Famous Side-Businesses

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James Allen:

Jon Haugsand:

Well, the beverage is still pretty well known

Mitel, the telephone exchange manufacturer. The story goes that they bought 'Mike and Terry's Lawnmowers' as it was cheaper than starting a company from scratch.

Volvo, the car company

James Allen:

Phil Brady:

If the corporation was *dormant* when they bought and repurposed it, then it wasn't really a business at all, just a shell. So this is just a technical maneuver, the new business wasn't a side business, and it shouldn't count. If that is what happened.

Yes, companies do sometimes go completely dormant and yet continue to exist. I have worked for a company that, when it reorganized into two companies, bought a dormant company rather than incorporating a second one, because it was cheaper. In their case they completely changed the name of the company they bought, though.

Nokia started as a wood-pulp mill, then manufactured rubber products, before getting into telecommunications.

Olympia and York, the world's largest private real estate developer until it collapsed in 1992, started as a tile importing business.

Robert Israel This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada

* Mark Brader

Guiness book of records, at least in Norway.

Nokia in Finland once sold just rubberware as tires.

Jon Haugsand schrieb:

Apropos tires, Continental started out serving breakfasts and now they sell tires.

Gregor Mendel started out in liturgical services and then produced genetic beans. (By that token, many an abbey here (e.g. Kloster Andechs) has more people enjoy their brewery products than their mass.) Calvin started out as a religious leader, but is nowadays better known for his underwear.

Cheers

Sounds like Little Chef.

Danny

(apologies for the UK-specific joke)