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[LeoLeonardoIII]

I heard about a website a while back that catalogues all the companies that every company owns.

For example, Nestle owns a heck of a lot of food companies.

This way, if you wanted to boycott Nestle, you would know to boycott the puppet companies that they own too.

Does anyone know the website I'm talking about? I can't find it.

[smigenboger]

Saying Down with MTV is also suggesting Down with Comedy Central and Spike. Many cable tv channels are interconnected

Kraft dealt with tobacco before, though I don't know about now.

Proctor and Gamble own a huge amount of around the house product companies.

I'd love to know a site that has specifics

[piecewise]

I remember the joke that "Harvey Birdman" made several times about AOL Timewarner, through an elaborate series of front companies and subsidiaries, actually owned everything.

[smjjames]

I think Coca-Cola and Pepsi own alot of companies under them.

Theres also various computer game companies (EA would be one of them).

No idea what site you're talking about, although it would be cool to look at.

[Aqizzar]

Yeah, Pepsi Co. owns Yum Foods (or maybe it's the other way around), which owns all sorts of smaller cola brand, KFC and Taco Bell, I think a couple snack-food companies, and probably other stuff.

General Electric, megaconglomerate that it already is, also owns the entire NBC broadcasting family, and certainly other stuff.

I too would be very much interested in seeing a compiled website of all such nested ownerships.  I hope it's in flowchart form.

[G-Flex]

Expressing a lack of support (or an active boycott) for a product/brand still isn't totally useless if the company is owned by a larger entity, but it's certainly less useful. You're still hopefully driving down profits and public interest for that particular brand/company/product.

Kraft dealt with tobacco before, though I don't know about now.

Altria Group (which owns Phillip Morris, and used to be called Philip Morris Companies Inc.) used to have something like 84% ownership of Kraft, but they don't seem to anymore.


Other corporate entities to keep track of:

• Yum! Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Wingstreet, Long John Silver's, A&W Restaurants)
• Unilever. These people even own Ben & Jerry's for crying out loud (I didn't know this until now).
• Virgin Group (at least their brands tend to have their name in the name, though).
• General Electric owns a few things, including Universal Studios and NBC Universal, which itself constitutes a whole slew of TV networks/cable channels.

Here's the Wikipedia category for conglomerate companies, which also includes a list.

Yeah, Pepsi Co. owns Yum Foods (or maybe it's the other way around)

Didn't see your post before writing mine, but for what it's worth, Yum! sort of spun off of Pepsi Co.; they have contracts with each other, but neither is owned by the other at this point.

[smigenboger]

Just this morning my Taco Bell Pepsi cup had ads for EA created games. I know taco bell and burger king seem to have a gamer demographic, or they're at least marketed that way.

[RedKing]

Saying Down with MTV is also suggesting Down with Comedy Central and Spike. Many cable tv channels are interconnected

Kraft dealt with tobacco before, though I don't know about now.

The whole RJR Nabisco-Kraft-Altria-Phillip Morris relationship is complicated as hell. IIRC, Kraft bought RJR Nabisco, then spun off the tobacco portion back into RJ Reynolds, but then got bought by the Altria Group, which used to be called Phillip Morris (maker of Marlboros, and RJ Reynolds' chief rival).

So I think technically, Kraft is owned by a tobacco company.

Vivendi is another one of those megaconglomerates that's hard to keep track of (they own a 20% stake in NBC/Universal and all of Activision/Blizzard among other things).

[Aqizzar]

I think the lesson to take away from this is that you're not dealing with top-down incorporation like the days of Carnegie and Standard Oil.  It's much more common to see lateral partial-ownership, if that makes any sense.  A bunch of relatively large companies that own large shares of each other, or don't actually have shares in each other but frequently exchange high officers with a perfect working relationship.

And yeah, "boycotts" are virtually impossible to pull of in the modern world.  Your best bet is to buy the shitty "generic" brand stuff that only sell to wholesalers, and those are conglomerated too.  What companies are fearful of though is bad press, especially high-profile lawsuits and independent (usually adversary) funded ad campaigns.  Anything that makes their brand name into a by-word for something bad, like what's happened to Toyota and General Motors.

[smjjames]

Yea, Toyota is trying to save face with the ad about looking beyond the commercials, basically.

[Pathos]

Take Your Company Over

I think they have a hand in pretty much everything that gets manufactured, somewhere along the chain.

[Virex]

Also remember to keep track of brand names, since not all products will clearly list the company (if they do at all).

[Aqizzar]

Take Your Company Over

This is mainly because almost anything with electronic control systems, even if it's just a few switches and wires, probably has Tyco parts in it.  That's what they make.  Kinda like Mattel and plastics.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Oh yeah I wasn't trying to start a boycotting discussion.

The website would be pretty useful for someone writing a research paper or something.

Good point about companies owning percentages of each other.

Heck, they probably own stock in holding companies that gamble on futures of aggregate stocks of companies their competitors have a hand in.

No longer can you buy a bar of soap or a bicycle and know that there is "a" company responsible for it. It's like all we have to identify objects are brand names. Gee, that sounds swell!

[Grakelin]

Whining incessantly about our economy for all the wrong reasons aside, here's one that actually matters beyond 'If I ever feel the need to boycott Nestle, I know to boycott the other stuff because businesses are evil':

These people are owned by these people.

By which I mean these people.