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Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange

  • McDonald'sRichard and Maurice McDonald opened their first restaurant at 1398 North E Street in San Bernardino, California on the 15th of May 1940.
  • Nike, Inc.Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman established Blue Ribbon Sports on the 25th of January 1964. The pair operated out of Eugene, Oregon as a distributor for…
  • The Walt Disney CompanyOn the 16th of October 1923, two brothers named Walt and Roy Disney signed a contract in Kansas City to start a business called Disney Brothers Cartoon…
  • BPIn May 1908, a group of British geologists discovered a large amount of oil at Masjed Soleyman located in the Khuzestan Province in the southwest of Persia.
  • Wiley (publisher)Charles Wiley opened a print shop in Manhattan in 1807. The small business published works by James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving during the…
  • JPMorgan ChaseAaron Burr opened the Bank of the Manhattan Company on the 1st of September 1799. The bank began as a water carrier before transforming into a financial…
  • VerizonIn 1983, the US Department of Justice reached a settlement with AT&T to dismantle its monopoly. This legal action dissolved the Bell System into seven…
  • SpotifyIn April 2006, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon established Spotify in Stockholm, Sweden. The idea emerged from a moment of frustration when the peer-to-peer…
  • AB InBevIn 1987, two historic Belgian breweries merged to form Interbrew. The Artois brewery had been established by 1366 under the name Den Hoorn.
  • UnileverIn 1930, two massive companies joined forces to create a new entity. Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie merged with British soap maker Lever Brothers.
  • General MotorsWilliam C. Durant stood in Flint, Michigan, on the 16th of September 1908 and signed papers to create a holding company for Buick.
  • Goldman SachsIn 1869, Marcus Goldman opened a one-room basement office next to a coal chute in New York City. He began by financing commercial paper for small…
  • Morgan StanleyThe firm formally opened its doors for business on the 16th of September 1935, at 2 Wall Street in New York City. This specific date marked the birth of…
  • Bank of AmericaOn the 17th of October 1904, Amadeo Giannini opened a small storefront in San Francisco called Bank of Italy. He targeted Italian immigrants who faced…
  • FedExFrederick W. Smith wrote a term paper at Yale University in 1965 that proposed a revolutionary delivery system. His professor gave the idea an F, claiming it…
  • StubHubEric Baker stood in a theater line, unable to buy tickets for The Lion King on Broadway. He needed a way to find secondhand seats without paying inflated…
  • RedditSteve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian launched Reddit in June 2005 while they were roommates at the University of Virginia. The pair attended a lecture by Paul…
  • Alibaba GroupOn the 28th of June 1999, Jack Ma stood in a small apartment in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, with seventeen friends and students to launch Alibaba.com.
  • MastercardIn 1966, Karl H. Hinke, an executive vice president at Marine Midland Bank, asked representatives of several other banks to meet him in Buffalo, New York.
  • Bristol Myers SquibbIn 1858, Edward Robinson Squibb opened a small laboratory in Brooklyn, New York. He began selling pure medical supplies to doctors who demanded higher…
  • ValvolineIn the early 1860s, Dr. John Ellis traveled to Titusville, Pennsylvania, a town at the heart of America's new petroleum industry.
  • IBMOn the 16th of June 1911, four separate companies merged in New York State to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company.
  • BakktIn August 2018, Intercontinental Exchange formed Bakkt in partnership with Boston Consulting Group. The alliance also included Microsoft and Starbucks among…
  • Home DepotOn the 22nd of June 1979, two stores opened in metro Atlanta. One sat in Doraville while the other stood on Memorial Drive in Decatur.
  • Wyndham Hotels & ResortsThe year 1990 marked the founding of Hospitality Franchise Systems, a company created specifically to acquire hotel franchises.
  • CourseraStanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller launched Coursera in 2012. They had begun offering their own Stanford courses…
  • GameStopIn 1984, two former Harvard Business School classmates named James McCurry and Gary M. Kusin opened a software store in Dallas called Babbage's.
  • BlackRockLarry Fink stood in a New York office in 1988 with $5 million in credit and a vision to fix what he had broken. He had lost $90 million as head of First…
  • MGM Resorts InternationalKirk Kerkorian bought a controlling stake in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1969. This airline and casino tycoon struggled with debt from his…
  • Quanta ServicesJohn R. Colson stood at the edge of a fragmented industry in 1971 after leaving the U.S. Army. He began his civilian career at PAR Electrical Contractors in…
  • Southern CompanyThe year 1924 marked the birth of a holding company called Southeastern Power & Light. This entity was formed to manage Alabama Traction, Light and Power…
  • Snowflake Inc.In July 2012, three men stood in San Mateo, California to launch a new company. Benoît Dageville and Thierry Cruanes had spent years as data architects at…
  • Ford Motor CompanyHenry Ford stood in a converted factory on the 16th of June 1903, and signed papers to establish the Ford Motor Company.
  • General DynamicsIsaac Leopold Rice bought the Holland Torpedo Boat Company from John Philip Holland in 1899. This transaction marked the beginning of what would become a…
  • SonyIn 1946, Masaru Ibuka opened a small electronics shop inside the Shirokiya department store building in Tokyo's Nihonbashi district.
  • The Coca-Cola CompanyIn July 1886, pharmacist John Stith Pemberton from Columbus, Georgia, invented the original Coca-Cola drink. The product was advertised as helpful in the…
  • Visa Inc.On the 18th of September 1958, Bank of America officially launched its BankAmericard credit card program in Fresno, California.
  • CencoraThe year 2001 marked a pivotal moment in American healthcare when two major pharmaceutical distributors merged to form AmerisourceBergen.
  • DiageoOn the 17th of December 1997, shares in a new company named Diageo began trading on the London Stock Exchange. This event marked the end of two separate…
  • Occidental PetroleumLos Angeles, 1920 marked the birth of Occidental Petroleum. Armand Hammer took control in 1957 and steered the company through a decade of rapid growth.
  • GlobantMartín Migoya, Guibert Englebienne, Martín Umaran and Néstor Nocetti launched Globant in 2003. They established the company within the streets of Buenos…
  • NRG EnergyNRG Energy began its life in 1989 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Northern States Power Company. This parent utility later became Xcel Energy, but the split…
  • Public Service Enterprise GroupThe Public Service Enterprise Group began its life in 1903 within the industrial heart of New Jersey. A group of more than four hundred gas, electric and…
  • Townsquare MediaTerry Jacobs founded Regent Communications in 1994. He had previously created Jacor Communications as its CEO back in 1979.
  • Oaktree Capital ManagementIn 1995, a group of former TCW Group principals established Oaktree Capital Management in Los Angeles. Within three months of that founding, more than 30 TCW…
  • Brunswick CorporationJ. M. Brunswick arrived in the United States from Switzerland at age 15. He opened his machine shop on the 15th of September 1845, in Cincinnati, Ohio.