How the Oldest Company in the World Survived Nearly 1,500 Years

Re:How the Oldest Company in the World Survived Nearly 1,500... by pjc50 on Monday September 02, 2024 @05:18AM (#41423865)

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.

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Re:How the Oldest Company in the World Survived Nearly 1,500... by hinkley on Monday September 02, 2024 @11:43AM (#41426395)

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.

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Re:How the Oldest Company in the World Survived Nearly 1,500... by Animats on Monday September 02, 2024 @06:15PM (#41429216)

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

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