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Berenberg_Bank, private bankers since 1590, and Beretta, making guns since 1526, are probably the oldest large companies. There are a few wineries, hotels, and religious goods makers that are older, but quite small. Berenberg remains a successful merchant bank today, and Beretta guns can be purchased wherever guns are sold.

[1] https://www.berenberg.de/

[2] https://www.beretta.com/

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Stora Enso has 20000 employees and roots in the 13th century. In the 17th centry Stora produced two thirds of all copper in the world.

"The oldest preserved share in the Swedish copper mining company Stora Kopparberg (Falun Mine) in Falun was issued in 1288. It granted the Bishop of Västerås 1/8th (12.5%) ownership, and it is also the oldest known preserved share in any company in the world."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stora_Enso

From Wikipedia: “Some observers consider Stora Enso to be the oldest limited liability company in the world”.

Interesting, especially considering that Sweden didn’t have limited liability companies until 1st of January 1849 [1]. Any ideas how this worked?

1. https://www.foretagskallan.se/foretagskallan-nyheter/lektion...

I assume the charter issued by the king in 1347 declared limitations of liability for the owners of the company.

> Interesting, especially considering that Sweden didn’t have limited liability companies until 1st of January 1849 [1]. Any ideas how this worked?

Legal personhood dates back to (at least) Ancient Rome:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person

Medieval guilds, city charters, universities were all forms of such. Liability would be implicitly included in such structures.

That was when Sweden got a more general law of limited liability cooperations. There existed limited liability cooperations before that but they were created on an ad hoc basis by the government.

It was likely created by an act of government/royalty/etc.

The UK law formalizing the structure of LLCs didn't really come around until the 1800s. Think of how many institutions in the UK are older than that (e.g., Bank of England is from 1694).

Or for something that is a little more distinct from the government itself--Hudson's Bay Company in Canada was formed in 1670. Canada didn't exist yet and the laws weren't on the books. It was created by royal charter. It's currently owned by an American private investment firm.

Back then if you pissed off the king he could revoke your charter.

So effectively we used to have the death penalty for companies that committed treason-adjacent acts, or killed customers.

Interesting idea - although wouldn't it have been the government that could, and still can, bring down the corporate death penalty if annoyed?

I think even back then the kings were losing power to the governments that ruled in their name.

It's also interesting to note that some of Europe's colonizing was actually done by companies which had armies, and definitely killed at least some of their customers (whether you think the customers were the colonizers or the colonized).

what is the difference between the Catholic Church and a business?

Roughly the same as the difference between a country and a business.

not really

Why not? The Vatican is its own country (and throughout history more a "real" country with lots of ordinary people living inside its borders).

Yes, the Papal States (the state that the Pope ruled over between ~800 and 1870) were to a large extent the successor to the Exarchate of Ravenna, the area that the Byzantine Empire reconquered in Italy from the mid-500s to the mid-700s. Ravenna had become the capital of the Western Roman Empire long before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, since it was closer to the action on the frontiers of Central and Eastern Europe.

maybe historically, but the Vatican is barely a country. if it had any citizens beyond employees of the institution maybe it could count as a coontry

You’re the one who picked the only church that has its own country. Don’t shoot the messenger.

so does disney. it's irrelevant. neither of them have any real citizens other than employees of the institution.

a church is a completely different institution to a country. countries are not decentralised. they do not advertise. they are (usually) not selling an idea. you cannot just decide to become a member of a country. the catholic church is all of those things and so are businesses. the catholic church is essentially a very entrenched business with a weak facade of being a state.

maybe in terms of scale they're similar to a state, but then how many people do the biggest businesses have as customers? billions?

A business generally don’t threat its audience with post-life infinite burn in Hell if they don’t buy its product. Also they don’t impose celibacy to their employees. Oh, and tax exemptions, I guess.

Yeah, modern corporations tend to threat people with things like raising sea levels to make them buy electric cars or photovoltaic panels, or vegan food. They also impose their woke worldviews on their employees. And don't get me started on tax exemptions.

No, those threats come from scientists, the companies just change their products over time to give people those options.

The most interesting thing about these long lasting companies is how their governance changes over time considering how different society is from when they were originally founded. Countries have come and gone within the lifetime of these companies. There have been entire paradigm shifts in terms of how companies operate. And yet they still exist through it all.

It looks like most of this centuries-long companies are family owned which sort of explains why do they survive all sorts of extreme political and economic changes that would otherwise break most companies. But it would be interesting to see if there's an actual study to explain this.

Being family owned is still impressive. The founder of the company probably has many thousands of heir today so how the company lived without being split between heirs is surprising.

> Countries have come and gone within the lifetime of these companies.

Are there any that have existed as long as this company? Some sort of have if you are a bit vague and wave your hands a bit.

Depends entirely on how you define the parameters of the question. Egypt has been around for a very long time, but is the ~3000BC Egypt the same country as the 2024 Egypt? Did Egypt stop being Egypt during the period of Roman rule? What about during Macedonian rule? Did people 5000 years ago even have a concept of a “country” that would align with what we think makes a country in 2024? Do people in 2024 even have an agreed upon concept of what a country is today? (I would say evidently not) Does the country of ancient Persia still exist? If it’s longest contiguous self-sovereignty then probably Japan would be pretty high up the list. If its longest surviving constitution, then the USA and San Marino would also be two of the oldest countries in the world. But is San Marino even a country? Certainly not by every single metric you could possibly use to define one. Is the Magna Carta still in effect? Some of it is, but is that enough to make it the oldest surviving constitution?

To make the question meaningful you probably have to make it a lot more specific. Otherwise the answer is just a debate about what constitutes a country, and what constitutes it coming into and out of existence.

I wonder how many of these were considered semi benevolent either during their entire life span or lucky or wise enough to do so during times of turmoil.

Some stores will have people willing to stick their neck out to defend them during riots. Some have good insurance and don’t care. Which ones get obliterated when the pitchforks and torches come out?

I once ate at a falafel restaurant in Jerusalem that was 1,000 years old.

I think there’s many restaurants that last a long time, but they aren’t what I’d consider a “large” company.

The restaurant, or the building it was in?

It has been speculated that its history may go back to Pharaonic Egypt.

However, the earliest written references to falafel from Egyptian sources date to the 19th century

-Wikipedia

I doubt there's a 1000 yr old falafel shop in Jerusalem, if you remember the name, pray tell

I’m thinking also of Canson (founded 1557), the paper manufacturer and Richard de Bas (1326). Even Monnaie de Paris dates back from 864. Actually there are many companies still alive today that are more than 400/500 years old.

Hmm, I thought the oldest bank was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banca_Monte_dei_Paschi_di_Sien... , which has its origin in 1472 (although not in the present form).

I had to go check whether they'd survived the 2008 financial crisis without being absorbed, and I think they did. A lot of the UK's oldest banks and building societies got absorbed in a consolidation wave immediately before (and partly causative of) the financial crisis.

I get the impression that the M&A ahead of the crisis was the crisis itself. The fever that marks the beginning of the illness, before the nastier symptoms present.

There were many reorganizations, bankruptcies, government interventions, and other churn in the last 20 years. Something came out with the same name, but the primary owner is currently Italy's ministry of finance. Whether the company "survived" is a good question.

It's like the Hudson's Bay Company, which claims continuous existence since 1670. That's really a unit of US mall operator NRDC Equity Partners, which acquired Hudson's Bay and switched to using that name. They also own Saks Fifth Avenue and various other department store chains.[1]

[1] https://www.nrdcequity.com/timeline

> There are a few wineries, hotels, and religious goods makers that are older, but quite small.

Wineries, hotels, and makers of ceremonial goods are indeed common among older companies listed on Wikipedia.

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies

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