Mattel

Mattel Inc. () is an American toy company and is the largest toy company based on revenue. It produces products including Hot Wheels & Matchbox cars Barbie dolls, board games, and in the early 1980s, video game consoles. It was founded in 1945 by Elliot Handler and Harold "Matt" Matson (hence the name "matt-el"). Elliott Handler's wife Ruth Handler would later become president, and is credited with establishing the Barbie product line for the company in 1959. Today the Barbie line is responsible for over 80% of Mattel's profits.

Corporate governance

Corporate leadership

* Robert A. Eckert, Chairman of the Board, CEO (since May 2000)
* Kevin Farr, CFO
* Neil Friedman, President Mattel Brands
* Ellen L. Brothers, President American Girl Brands
* Bryan G. Stockton, Executive VP of International
* Thomas A. Debrowski, Executive VP of World Wide Operations
* Alan Kaye, Senior VP of Human Resource
* Bob Normille, Senior VP, General Counsel and Secretary

Board of directors

Current members of the board of directors of Mattel Inc. are:
*Eugene Beard
*Michael Dolan
* Robert A. Eckert, Chairman
*Tully Friedman
*Dominic Ng
*Andrea Rich
*Ronald Sargent
*Christopher A. Sinclair
*G. Craig Sullivan
*John Vogelstein
*Kathy White

History

The company originally produced picture frames and dollhouse accessories from picture frame scraps. With the success of their dollhouse accessories, the company turned its attention to toys. The company became publicly owned in 1960.

Mattel was the original sponsor of Matty's Funday Funnies from 1959-1962.

Throughout the 1960's Mattel diversified its lineup by purchasing smaller toy companies with products unrelated to their current lines. In 1966 Mattel purchased a small manufacturer of low quality plastic lunchboxes. Mattel company began exploring ideas for using this company's processes to make new products out of formed plastic. One employee noted that Matchbox was producing a line of diecast cars, but that they didn't roll very well. A suggestion was made to produce a similiar line of small toy cars but with superior berings so that they would roll better, and to make the chassies out of formed plastic using systems from the newly aquired company. This resulted in the very successful Hot Wheels line.

An independent audit of Mattel, released on November 3, 1975, revealed that company officials had fabricated press releases and financial information to "maintain the appearance of continued corporate growth." In 1999, the ill-advised purchase of a major software publisher, TLC, for $3.6 billion dollars led to the CEO, Jill Barad, being ousted (See Brøderbund.)

In 1987 Mattel distrubuted the NES in Europe as Nintendo at that time did not have a European office whereas Mattel did. The early European versions of the NES are called the Mattel Version where as later versions distrubuted by Nintendo are called the NES Version. The only difference between the two is the words Mattel Version and NES Version underneath the words Nintendo Entertainment System on the front of the console.

Between 1986 and 1990, Mattel was also responsible for marketing NES products in Canada, producing bilingual packages and adding their logo on them. Many American packages were also sold in Canada, resulting in Mattel taking Nintendo to court. Nintendo eventually took over the whole distribution of their products in North America.

In 1993, Mattel merged with the Fisher-Price toy company. In 1996, Mattel purchased Tyco Toys which was the third largest toy manufacturer at the time.

Mattel serves as the parent company for American Girl (formerly Pleasant Company) and Fisher-Price. Currently, it is headquartered in El Segundo, California.

Products

Trivia

* The Barbie and Ken dolls are named after the Handler children.

External links

*American Girl
*Mattel
*Fisher-Price
*Hot Wheels

Mattel: Encyclopedia BETA

Contents