Ever wondered what the first business entity to have a market valuation was? The answer goes back to the early 17th century with the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) or the Dutch East India Company. Founded in 1602, the VOC is widely recognized as the world's first multinational corporation to issue shares and bonds to the public to fund its voyages.
At that time, valuing the VOC's fleet was no easy task. Investors had to account for an extreme risk profile, ranging from the threat of shipwrecks and pirate attacks to wildly fluctuating spice prices in European markets. This is where the foundational concepts of business risk assessment and expected return began to take shape.
The value of the VOC was no longer measured solely by physical assets like the number of merchant ships or cannons they owned, but by the projected future profits from their spice trade monopoly. As an added piece of trivia, at the height of its glory during the Tulip Mania era (around 1637), the VOC's market valuation was estimated to reach the equivalent of $7.9 trillion when adjusted for modern inflation. This figure makes it the most valuable company in history, far surpassing the combined valuations of modern tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Google.