Hasbro

Hasbro Inc. (formerly Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational toy and board game company. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The majority of its products are manufactured in East Asia.In 1923, three brothers, Henry, Hilal, and Herman Hassenfeld, founded Hassenfeld Brothers, a company selling textile remnants, in Providence, Rhode Island. Over the next two decades, the company expanded to produce pencil cases and school supplies. In 1926, Hassenfeld Brothers was incorporated with Hilal leaving for another textile business while Henry took charge of the corporation. With cost of pencils rising and their pencil supplier making pencil cases, Hassenfelds began making their own pencils becoming a source of funding for future lines.In the 1940s, Hassenfeld Brothers produced doctor and nurse kits, its first toys and modeling clay becoming a primarily toy company by 1942. With Hilal's death in 1943, Henry Hassenfeld became CEO while his son, Merrill, became president. The company entered the plastic fields during World War II to support its toy line.Hassenfeld Brothers' first toy hit was Mr. Potato Head, which the company purchased from inventor George Lerner in 1952. The toy was a smash success. The company became a Disney major licensee in 1954.In 1960, Henry died and Merrill took over the parent company and his older brother, Harold, ran the pencil-making business, Empire Pencil. Hassenfeld Brothers expanded to Canada with Hassenfeld Brothers (Canada) Ltd. in 1961. Approached in 1963 to a licensed toy based on a Marine Corp based TV Series, "The Lieutenant" which they turned down as they did not want to be tied to a possible short lived TV show. Instead in 1964, Hassenfeld Brothers produced the G.I. Joe toy, which they termed an "action figure" in order to market the toy to boys who wouldn't want to play with "dolls." In 1964 and 1965, GI Joe accounted for 2/3 of Hassenfeld's sales.Over the years Hasbro has outsourced the manufacture of its products to third-party companies, mostly in China. At the Chinese factories, which Hasbro does not directly own or operate, migrant workers are compensated with meager salaries for their labor. At one such factory, in Dongguan, China, basic assembly line jobs pay a little over one hundred US dollars per month,China's minimum wage.Outside Asia, Hasbro owns and operates only two manufacturing facilities, one in Waterford, Ireland, the other in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, USA. In recent years, the company has cut jobs at both plants in response to increasing competition from lower cost locations in China. At the end of 2006, for example, Hasbro's Irish division laid off more than one third of its workforce.

Net Income $ 375 million (2011)

Total assets $ 3.90 billion (2011)