Dun & Bradstreet
On July 20th of 1841, Dun & Bradstreet, then known as The Mercantile Agency, opened its doors in New York and began a revolution in business information. Altares has been a partner of the Dun & Bradstreet Group since 2004, with the merger of Dun & Bradstreet France and BIL (Bureau d'Informations Légales).
Dun & Bradstreet
A brief history
Created in 1841, Dun & Bradstreet’s name was “The Mercantile Agency”. This American company specialised in publishing corporate data.
Recognising the need for a centralised credit reporting system, Lewis Tappan, its founder, wanted to create a network of correspondents providing reliable and objective credit information, to those who subscribed to this “information base”.
In 1859, the company was transferred to Robert Graham Dun, who immediately changed the name of the firm to R.G. Dun & Company. Over the next forty years, Graham Dun continued to expand the company’s operations around the world.
In 1933, Dun merged with its competitor, John M. Bradstreet, to form what is now Dun & Bradstreet. The merger was led by Dun’s then CEO, Arthur Whiteside. Whiteside’s successor, J. Wilson Newman, went on to significantly expand Dun’s product and service offerings during the 1960s.
Since 1962, Dun & Bradstreet has been steadily expanding into new territories, acquiring other companies, and thereby broadening its reach around the globe.
Altares has been a partner of the Dun & Bradstreet group since 2004, with the merger of Dun & Bradstreet France and BIL (Bureau d’Informations Légales). A few years later, the company took on its current name.
