Dutch East India Company

Chartered on 20 March 1602 by the States General of the Dutch Republic, which granted it a 21-year monopoly on Asian trade and, unusually for the time, quasi-governmental powers to wage war, negotiate treaties and coin money. It is generally regarded by economic historians as the first company to issue tradable shares to the general public and the first to raise permanent, pooled capital rather than capital committed voyage by voyage, which is why it is often called the first modern multinational corporation and the first true joint-stock company in the modern sense. Its shares traded on the early Amsterdam exchange from the Company's founding year onward.