Trading company in the context of "East Indiaman"

The Dutch colonial empire (Dutch: Nederlandse Koloniale Rijk) comprised overseas territories and trading posts under some form of Dutch control from the early 17th to late 20th centuries, including those initially administered by Dutch chartered companies—primarily the Dutch East India Company (1602–1799) and Dutch West India Company (1621–1792)—and subsequently governed by the Dutch Republic (1581–1795) and modern Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815–1975).

Following the de facto independence of the Dutch Republic from the Spanish Empire in the late 16th century, various trading companies known as voorcompagnie led maritime expeditions overseas in search of commercial opportunities. By 1600, Dutch traders and mariners had penetrated the lucrative Asian spice trade but lacked the capital or manpower to secure or expand their ventures; this prompted the States General in 1602 to consolidate several trading enterprises into the semi-state-owned Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC), which was granted a monopoly over the Asian trade.

The United East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie [vərˈeːnɪɣdə oːstˈɪndisə kɔmpɑˈɲi]; abbr. VOC [veː(j)oːˈseː]), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies, it was granted a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia. Shares in the company could be purchased by any citizen of the Dutch Republic and bought and sold in open-air secondary markets, one of which became the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. The company possessed quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike its own coins, and establish colonies. Because it traded across multiple colonies and countries from both the East and the West, the VOC is sometimes considered to have been the world's first multinational corporation.

Statistically, the VOC eclipsed all of its rivals in the Asian trade. Between 1602 and 1796, the VOC sent nearly a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships, and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods and slaves. By contrast, the rest of Europe combined sent 882,412 people from 1500 to 1795. The fleet of the English, later British East India Company, the VOC's nearest competitor, was a distant second to its total traffic, with 2,690 ships and one-fifth the tonnage of goods carried by the VOC. The VOC enjoyed huge profits from its spice monopoly and slave trading activities through most of the 17th century.

The Virginia Company was an English trading company chartered by King James I on 10 April 1606 with the objective of colonizing the eastern coast of America. The coast was named Virginia, after Elizabeth I, and it stretched from present-day Maine to the Carolinas. The company's shareholders were Londoners, and it was distinguished from the Plymouth Company, which was chartered at the same time and composed largely of gentlemen from Plymouth, England.

The biggest trade breakthrough resulted after the adventurer and colonist John Rolfe introduced several sweeter strains of tobacco from the Caribbean. These yielded a more appealing product than the harsh-tasting tobacco native to Virginia. Cultivation of Rolfe's new tobacco strains produced a strong commodity crop for export for the London Company and other early English colonies and helped to balance a national trade deficit with Spain. The company failed in 1624, following the widespread destruction of the Great Massacre of 1622 by indigenous peoples in the colony, which decimated the English population. On 24 May, James dissolved the company and made Virginia a royal colony from England with propertied male colonists retaining some representative-government through the lower house, the House of Burgesses.

Austrian East India Company (German: Österreichische Ostindien-Kompanie) is a catchall term referring to a series of Habsburg trading companies based in Ostend and Trieste. The Imperial Asiatic Company of Trieste and Antwerp (French: Société impériale asiatique de Trieste et Anvers) and Asiatic Company of Trieste or the Trieste Company (Société asiatique de Trieste) were founded by William Bolts in 1775 and wound up in 1785.

Samsung Group (Korean: 삼성; pronounced [sʰamsɔŋ]; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous affiliated businesses, most of which operate under the Samsung brand, and is the largest chaebol (business conglomerate) in South Korea. As of 2024, Samsung has the world's fifth-highest brand value.

Founded in 1938 by Lee Byung-chul as a trading company, Samsung diversified into various sectors, including food processing, textiles, insurance, securities, and retail, over the next three decades. In the late 1960s, Samsung entered the electronics industry, followed by the construction and shipbuilding sectors in the mid-1970s—areas that would fuel its future growth. After Lee died in 1987, Samsung was divided into five business groups: Samsung Group, Shinsegae Group, CJ Group, Hansol Group, and JoongAng Group.

The Company of Merchant Adventurers of London was a trading company founded in the City of London in the early 15th century. It brought together leading merchants in a regulated company in the nature of a guild. Its members’ main business was exporting cloth, especially white (undyed) broadcloth, in exchange for a large range of foreign goods. It traded in northern European ports, competing with the Hanseatic League. It came to focus on Hamburg.

The Ostend Company (Dutch: Oostendse Compagnie; French: Compagnie d'Ostende), officially the General Company Established in the Austrian Netherlands for Commerce and Navigation in the Indies (French: Compagnie générale établie dans les Pays-Bas Autrichiens pour le Commerce et la Navigation aux Indes) was a chartered trading company in the Austrian Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) in the Holy Roman Empire which was established in 1722 to trade with the East and West Indies. It took its name from the Flemish port city of Ostend.

For a few years it provided strong competition for the more established British, Dutch, and French East India Companies, notably in the lucrative tea trade with China. It established two settlements in India. Despite its profitability, the company was eventually ordered to close down in 1731 after the British government exerted diplomatic pressure on Austria, fearing the company's effects on their own traders. Its disestablishment was made a precondition for the Treaty of Vienna and for creating an alliance between the two states. The Ostend Company can be considered the first attempt by Austria to trade with the East Indies; the second being the much less successful Austrian East India Company, founded in 1775.