Bic (company)

Société Bic S.A.

Type	Société Anonyme
Traded as	Euronext: BB
Industry	Consumer Goods
Founded	Clichy, France (1945 (1945))
Founder	Marcel Bich Edouard Buffard
Headquarters	Clichy, France
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Bruno Bich, Chairman Mario Guevara, CEO
Products	Disposable lighters, razors, pens
Revenue	€1.5627 billion (2009)
Operating income	€216.0 million (2009)
Net income	€151.7 million (2009)
Total assets	€2.0291 billion (2009)
Total equity	€1.3040 billion (2009)
Number of employees	10,449 (2009)
Website	www.bicworld.com

Société Bic S.A., commonly referred to simply as Bic, is a company based in Clichy, France. It is best known for making ballpoint pens. It was founded in 1945 by Baron Marcel Bich and has become known for making disposable consumer products such as lighters, razors, mechanical pencils, and printed paper products.

Products

Bic Cristal pen

A Bic cigarette lighter

In 1970, Gillette purchased S. T. Dupont Paris whose principal product was luxury cigarette lighters. During this time Dupont explored the possibilities of marketing a disposable lighter, developing an inexpensive disposable lighter called Cricket, which it introduced in the United States in 1972. Later that year Bic was test marketing a disposable lighter that could provide 3,000 lights before wearing out; Bic introduced this lighter in 1973.

They, as well as the Bic Cristal ballpoint pen, are easily recognizable as a result of their importance in pop culture. As such, they are represented in the design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The company competes in most markets against Faber-Castell, Global Gillette, Newell Rubbermaid, Pentel and Schwan-Stabilo. The Bic pen, more specifically the Bic Cristal, was the company's first product.

Ownership

The company went public in 1958 with a reverse merger into the older Waterman Pen Company of Seymour, Connecticut, in the United States, and later sold off the older operation. The Bich family owns about 40 percent of Bic stock and controls 55% of its voting power.

In June 2010, Bic sold its funeral products division to Prairie Capital, a Chicago-based private equity firm.

United States subsidiary

After buying the Waterman Pen Company in Seymour, Connecticut in 1958, Bic needed a larger space for its U.S. headquarters and manufacturing operation, so the headquarters was moved to nearby Milford, Connecticut, where it remained on a road eventually renamed "Bic Drive" until 2008, when the headquarters moved to Shelton, Connecticut. A cigarette lighter factory remains on the Milford site.

The company's U.S. subsidiary, BIC Corporation, accounts for more than half of the worldwide company's sales. Both Bruno Bich, son of company co-founder Marcel, who rose through the ranks in the U.S. organization to become Chairman Of The Board as of October 21, 2010, and Mario Guevara, the company's Chief Executive Officer as of the same date, worked in the American subsidiary for several years.

Sponsorship

Bic sponsored a professional cycling team in the 1960s led by Tour de France winners Jacques Anquetil and Luis Ocaña. The company began sponsoring the Tour again in 2011 as an "official supporter", which they have continued to do to the present day.

Bic also sponsored the Alain Prost–led Prost Grand Prix team in Formula One from 1997 to 2000.

External links

• BIC World—Company website
• Société BIC Company Profile—Yahoo! Finance
• BICSurf
• BIC watersports
• BIC Everyday website for students, teachers and parents
• BIC Graphic USA