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 a government and operated trading posts over an area 1,000 miles wide by 3,000 miles long. The company's earliest business consisted in purchasing furs from the Indians, and selling them in Europe at large profits. Later, when Canada began to be settled, the Company took to selling parts of its enormous land holdings to colonists. In 1871 it surrendered its governmental powers, and continued as a commercial concern purely, still owning a huge tract of land in Canada.

Today, the Company's assets are roughly $30,000,000, consisting of 2,862,000 acres of Canadian land and a number of stores valued at $6,000,000. It is capitalized at $15,000,000, consisting mostly of $25 par shares. Its net profits each year run about $1,000,000.