A joint-stock company, granted a Royal Charter on 31 December 1600 as the ‘Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies’. The company continually expanded its trading operations, frequently with the help of its private security force, and eventually gained control of a large part of the Indian subcontinent along with a significant presence in China. After a series of financial difficulties the Indian possessions of the company were nationalized in 1859, and it was shut down in 1874. The East India Company is often viewed as the first large-scale multinational corporation.