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Banking

Acciaioli family

The Acciaioli family, also spelled Acciaiuoli, Accioly, Aciole, Acciajuoli or Acioli was an important Italian noble family from Florence, whose members were the ruling Dukes of Athens.

Trading basics

Actuarial science

Actuarial science is the discipline that applies mathematical and statistical methods to assess risk in insurance, pension, finance, investment, psychology, medicine, and other industries and professions.

Banking

Alfred Rexroth

Alfred Rexroth (27 March 1899 – January 1978) was a German engineer, entrepreneur and anthroposophist. He was the director of several business enterprises including the companies Neuguss, Rhinow and his family concern Rexroth, today Bosch Rexroth. Through the donation of his fortune the GLS Bank was able to begin much of its work.

Trading basics

Almshouse

An almshouse is a form of charitable housing that developed in medieval Europe to provide long-term accommodation for people unable to support themselves, most often the elderly or disabled. Originating from earlier hospital foundations associated with Christian charity, almshouses emerged as distinct institutions by the later medieval period, typically housing small numbers of residents

Trading basics

Anil Kumar

Anil Kumar (born 1958) is an Indian-American former senior partner and director at management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he co-founded McKinsey's offices in Silicon Valley and India and created its Internet practice (representing a quarter of McKinsey's business at the time) among others. Kumar is additionally the co-founder of the Indian School of Business with Rajat Gupt

Trading basics

Antonio Gracias

Antonio Gracias is an American businessman who founded Valor Equity Partners. He has been on the board of directors for several companies in which Valor has invested, including Tesla, Inc. and SpaceX.

Fiat currencies

Avignon Exchange

The Avignon Exchange was one of the first foreign exchange markets in history, established in the Comtat Venaissin during the Avignon Papacy. The Exchange was composed of the agents (factores) of the great Italian banking-houses, who acted as money-changers as well as financial intermediaries between the Apostolic Camera and its debtors and creditors. The most prosperous quarter of the c

Banking

Bank Medici

Bank Medici was a bank based in Vienna, Austria. It was founded in 1994 by banker Sonja Kohn and incorporated as a bank in 2003.

Banking

Bardi family

The House of Bardi was an influential Florentine family that started the powerful banking company Compagnia dei Bardi. In the 14th century, the Bardis lent Edward III of England 900,000 gold florins, a debt which he failed to repay along with 600,000 florins borrowed from the Peruzzi family, leading to the collapse of both families' banks. During the 15th century, the Bardi family contin

Banking

Castellini Baldissera

The Castellini Baldissera are a notable family from Milan and Brescia that played a significant role in the unification and industrialization of Italy.

Trading basics

Catholic Health Initiatives

Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) was a national Catholic healthcare system, with headquarters in Englewood, Colorado. CHI was a nonprofit, faith-based health system formed, in 1996, through the consolidation of three Catholic health systems. It was one of the largest healthcare systems in the United States. In February 2019, CHI merged with Dignity Health, forming CommonSpirit Health.

Banking

Cerchi family

The Florentine banking family of the Cerchi, minor nobles of the Valdarno, with a seat especially at Acone near Pontassieve, settled in Florence in the early thirteenth century and increased their fortunes. The family became the heads of a consortium of the prominent Guelfs that securely controlled Florence after the battle of Benevento in 1266. In Florence, the Cerchi purchased some o

Finance

Compulsive buying disorder

Compulsive buying disorder (CBD) is characterized by an obsession with shopping and buying behavior that causes adverse consequences. It "is experienced as a recurring, compelling and irresistible–compulsive urge, in acquiring goods that lack practical utility and very low cost resulting in excessive, expensive and time-consuming retail activity [that is] typically prompted by negative a

Fiat currencies

Contaminated currency

Most banknotes have traces of cocaine on them; this has been confirmed by studies done in several countries. In 1994, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals cited findings that in Los Angeles, three out of four banknotes were tainted by cocaine or another illicit drug.

Banking

Cosimo de' Medici

Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (27 September 1389 – 1 August 1464) was an Italian banker and politician who became the de facto ruler of Florence during the Italian Renaissance, and was the first to establish the Medici family as its effective leaders for generations.

Finance

Credible (company)

Credible is a financial technology company headquartered in San Francisco and incorporated under the name Credible Labs Inc. The company also does business through its subsidiary Credible Operations, Inc. Its online marketplace offers consumers the ability to compare and refinance loans, mortgages, and other financial products from lenders. Credible became a subsidiary of Fox Corporation

Trading basics

Direct-to-consumer advertising

Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) refers to the marketing and advertising of pharmaceutical products directly to consumers as patients, as opposed to specifically targeting health professionals. The term is synonymous primarily with the advertising of prescription medicines via mass media platforms—most commonly on television and in magazines, but also via online platforms.

Trading basics

Fossil trade

The fossil trade is the purchase and sale of fossils. This is at times done illegally with stolen fossils, and important scientific specimens are lost each year. The trade is lucrative, and many celebrities collect fossils.

Finance

Geneva Freeport

Geneva Freeport (French: Ports Francs et Entrepôts de Genève SA) is a warehouse complex in Geneva, Switzerland, for the storage of art and other valuables and collectibles. It is the world's oldest and largest freeport facility, and the one with the most artworks, with 40% of its collection being art with an estimated value of US$100 billion.

Banking

Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici

Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici (c. 1360 – February 1429) was an Italian banker and founder of the Medici Bank. While other members of the Medici family, such as Chiarissimo di Giambuono de' Medici, who served in the Signoria of Florence in 1401, and Salvestro de' Medici, who was implicated in the Ciompi Revolt of 1378, are of historical interest, it was Giovanni's founding of the family ba

Banking

Giovanni Tornabuoni

Giovanni Tornabuoni (Republic of Florence, Italy; 22 December 1428—17 April 1497) was an Italian merchant, banker and patron of the arts from Florence.

Banking

GLS Bank

GLS Bank (officially GLS Gemeinschaftsbank eG) is a German ethical bank that was founded in 1974 as an anthroposophical initiative by Wilhelm Ernst Barkhoff and Gisela Reuther. It was the first bank in Germany that operated with an ethical philosophy. According to GLS Bank, its focus is on cultural, social and ecological initiatives, initiated by people, and not anonymous interests seeki

Banking

Gondi family

The Gondi family was a prominent Florentine banking family, financial partners of the Medici family. Unlike the Medici, they were of an ancient Florentine nobility, tracing their line traditionally from the legendary Philippi, said to have been ennobled by Charlemagne himself, in 805; from him the Strozzi and the Gualfreducci also claimed their descent. With Orlando Bellicozzo, a member

Trading basics

Greg Brenneman

Gregory D. Brenneman (born November 26, 1961) is an American businessman. He serves as the chairman of CCMP Capital, an American private equity firm.

Trading basics

Gun show loophole

In U.S. politics, the gun show loophole (or the private sale exemption) is the absence of a federal requirement for background checks for private sales of firearms. Federal law requires that all commercial sales of firearms conduct a background check of the buyer. There are also local and state laws regulating background check requirements for the purchase of firearms. The rules regardin

Trading basics

Halle aux blés (Paris)

The Halle aux blés (Wheats Exchange or Grains Exchange) was a circular building in central Paris used by grain traders built in 1763–1767, with an open-air interior court that was capped by a wooden dome in 1783, then by an iron dome in 1811. In a major reconstruction in 1888–1889 much of the structure was replaced and the building became the Bourse de commerce.

Banking

Hochstetter family

The Höchstetter family (also rendered Hechstetter or Hochstetter), from Höchstädt in western Bavaria near the banks of the Danube, were members of the fifteenth and sixteenth-century mercantile patriciate of Augsburg.

Trading basics

Hologic

Hologic, Inc. is an American medical technology company primarily focused on women's health; it sells medical devices for diagnostics, surgery, and medical imaging.

Banking

House of Medici

The House of Medici (English: MED-itch-ee, UK also mə-DEE-chee; Italian: [ˈmɛːditʃi]) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first consolidated power in the Republic of Florence under Cosimo de' Medici and his grandson Lorenzo "the Magnificent" during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of Tuscany, and prospered gradually in

Trading basics

Howard Marks (investor)

Howard Stanley Marks (born 1946) is an American investor and writer. He is the co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, the largest investor in distressed securities worldwide. In 2022, with a net worth of $2.2 billion, Marks was ranked No. 1365 on the Forbes list of billionaires.

Finance

Ikoyi

Ikoyi is the most affluent island of Lagos, located in Eti-Osa Local Government Area. It lies to the northeast of Obalende and adjoins Lagos Island to the west, and at the edge of the Lagos Lagoon. Popular with the extreme upper class residents of Nigerian society, Ikoyi is arguably one of the wealthiest communities within Nigeria.

Trading basics

Infomercial

An infomercial is a form of television advertisement that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of direct response television (DRTV), they are often program‑length commercials (long-form infomercials), and are typically 28:30 or 58:30 minutes

Trading basics

Ira Rennert

Ira Leon Rennert (born May 31, 1934) is an American billionaire businessman, and the chairman and CEO of Renco Group. As of November 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$3.8 billion.

Banking

Jagat Seth family

Jagat Seth was a wealthy merchant, banker and moneylender family from Murshidabad in Bengal during the time of the Nawabs of Bengal.

Trading basics

Kneeland Youngblood

Kneeland Youngblood (born December 13, 1955) is an American physician, businessman, and political figure. He is the founding partner, Chairman & CEO of the private equity firm Pharos Capital Group, LLC. Pharos Capital Group, LLC focuses on providing later stage funding, generally for growth, acquisitions, and recapitalizations, to growing healthcare companies that lower costs, improve ou

Banking

Leopold Stanisław Kronenberg

Leopold Stanisław Kronenberg (born 24 March 1812 in Warsaw, Duchy of Warsaw, died 5 April 1878 in Nice, France) was a Polish banker, investor, and financier, and a leader of the 1863 January uprising against the Russian Empire.

Finance

Madoff investment scandal

The Madoff investment scandal, sometimes known as Madoffgate, was a financial scandal discovered in late 2008. In December of that year, Bernie Madoff, the former Nasdaq chairman and founder of the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, admitted that the wealth management arm of his business was an elaborate multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Madoff founded Bernard

Trading basics

Michael McCullough (entrepreneur)

Michael McCullough is an American investor in healthcare and life science companies, social entrepreneur, and emergency room doctor. He was a Rhodes Scholar. He lives in Palo Alto, California.

Securities & exchanges

Michael Steinhardt

Michael H. Steinhardt (born December 7, 1940) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager and philanthropist. In 1967, he founded a hedge fund, Steinhardt Partners, which he ran until he closed it in 1995. After a hiatus from work, he returned to head WisdomTree Investments in 2004. In January 2014, he was on the cover of Forbes Magazine, referred to as "Wall Street's greatest trader".

Trading basics

Minimum wage

A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Because minimum wages increase the cost of labor, companies often try to avoid minimum wage laws by using gig workers, by moving labor to locations wi

Finance

Ministry of Finance (Nepal)

The Ministry of Finance (Nepali: अर्थ मन्त्रालय) is the central authority of Government of Nepal charged with the responsibilities for maintaining both micro and macro economic stability in the country.

Banking

Mitsui family

The Mitsui family (三井家, Mitsui-ke) is a Japanese banking and business family who established the Mitsui Group.

Trading basics

Nutraceutical

Nutraceutical is a marketing term used to imply a pharmaceutical effect from plant extracts, compounds, or food products that are claimed to influence health outcomes, typically as dietary supplements.

Trading basics

Organ trade

Organ trade (also known as the blood market or the red market) is the trading of human organs, tissues, or other body products, usually for transplantation. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), organ trade is a commercial transplantation where there is a profit, or transplantations that occur outside of national medical systems. There is a global need or demand for healthy b

Finance

Ortigas Center

Ortigas Center (also known as the Ortigas Central Business District or Ortigas CBD) is a central business district located within the joint boundaries of Pasig, Mandaluyong, and Quezon City, within Metro Manila in the Philippines. With an area of more than 100 hectares (250 acres), it is Metro Manila's second most important business district after the Makati Central Business District. It

Trading basics

Oscar Health

Oscar Management Corporation, doing business as Oscar Health is an American for-profit health insurance company, founded in 2012 by Joshua Kushner, Kevin Nazemi and Mario Schlosser, and is headquartered in New York City. The company sells health insurance and additionally provides other services in the health insurance industry through telemedicine, healthcare focused technological inter

Trading basics

Patent medicine

A patent medicine (sometimes called a proprietary medicine) is a non-prescription medicine or medicinal preparation that is typically protected and advertised by a trademark and trade name, and – often falsely – claimed to be effective against minor disorders and symptoms, as opposed to a prescription drug that could be obtained only through a pharmacist, usually with a doctor's prescrip

Banking

Pazzi

The Pazzi were a powerful family in the Republic of Florence. Their main trade during the fifteenth century was banking. In the aftermath of the Pazzi conspiracy in 1478, members of the family were banished from Florence and their property was confiscated; the family name and coat-of-arms were permanently suppressed by order of the Signoria.

Trading basics

Peruzzi

The Peruzzi family were bankers of Florence, among the leading families of the city in the 14th century, before the rise to prominence of the Medici. Their modest antecedents stretched back to the mid 11th century, according to the family's genealogist Luigi Passerini, but a restructuring of the Peruzzi company in the 1340's, with an infusion of outside capital, marked the start of a qua

Trading basics

PharmEasy

PharmEasy is an Indian e-pharmacy company that sells medicines, diagnostics and telehealth online.

Banking

Piero di Cosimo de' Medici

Piero di Cosimo de' Medici, known as Piero the Gouty (Italian: Piero "il Gottoso"), (1416 – 2 December 1469) was the de facto ruler of the Republic of Florence from 1464 to 1469, during the Italian Renaissance.

Trading basics

Platinum

Platinum is a chemical element; it has symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish platina, a diminutive of plata "silver".

Trading basics

Price floor

A price floor is a government- or group-imposed price control or limit on how low a price can be charged for a product, good, commodity, or service. It is one type of price support; other types include supply regulation and guarantee government purchase price. A price floor must be higher than the equilibrium price in order to be effective. The equilibrium price, commonly called the "mar

Securities & exchanges

Private finance initiative

The private finance initiative (PFI) was a United Kingdom government procurement policy aimed at creating "public–private partnerships" (PPPs) where private firms are contracted to complete and manage public projects. Initially launched in 1992 by Prime Minister John Major, and expanded considerably by the Blair government, PFI is part of the wider programme of privatisation and macroeco

Trading basics

Puffery

Puffery is undue or exaggerated praise. Puffery serves to "puff up" what is being described. In law, puffery is usually invoked as a defense argument: it identifies general praising speech, typically produced by a seller, which is not expected to be relied upon and does not give rise to legal liability. In a circular manner, legal explanations for this normative position describe the non

Trading basics

Q-commerce

Q-commerce, also referred to as quick commerce, is a type of e-commerce where emphasis is on quick deliveries, typically in less than an hour. Q-commerce originally started with food delivery and it still represents the largest chunk of the business. It has quickly expanded to other categories particularly for grocery delivery, medicines, gifts, and apparel.

Trading basics

Revco

Revco Discount Drug Stores (known simply as Revco or Revco, D.S.), once based in Twinsburg, Ohio, was a major drug store chain operating through the Ohio Valley, the Mid-Atlantic states, and the Southeastern United States. The chain's stock was traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol RXR. Revco was sold to CVS Pharmacy for $2.8 billion ($5.21 billion in 2025) in Feb

Trading basics

Rum-running

Rum-running, or bootlegging, is the illegal business of smuggling alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law. Smuggling circumvents alcohol taxes and outright prohibition of alcohol sales.

Banking

S. Rm. M. family

The S. Rm. family is an Indian family of businessmen, industrialists and bankers from the town of Kanadukathan in the Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu, India. The family is named after its ancestor, the popular 19th-century Nagarathar banker S. Rm. Muthiah Chettiar. The head of the family holds the honorific title Raja of Chettinad. The M. Ct. family has descended from one branch of the

Trading basics

Seeding trial

A seeding trial or marketing trial is a form of marketing, conducted in the name of research, designed to target product sampling towards selected consumers. In the marketing research field, seeding is the process of allocating marketing to specific customers, or groups of customers, in order to stimulate the internal dynamics of the market, and enhance the diffusion process. In medicine

Trading basics

Sex differences in social capital

Sex differences in social capital are debated differences between men and women's ability to achieve their aims through social constructs such as trust, norms and networks. Social capital is often seen as the missing link in development. Social networks facilitate access to resources and protect the commons, whilst co-operation makes markets work more efficiently. Social capital has been

Trading basics

Synthesis of precious metals

The synthesis of precious metals involves the use of either nuclear reactors or particle accelerators to produce these elements.

Trading basics

Thomas A. Scully

Thomas Andrew Scully (born October 24, 1957) is an American lawyer and former government official. He was the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from 2001 to 2004 under President George W. Bush. Scully is currently a general partner at Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a private equity investment firm, where he focuses on health care investments. Scully

Banking

Torlonia

The House of Torlonia, the Princes of Civitella-Cesi, is the name of an Italian princely family from Rome, which acquired a huge fortune in the 18th and 19th centuries through administering the finances of the Vatican. The first influential member of the Torlonia family was Marino Torlonia (Tourlonias; 1725 – 21 March 1785), who rose from humble origins in the Auvergne region of France

Banking

Triodos Bank

Triodos Bank N.V. is an ethical bank based in the Netherlands with branches in Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain. It was founded in 1980.

Trading basics

Unam sanctam

Unam sanctam is a papal bull that was issued by Pope Boniface VIII on 18 November 1302. It laid down dogmatic propositions on the unity of the Catholic Church, the necessity of belonging to it for eternal salvation, the position of the Pope as supreme head of the Church and the duty thence arising of submission to the Pope in order to belong to the Church and thus to attain salvation. Th

Banking

Uncle Paulo incident

On 16 April 2024, Érika de Souza Vieira Nunes, a 42-year-old Brazilian woman, brought the corpse of her 68-year-old uncle, Paulo Roberto Braga, to an Itaú bank branch in an attempt to withdraw a loan of 17,000 Brazilian reais. The incident occurred in the Bangu neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro and was recorded by bank employees.

Trading basics

Use of saffron

Saffron is a key seasoning, fragrance, dye, and medicine in use for over three millennia. One of the world's most expensive spices by weight, saffron consists of stigmas plucked from the vegetatively propagated and sterile Crocus sativus, known popularly as the saffron crocus. The resulting dried stigmas, also known as "threads", are distinguished by their bitter taste, hay-like fragranc

Trading basics

Visible Embryo Project

The Visible Embryo Project (VEP) is a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary research project originally created in the early 1990s as a collaboration between the Developmental Anatomy Center at the National Museum of Health and Medicine and the Biomedical Visualization Laboratory (BVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, "to develop software strategies for the development of distr

Banking

Wallenberg family

The Wallenberg family is a prominent Swedish family of bankers, industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats and diplomats, present in most large Swedish industrial groups, including EQT AB, Ericsson, Electrolux, ABB, SAS Group, SKF, Atlas Copco, Saab AB, and more. In the 1970s, the Wallenberg family businesses employed 40% of Sweden's industrial workforce and represented 40% of the total wo

Trading basics

Warren Hellman

Frederick Warren Hellman (July 25, 1934 – December 18, 2011) was an American billionaire investment banker and private equity investor, the co-founder of private equity firm Hellman & Friedman. Hellman also co-founded Hellman, Ferri Investment Associates, today known as Matrix Partners. He started and funded the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. Hellman died in 2011, of complication

Banking

Wawelberg

The Wawelbergs were a Polish Jewish family whose banking house was active in both Congress Poland and the Russian Empire.

Banking

Wilhelm Ernst Barkhoff

Wilhelm Ernst Barkhoff (26 June 1916 – 30 September 1994) was a German solicitor, founder of anthroposophically oriented alternative banking, the GLS Bank, reformer of the German welfare system and inspirer of the movement for Ethical banking.

Trading basics

William E. Conway Jr.

William E. "Bill" Conway Jr. (born August 27, 1949) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. Conway is co-executive chairman and co-founder of the Carlyle Group. He is chairman of the board of trustees of Johns Hopkins Medicine and a member of the board of trustees of the Catholic University of America. According to Forbes, Conway had a net worth of US$3.6 billion as of