abstract:The Muscovy Company (also called the Russian Company or the Muscovy Trading Company, ), was an English trading company chartered in 1555. It was the first major chartered joint stock company, the precursor of the type of business that would soon flourish in England, and became closely associated with such famous names as Henry Hudson and William Baffin.
In 1555 Czar Ivan the Terrible granted a group of English merchants a monopoly on the trade of furs, timber and cloth, thus establishing the MuscovyCompany.