History
History of Dun & Bradstreet company
To help American merchants in their decision-making, an enterprising businessman named Lewis Tappan began, in 1841, to establish a network of correspondents that would function as a source of reliable, consistent and objective credit information. His Mercantile Agency, located in New York City, was one of the first organizations formed for the sole purpose of providing
business information to customers.
Dun & Bradstreet nowadays
Today, Dun & Bradstreet serves a broad set of clients across multiple industries and geographies. We have a global client base of approximately 135,000, including some of the largest companies in the world. We are proud to count approximately 90% of the Fortune 500 as clients.
In July 2020, Dun & Bradstreet launched its Initial Public Offering (IPO) to accelerate the Company’s growth strategy.
Interesting facts about Dun & Bradstreet:
1. Employees of the Dun & Bradstreet company at different times were the future presidents of the United States:
Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley.
There is no doubt that the information and connections they accumulated were very useful for political activities.
Mercantile Agency founder Louis Tappen was a friend of Lincoln and active in the abolition movement slavery in the USA.
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2. The photo shows the famous actress Marilyn Monroe. Poster for the movie "How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953).
She is looking for her future husband with the help of the D&B Reference Book.
3. The DUNS number appeared in 1963, . Today, the DUNS number is the only global identifier for businesses in the world.