Subsidiary | |
Industry | Food |
Founded | April 1, 1891Chicago, Illinois, United States |
Founder | William Wrigley Jr. |
Headquarters | Global Innovation Center, Goose Island, Chicago, Illinois, United States |
Area served
|
Worldwide |
Key people
|
|
Products | Juicy Fruit, Wrigley's Spearmint, Doublemint, others |
Revenue | $5.389 billion (2007) |
$961.9 million (2009) | |
Number of employees
|
16,000 |
Parent | Mars, Incorporated |
Website | www |
The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, known as the Wrigley Company, is an American Gum company founded on April 1, 1891 by William Wrigley Jr., based in the Global Innovation Center (GIC) in Goose Island, Chicago, Illinois. It is wholly owned by Mars, Incorporated. It is currently the largest manufacturer and marketer of chewing gum in the world.
In 1892, Wrigley Jr. began packaging chewing gum with each can of baking powder. The chewing gum eventually became more popular than the baking powder and Wrigley's reoriented the company to produce the gum. The company currently sells its products in more than 180 countries and districts, maintains operations in over 50 countries, and has 21 production facilities in 14 countries including the United States, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, China, India, Japan, Kenya, Taiwan, and Australia.
In 2005, Wrigley purchased Life Savers and Altoids from Kraft Foods for US$1.5 billion. On January 23, 2007, Wrigley signed a purchase agreement to acquire an 80% initial interest in A. Korkunov for $300 million with the remaining 20% to be acquired over time. On April 28, 2008, Mars announced that it would acquire Wrigley for approximately $23 billion. Financing for the transaction was provided by Berkshire Hathaway, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan; Berkshire Hathaway held a minority equity investment in Wrigley until October 2016.
The Wrigley Building on Michigan Avenue, one of Chicago's best-known landmarks on the Magnificent Mile, was originally the company's global headquarters until 2011, when it was sold to an investor group that included Zeller Realty Group as well as Groupon co-founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell. The company headquarted in the GIC in 2012 since.