Remington Products
Encyclopedia
Personal care
Personal care or toiletries is the industry which manufactures consumer products used for beautification and in personal hygiene.-Subsectors:Subsectors of personal care include cosmetics and feminine hygiene....
corporation which manufactures razors (shaver
Shaver
Shaver means a person who shaves, or an object which shaves, a razor.It can also refer to:* a boy, as a slang term for shaveling* Shaver, California, former town in California* Shaver Creek, tributary of the Juniata River in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania...
s), epilator
Epilator
An epilator is an electrical device used to remove hair by mechanically grasping multiple hairs simultaneously and pulling them out. The way in which epilators pull out hair is similar to waxing, although unlike waxing, they do not remove cells from the epithelium of the epidermis...
s, and haircare products for both men and women. It is a subsidiary of Spectrum Brands
Spectrum Brands
Spectrum Brands is a diversified company established in 2005 as the successor company to Rayovac Corporation. Rayovac had been located in Wisconsin since its conception as The French Battery Company in 1906, but then in 2004, as Spectrum Brands, located its Corporate headquarters just north of...
.
History
The origins of the "Remington" name date back to the formation of E. Remington and SonsE. Remington and Sons
E. Remington and Sons was a manufacturer of firearms and typewriters. Founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, on March 1, 1873 it started manufacturing the first commercial typewriter.-Becoming "E. Remington & Sons":...
, a firearms maker founded in 1816. E. Remington & Sons made occasional forays into products other than firearms, such as sewing machine
Sewing machine
A sewing machine is a textile machine used to stitch fabric, cards and other material together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies...
s and farm implements — but its most significant side venture was when inventor Christopher Sholes
Christopher Sholes
Christopher Latham Sholes was an American inventor who invented the first practical typewriter and the QWERTY keyboard still in use today...
persuaded the firearms company to help him develop the typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
with the QWERTY
QWERTY
QWERTY is the most common modern-day keyboard layout. The name comes from the first six letters appearing in the topleft letter row of the keyboard, read left to right: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to Remington in the...
keyboard, which is still the standard today. In 1886, E. Remington & Sons sold the typewriter company, which became Remington Typewriter Company. This in turn merged with the Rand Kardex Corporation in 1927 to become Remington Rand
Remington Rand
Remington Rand was an early American business machines manufacturer, best known originally as a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation as the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers but with antecedents in Remington Arms in the early nineteenth century. For a time, the...
. Remington Rand branched out into making adding machine
Adding machine
An adding machine was a class of mechanical calculator, usually specialized for bookkeeping calculations.In the United States, the earliest adding machines were usually built to read in dollars and cents. Adding machines were ubiquitous office equipment until they were phased out in favor of...
s, filing cabinet
Filing cabinet
A filing cabinet is a piece of office furniture usually used to store paper documents in file folders. In the most simple sense, it is an enclosure for drawers in which items are stored. The two most common forms of filing cabinets are blocky files and diagonal files...
s, punched card
Punched card
A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions...
tabulating machines, and other office equipment to become a leading office equipment company.
The origin of Remington personal care products dates back to 1937 when Remington Rand began to branch out to electric shavers, starting with the Remington Model E.
In 1950, Remington Rand bought the pioneering Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company
Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation
The Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation was founded by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, and was incorporated on December 22, 1947. After building the ENIAC at the University of Pennsylvania, Eckert and Mauchly formed EMCC to build new computer designs for commercial and military applications...
. In 1955, it merged with Sperry Corporation
Sperry Corporation
Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the twentieth century...
, developer of the automatic pilot
Autopilot
An autopilot is a mechanical, electrical, or hydraulic system used to guide a vehicle without assistance from a human being. An autopilot can refer specifically to aircraft, self-steering gear for boats, or auto guidance of space craft and missiles...
, amongst other device
Machine
A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...
s. The combined company became the Sperry Rand Corporation and continued to market shavers under the Remington brand. In 1979, Sperry Rand sold off a number of its divisions, including the consumer products. Victor Kiam
Victor Kiam
Victor K. Kiam was an American entrepreneur and the owner of the New England Patriots football team from 1988-1991....
bought the electric shaver company in a leveraged buyout
Leveraged buyout
A leveraged buyout occurs when an investor, typically financial sponsor, acquires a controlling interest in a company's equity and where a significant percentage of the purchase price is financed through leverage...
.
Victor Kiam's Remington Products Company became very profitable, branching out into other personal care small appliance
Small appliance
Small appliance refers to a class of home appliances that are portable or semi-portable or which are used on tabletops, countertops, or other platforms in the United States of America...
s, buying Clairol
Clairol
Clairol is a personal care products division of Procter & Gamble. The Clairol company was started in 1931 by Lawrence M. Gelb and wife, Joan, who named their enterprise after a hair-coloring preparation they found while traveling in France....
's personal care appliance business in 1994. Kiam sold controlling interest
Controlling interest
Controlling interest in a corporation means to have control of a large enough block of voting stock shares in a company such that no one stock holder or coalition of stock holders can successfully oppose a motion...
in Remington to Ike Perlmutter prior to the Clairol acquisition
Takeover
In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company by another . In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to the acquisition of a private company.- Friendly takeovers :Before a bidder makes an offer for another...
that same year. Remington changed hands again on June 1996 when Perlmutter and Kiam sold controlling interest in the company to Vestar Capital Partners
Vestar Capital Partners
Vestar Capital Partners is an American private equity firm focusing on leveraged buyout transactions in the United States, Europe and Asia.The firm, which was founded in 1988 is headquartered in New York City with offices in Boston, Massachusetts, Denver, Colorado in the US as well as Paris, Milan,...
. Victor Kiam died in 2001. In 2003, the Kiam family and Vestar sold Remington to the battery
Battery (electricity)
An electrical battery is one or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy. Since the invention of the first battery in 1800 by Alessandro Volta and especially since the technically improved Daniell cell in 1836, batteries have become a common power...
company Rayovac
Rayovac
Rayovac is a brand of batteries owned by Spectrum Brands of Madison, Wisconsin, United States.- History :...
. Rayovac changed its name to Spectrum Brands
Spectrum Brands
Spectrum Brands is a diversified company established in 2005 as the successor company to Rayovac Corporation. Rayovac had been located in Wisconsin since its conception as The French Battery Company in 1906, but then in 2004, as Spectrum Brands, located its Corporate headquarters just north of...
and market
Market
A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...
s Remington brand men's and women's electric shavers, hair clippers, beard
Beard
A beard is the collection of hair that grows on the chin, cheeks and neck of human beings. Usually, only pubescent or adult males are able to grow beards. However, women with hirsutism may develop a beard...
and moustache
Moustache
A moustache is facial hair grown on the outer surface of the upper lip. It may or may not be accompanied by a type of beard, a facial hair style grown and cropped to cover most of the lower half of the face.-Etymology:...
trimmer
Trimmer
In light-frame construction, a trimmer is a timber or metal beam used to create an opening around a stairwell, skylight, chimney, and the like...
s, nose and ear hair trimmers, foot massagers, make-up mirror
Mirror
A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...
s, heated hair rollers, blow dryers, and curling irons. Remington also sells flat irons.