouped. The company was renamed Confinity, and in October 1999, with six employees and two computers, it launched PayPal, a service by which money could be sent electronically by handheld devices. PayPal met with just as little interest as Field Link had.

P&F Industries, Inc. (P&F), incorporated on April 19, 1963, operates in two primary lines of business, or segments: tools and other products (Tools) and hardware and accessories (Hardware). The Company conduct its Tools business through a wholly owned subsidiary, Continental Tool Group, Inc. (Continental), which in turn operates through its wholly owned subsidiaries, Florida Pneumatic Manufacturing Corporation (Florida Pneumatic) and Hy-Tech Machine, Inc. (Hy-Tech). The Company conducts its Hardware business through a wholly owned subsidiary, Countrywide Hardware Inc. (Countrywide), which in turn operates through its wholly owned subsidiaries, Nationwide Industries, Inc. (Nationwide), Woodmark International, L.P. (Woodmark) and Pacific Stair Products, Inc. (Pacific Stair).

Tools

The history of Motorola, Inc. can be traced back when Paul V. Galvin and Joseph E. Galvin (his brother) bought a business that deals with battery eliminator in Chicago. It was named Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in September 1928 and at present it is already recognized as one of the many American multinational companies that became a part of Fortune 100.

Going back to the history of Motorola, Inc. when it was still called Galvin Manufacturing Corporation, electronic devices and other products that run on electricity were manufactured and produced.

As for the name Motorola, the etymology is from the word 'motor' which means for car and the word 'ola' which means sound. Before Motorola mobile phones dominate the telecommunication industry, Galvin production concentrated on producing radios and receivers for vehicles until they manufactured televisions in 1947. It was also in 1947 that the company changed its name from Galvin Manufacturing to Motorola as it continues to produce communication mediums, mobile phones are yet to be introduced.

The historical influence of Motorola products was even included in the expedition to the moon when Neil Armstrong communicated from space to the earth using the Motorola Radio. And it was in 1969 that Motorola radio equipment equipped the operations of National American Space Agency or NASA.

• Santander’s history began on 15 May 1857, when Queen Isabel II signed a royal decree authorising the incorporation of the founding of Santander. Right from the start it was a bank open to the outside world, being initially linked to trade between the port of Santander in the north of Spain and Latin America.

• Between 1900 and 1919 Banco Santander doubled the scale of its balance sheet, enlarged its capital to ten million pesetas, lifted income, nudged the figure of half a million pesetas annual profit in 1917, and its earning power topped the average for Spanish finance houses. Also during this time three major Spanish banks were founded which would over time merge into the Santander: Banco Hispanoamericano (1900), Español de Crédito (1902) and Central (1919).

• In February 1920, Emilio Botín y López was appointed as the Banco de Santander’s first full-time chairman.

• The period between 1919 and 1939 was crucial for Santander. In 1923 it moved its head office to the Paseo de Pereda building, founded Banco de Torrelavega and got a modest network of branches underway in the province (the first one in El Astillero in 1923) and outside it (Espinosa de los Monteros, Lanestosa and Osorno, in 1924).

The Anglo-Saxon tradition over time

The first British bank to open in Switzerland at the beginning of the 20th century, Lloyds TSB is today one of the most solid and reliable financial institutions in the world. In the course of time, it has weathered crises, combining stability with integrity and ethics – its fundamental values. Based on trust, it offers its international customers numerous banking services, coupling the advantages of an international bank with tailor-made solutions. Its International Private Banking division, headed by Piero Grandi in Geneva, reflects the spirit of this Anglo-Saxon institution with branches throughout the world.

British origins

Lexus is the luxury vehicle division of Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corporation. First introduced in the United States, where Lexus has become the highest-selling make of luxury car, today Lexus brand name vehicles are available throughout the world. In 2005, the Lexus marque launched in Japan, marking the continued global expansion of the luxury division.

Lexus originated from a clandestine flagship sedan project that began in 1983. This effort developed into the original Lexus LS, which was the first vehicle to wear the Lexus marque upon its launch in 1989. In subsequent years, Lexus added sedan, coupe, and SUV models. Hybrid drivetrains arrived in 2005, and the F marque performance division debuted in 2007. From the start of production, Lexus vehicles have been consistently produced in Japan, with manufacturing centered in the Chūbu and Kyūshū regions. Assembly of the first Lexus built outside the country, the Ontario, Canada-produced RX, began in 2003.

Since 1989, Lexus has developed a reputation for vehicle reliability and customer service, as measured by independent surveys. In 2008, consumer ratings firm J.D. Power and Associates named Lexus the most reliable brand in the U.S. for the fourteenth year, based on its Vehicle Dependability Survey, a measure of over 53,000 vehicle owners and problems experienced in the first three years of vehicle ownership. Through 2008, Consumer Reports has also named Lexus among the top five most reliable brands in its Annual Car Reliability Surveys of over one million vehicles across the U.S. The Lexus slogan is The Pursuit of Perfection.

L. Luria & Son, Inc. is a century-old, Florida-based retailer of jewelry, gifts, housewares, and electronics. Jewelry sales account for 44 percent of Luria's sales; tabletop items, giftware, clocks, and the like account for 38 percent; and consumer electronics, including cameras and home office equipment, and housewares, including luggage and furnishings, make up the rest. In its early history, Luria functioned as a general merchandise wholesaler and a catalog showroom chain. After undergoing a conversion from catalog showrooms to customer self-serve operations and closing several of its less productive stores, the Luria's chain consists of 28 large superstores throughout Florida. The company's central distribution facility is located at its Miami Lakes headquarters. Although Luria is publicly traded, majority interest in the company is owned by Ocean Reef Management, an investment company controlled by brothers Rachmil and Ilia Lekach.

In many ways, the history of Luria mirrors the classic story of immigrant success in twentieth century America. Company founder Lazer Luria began the company humbly in 1898, hawking silver on the streets of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Ten years later, his son, Philip Luria, opened the company's first permanently-situated store, a small wholesale shop on Broadway. After Philip Luria died in 1911, his son, Joseph Luria, managed the flourishing wholesale business over the next few decades. In addition to silver, the company started dealing in radios, toasters, and other household items. The Luria family business quickly became a major supplier to retail outlets as discount stores and department stores proliferated.

ING was founded in 1991 by a merger between Nationale-Nederlanden and NMB Postbank Group. During the past 15 years ING has become a multinational with very diverse international activities.

The roots of ING can be traced to the insurers De Nationale Levensverzekering Bank and De Nederlanden van 1845 and to the public bank services such as De Rijkspostspaarbank and De Postcheque- and Girodienst, as well as to the Nederlandsche Middenstands Bank. These are the legal predecessons of the ‘founding fathers’ of ING; Nationale-Nederlanden and NMB Postbank Group.

The oldest legal predecessor is the Kooger Doodenbos from Koog, Noord Holland, founded in 1743. During that period many regional funds were created to insure people from certain communities, professions, widows and orphans against bad fortune. Many of these small organisations were taken over by larger nationwide operating companies such as De Nationale Levensverzekering Bank. The fire insurers were the first to undertake international activities, starting in the Dutch Indies, but later also in the rest of Asia and in America. This created the foundation for the international company ING is today.