Here is a list of the world’s oldest companies:
1. Kongō Gumi
Although they have now ceased trading, no piece about historical firms would be complete without at least mentioning the Japanese temple builder Kongo Gumi. This business had been trading for 14 centuries and was, until 2006, the world’s oldest continuously operating family business.
2. Tuttle Farm
Tuttle Farm in New Hampshire has been an inspiring case of a withstanding American family business. Although it is no longer family-owned, after selling to and becoming a part of nearby Tendercrop Farm in Massachusetts in 2013, prior to the sale, it was run by one family for 381 years
3. IBM
A comparatively newer company—that is about to celebrate its 113th birthday—is IBM. International Business Machines—or its predecessor, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company—was founded on June 16, 1911, by the financier Charles Ranlett Flint. It was renamed International Business Machines in 1924.
4. Lloyd’s
Today, Lloyd’s is the world’s leading insurance market, housed over the pond in London, England. However, its beginnings lie in the more modest surroundings of a 17th-century coffee house.
5. Consolidated Edison
Con Edison—Con Ed to generations of New Yorkers—started way back in 1823, when its earliest corporate entity, the New York Gas Light Company, received a state charter to install natural gas lines in lower Manhattan, replacing the whale oil lamps that dated back to the 1760s
