A trading company is a

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

that works with different kinds of

products Product may refer to: Business * Product (business), an item that serves as a solution to a specific consumer problem. * Product (project management), a deliverable or set of deliverables that contribute to a business solution Mathematics * Produ ...

sold for

consumer A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. T ...

, business purposes. In contemporary times, trading companies buy a specialized range of products, shopkeeper them, and coordinate delivery of products to

customer In sales, commerce, and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product or an idea - obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction or exchange for ...

s. Trading companies may connect buyers and sellers, but not partake in the ownership or storage of goods, earning their revenue through sales commissions. They may also be structured to engage in commerce with foreign countries or territories. During times of

colonization Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When ...

, some trading companies were granted a charter, giving them "rights to a specific territory within an area claimed by the authority granting the charter including legal title, a monopoly of trade, and governmental and military jurisdiction".

Trading companies

* Afghan-German Trading Company *

African & Eastern Trade Corporation The African and Eastern Trade Corporation was incorporated in Liverpool in 1919 and had establishments in several African Colonies. It served in the Congo side by side with the British Consulate as a semi-official representative for British trading ...

* Augustine Heard & Co. *

Austrian East India Company Austrian East India Company (german: Österreichische Ostindien-Kompanie) is a catchall term referring to a series of Austrian trading companies based in Ostend and Trieste. The Imperial Asiatic Company of Trieste and Antwerp (french: Société i ...

Barbary Company The Marocco Company or Barbary Company was a trading company established by Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1585 through a patent granted to the Earls of Warwick and Leicester, as well as forty others. When she wrote the patents, Elizabeth emphasi ...

* Bergen Greenland Company * Black Sea Trade Company (Trade Company Poland) *

Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation The Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited (BBTC) is an Indian trading company based in Mumbai which is owned by the Wadia Group. It was formed in 1863 by the Wallace Brothers of Scotland. It is India's oldest publicly traded company, and ...

Compagnie de Chine The Compagnie de Chine was a French trading company established in 1660 by the Catholic society Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement, in order to dispatch missionaries to Asia (initially Bishops François Pallu, Pierre Lambert de la Motte and Ignace Cotol ...

Compagnie de Saint-Christophe The Compagnie de Saint-Christophe was a company created and chartered by French adventurers to exploit the island of Saint-Christophe, the present-day Saint Kitts and Nevis. In 1625, a French adventurer, Pierre Bélain sieur d'Esnambuc, landed on S ...

Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique The Company of the American Islands (french: Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique) was a French chartered company that in 1635 took over the administration of the French portion of ''Saint-Christophe island'' (Saint Kitts) from the Compagnie de Saint- ...

Compagnie du Nord The (also referred to as the Northern Company) was a French colonial fur-trading company, founded in Québec City 1682 by a group of Canadien financiers with the express intent of competing with the English Hudson's Bay Company. It was founded by C ...

Company of the Moluccas The Company of the Moluccas () was a French trading company which was established in 1615 for trade in the East Indies. The company received trading privileges for the Far East for a period of 18 years. On 1 June 1604, the French king Henry IV is ...

* Company of Habitants *

Company of One Hundred Associates The Company of One Hundred Associates (French: formally the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France, or colloquially the Compagnie des Cent-Associés or Compagnie du Canada), or Company of New France, was a French trading and colonization company cha ...

* Company of Scotland * Comprador * Courteen association *

Danish East India Company The Danish East India Company ( da, Ostindisk Kompagni) refers to two separate Danish-Norwegian chartered companies. The first company operated between 1616 and 1650. The second company existed between 1670 and 1729, however, in 1730 it was re-fo ...

Danish West India Company The Danish West India Company () or Danish West IndiaGuinea Company (') was a Denmark–Norway, Dano-Norwegian chartered company that operated out of the colonies in the Danish West Indies. It is estimated that 120,000 Atlantic slave trade, enslav ...

* David Sassoon & Co. * Dent & Co. *

Dieppe Company The Dieppe Company (french: Compagnie de Dieppe) was a 17th-century French overseas trading company. It was founded on 1 June 1604 through the issuance of letter patents by Henry IV to Dieppe merchants, with an eye to Far East trade possibilities ...

* Dodwell & Co. *

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

Dutch West India Company The Dutch West India Company ( nl, Geoctrooieerde Westindische Compagnie, ''WIC'' or ''GWC''; ; en, Chartered West India Company) was a chartered company of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors. Among its founders was Willem Usselincx ( ...

* E.D. Sassoon & Co. *

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

French East India Company The French East India Company (french: Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales) was a colonial commercial enterprise, founded on 1 September 1664 to compete with the English (later British) and Dutch trading companies in th ...

French West India Company The French West India Company (french: Compagnie française des Indes occidentales) was a French trading company founded on 28 May 1664, some three months before the foundation of the corresponding eastern company, by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and diss ...

General Trade Company The General Trade Company ( da, Det almindelige Handelskompagni) was a Dano-Norwegian trading company charged with administering the realm's settlements and trade in Greenland. The company existed from 1747 to 1774 and managed the government of Gre ...

* Gibb, Livingston & Co. * Grand Anadolu İnternational Commodity Trading House *

Guinea Company (London) The Company of Adventurers of London Trading to the Ports of Africa, more commonly known as "the Guinea Company" was a private joint stock company founded to trade in Africa for profit. It was a trading company trading in slaves,Hugh Thomas, ''Th ...

* Guinea Company of Scotland *

Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas The Royal Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas (modern spelling variant ''Gipuzkoan'', known also as the ''Guipuzcoana Company'', es, Real Compañia Guipuzcoana de Caracas; eu, Caracasko Gipuzkoar Errege Konpainia) was a Spanish Basque trading compan ...

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

* Hutchison Whampoa * Indonesia Trading Company *

Jardine Matheson Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited (also known as Jardines) is a Hong Kong-based Bermuda-domiciled British multinational conglomerate. It has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and secondary listings on the Singapore Exchange and ...

Kaptallah Kaptallah, also known as Kaptanle () is a historic Somali clan. The clan established the port city of Bandar Qassim (today Bosaso) in the early 9th century, and traded with Persia, India and the Arabian peninsula. The clan belongs to the Harti c ...

King George's Sound Company The King George's Sound Company, also known as Richard Cadman Etches and Company after its "prime mover and principal investor", was an English company formed in 1785 to engage in the maritime fur trade on the northwest coast of North America. Th ...

* Kunst and Albers *

Lamson & Hubbard Trading Company Lamson & Hubbard Trading Company (also referred to as Lamson & Hubbard Canadian Co. or Lamson Trading Co.) was an enterprise engaged in the fur trading business in the Canadian North during the early 20th century, with over fourteen outposts in the ...

Levant Company The Levant Company was an English chartered company formed in 1592. Elizabeth I of England approved its initial charter on 11 September 1592 when the Venice Company (1583) and the Turkey Company (1581) merged, because their charters had expired, ...

Li & Fung Li & Fung Limited is a Bermuda-incorporated, Hong Kong-based supply chain manager. In 2020, it was reportedly struggling to turn its century-old business around for years. On 13 February 2017, it was removed from the blue chip index: Hang Sen ...

London and Bristol Company The London and Bristol Company came about in the early 17th century when English merchants had begun to express an interest in the Newfoundland fishery. Financed by a syndicate of investors John Guy, himself a Bristol merchant, visited Newfoundl ...

London Company The London Company, officially known as the Virginia Company of London, was a division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for colonizing the east coast of North America between latitudes 34° and 41° N. History Origins The territor ...

Middelburgsche Commercie Compagnie The Middelburgsche Commercie Compagnie (MCC) was a Dutch trading company established in 1720 in the Zeeland capital of Middelburg, Netherlands. It was initially called the Commercial Company of the city of Middelburg. However, after the archive i ...

Mississippi Company The Mississippi Company (french: Compagnie du Mississippi; founded 1684, named the Company of the West from 1717, and the Company of the Indies from 1719) was a corporation holding a business monopoly in French colonies in North America and th ...

MMTC Ltd MMTC Ltd., Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation of India, is one of the two highest earners of foreign exchange for India and India's largest public sector trading body. Not only handling the export and import of primary products such as co ...

Muscovy Company The Muscovy Company (also called the Russia Company or the Muscovy Trading Company russian: Московская компания, Moskovskaya kompaniya) was an English trading company chartered in 1555. It was the first major chartered joint s ...

, English trading company chartered in 1555 as the first major chartered joint stock company *

North West Company The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great weal ...

Northern Traders Company The Northern Traders Company was an enterprise engaged in the fur trading business in the north of Canada, with outposts in the Athabasca- Mackenzie River district in Alberta and the Northwest Territories during the early 20th century. They were ...

* Northwest Cameroon Company * Olyphant & Co. *

Portuguese East India Company The Portuguese East India Company ( pt, Companhia do commércio da Índia or ) was a short-lived and ill-fated attempt by Philip III of Portugal, to create a chartered company to ensure the security of their interests in India, in the face of th ...

* Royal African Company *

Royal Greenland Trading Department The Royal Greenland Trading Department ( da, Den Kongelige Grønlandske Handel, KGH) was a Danish state enterprise charged with administering the realm's settlements and trade in Greenland. The company managed the government of Greenland from 177 ...

* Royal Philippine Company *

Samuel Samuel & Co Samuel Samuel & Co, was a trading company founded in Yokohama, Japan, by Samuel Samuel in partnership with his elder brother Marcus Samuel, creator of the Shell Transport and Trading company. The opening of this trading company helped pave the wa ...

* Serapis Global Company * Shewan, Tomes & Co. *

Society of Berbice The Society of Berbice (Dutch: ''Sociëteit van Berbice'') was founded on 24 October 1720 by the owners of the colony of Berbice currently in Guyana. These owners (Arnold Dix, Pieter Schuurmans, Cornelis van Peere, and brothers Nicolaas and Hendri ...

Society of Suriname The Society of Suriname (Dutch: ''Sociëteit van Suriname'') was a Dutch private company, modelled on the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Colbert and set up on 21 May 1683 to profit from the management and defense of the Dutch Republic's colony of Surinam ...

Somers Isles Company The Somers Isles Company (fully, the Company of the City of London for the Plantacion of The Somers Isles or the Company of The Somers Isles) was formed in 1615 to operate the English colony of the Somers Isles, also known as Bermuda, as a commerc ...

* South Cameroon Company *

Swedish East India Company The Swedish East India Company ( sv, Svenska Ostindiska Companiet or ''SOIC'') was founded in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1731 for the purpose of conducting trade with China and the Far East. The venture was inspired by the success of the Dutch East ...

Swedish South Company The Swedish South Company, also known as the Company of New-Sweden (Swedish, ', '), was a trading company from Sweden founded in 1626, that supported the trade between Sweden and its colony New Sweden, in North America. The colony was envisioned ...

Swedish West India Company The Swedish West India Company ( sv, Svenska Västindiska Kompaniet) was a Swedish chartered company which was based in the West Indies. It was the main operator in the Swedish slave trade during its existence. Between 1786 and 1805, the company ...

Virginia Company The Virginia Company was an English trading company chartered by King James I on 10 April 1606 with the object of colonizing the eastern coast of America. The coast was named Virginia, after Elizabeth I, and it stretched from present-day Main ...

By country

Philippines

* Amaggi Group

Japan

Hartz Mountain Corporation Hartz is a surname, and may refer to: *Donna Hartz, Aboriginal Australian midwife and academic * Harris Hartz (born 1947), U.S. federal judge *Harry Hartz (1896—1974), U.S. racecar driver * Jim Hartz (born 1940), U.S. television personality ...

* Inabata & Co., Ltd. *

Itochu is a Japanese corporation based in Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka and Aoyama, Minato, Tokyo. It is one of the largest Japanese ''sogo shosha'' (general trading companies). Among Japanese trading companies, it is distinguished by not being descend ...

* JEM Industries Corp *

Marubeni (, OSE: 8002, NSE: 8002) is a ''sōgō shōsha'' (general trading company) headquartered in Nihonbashi, Chuo, Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the largest ''sogo shosha'' and has leading market shares in cereal and paper pulp trading as well as a st ...

Mitsubishi Corporation is Japan's largest trading company (sogo shosha) and a member of the Mitsubishi keiretsu. As of 2022, Mitsubishi Corporation employs over 80,000 people and has ten business segments, including finance, banking, energy, machinery, chemicals, an ...

* Mitsui & Co. *

Sogo shosha are Japanese companies that trade in a wide range of products and materials. In addition to acting as intermediaries, ''sōgō shōsha'' also engage in logistics, plant development and other services, as well as international resource explorat ...

* Sojitz Corporation * Sumitomo Corporation *

Toyota Tsusho is a sōgō shōsha (trading company), a member of the Toyota Group. Toyota Tsusho has a worldwide presence through its many subsidiaries and operating divisions, including over 150 offices, and 900 subsidiaries and affiliates around the world. ...

Türkiye

* Grand Anadolu İnternational Commodity Trading House

South Korea

POSCO International POSCO International Corporation (포스코인터내셔널) is South Korea's largest trading company and a subsidiary of POSCO. The company was founded by Kim Woo-choong in 1967 as Daewoo Industrial Co., Ltd, which ran its business in trading and ...

Hyundai Corporation Hyundai Corporation () is a South Korean company founded in 1976 as part of the Hyundai '' chaebol''. It is a general trading company providing export and import services with a wide variety of products including marine vessels, industrial plan ...

LG Corporation LG Corporation (or LG Group) (), formerly Lucky-Goldstar from 1983 to 1995 (Korean: ''Leokki Geumseong''; ), is a South Korean multinational conglomerate founded by Koo In-hwoi and managed by successive generations of his family. It is t ...

Samsung C&T Corporation Samsung C&T Corporation ("Construction & Trading Corporation"; formerly Samsung Corporation; Korean: 삼성물산), is a South Korean construction and engineering company. It was founded in 1938 as the first Samsung company and was initially in ...

* SK Networks

Oil traders

Chemoil Chemoil Energy Limited is an oil trading company incorporated in Hong Kong and has its headquarters in Singapore. The company is amongst the largest independent physical suppliers of marine fuel products in the world. It has physical operations ...

DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract Launched by the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) on 1 June 2007, the DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract (OQD) is the Asian crude oil pricing benchmark. The contract is traded on the CME Group’s electronic platform CME Globex, and cleared through ...

Glencore Glencore plc is a Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas head office is in London and its registered office is in Saint Helier, Jersey. The current company was c ...

Gunvor Gunvor Group Ltd is a Cypriot-domiciled multinational commodity trading company registered in Cyprus, with its main trading office in Geneva, Switzerland. Gunvor also has trading offices in Singapore, the Bahamas, and Dubai, with a network of re ...

Mercuria Energy Group Mercuria Energy Group Ltd is a Cypriot-domiciled multinational commodity trading company active in a wide spectrum of global energy markets including crude oil and refined petroleum products, natural gas (including LNG), power, biodiesel, base ...

* MOL Group * Salam Investment *

Trafigura Trafigura Group Pte. Ltd. is a Singaporean-based Swiss multinational commodity trading company founded in 1993 that trades in base metals and energy. It is the world's largest private metals trader and second-largest oil trader having built or ...

Vitol Vitol is a Swiss-based multinational energy and commodity trading company that was founded in Rotterdam in 1966 by Henk Viëtor and Jacques Detiger. Though trading, logistics and distribution are at the core of its business, these are complement ...

Vopak Royal Vopak N.V. ( nl, Koninklijke Vopak) is a Dutch independent multinational company that stores and handles products ranging from chemicals, oil, gases and LNG to biofuels and vegoils. Its purpose is to "Store vital products with care", which ...

References

External links

* {{commonscat-inline, Trading companies * Distribution (marketing)

Trading Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...