Bic (company)

Products

In 1970, Gillette purchased S. T. Dupont Paris whose principal product was luxury cigarette lighters. During this time Dupont explored the possibilities of marketing a disposable lighter, developing an inexpensive disposable lighter called Cricket, which it introduced in the United States in 1972. Later that year Bic was test marketing a disposable lighter that could provide 3,000 lights before wearing out; Bic introduced this lighter in 1973.

As well as the BIC Cristal ballpoint pen, Bic are easily recognizable as a result of their importance in pop culture. As such, they are represented in the design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The company competes in most markets against Faber-Castell, Global Gillette, Newell Rubbermaid, Pentel and Schwan-Stabilo. The BIC pen, more specifically the BIC Cristal, was the company's first product. BIC is also known for making disposable razors for both men and women.

Ownership

The company went public in 1958 with a reverse merger into the older Waterman Pen Company of Seymour, Connecticut, in the United States, and later sold off the older operation. The Bich family owns about 40 percent of Bic stock and controls 55% of its voting power.

In June 2010, BIC sold its funeral products division to Prairie Capital, a Chicago-based private equity firm.

United States subsidiary

BIC's U.S. headquarters and manufacturing operations were moved to Milford, Connecticut in 1958 after the Waterman Pen Company acquisition resulted in the need for larger facilities. It remained alongside a road eventually renamed "Bic Drive" until a 2008 move to Shelton, Connecticut. A cigarette lighter factory remains on the Milford site.

The company's U.S. subsidiary, BIC Corporation, accounts for more than half of the worldwide company's sales. Both Bruno Bich, son of company co-founder Marcel, who rose through the ranks in the U.S. organization to become Chairman Of The Board as of October 21, 2010, and Mario Guevara, the company's Chief Executive Officer as of the same date, worked in the American subsidiary for several years.

Sponsorship

BIC sponsored a professional cycling team in the 1960s led by Tour de France winners Jacques Anquetil and Luis Ocaña. The company began sponsoring the Tour again in 2011 as an "official supporter", which they have continued to do to the present day.

BIC also sponsored the Alain Prost–led Prost Grand Prix team in Formula One from 1997 to 2000.

The logo

The corporate logo comprises two parts; a rhomboid with curved corners, left and right sides angled upward and containing the letters "BiC" with "i" the only one in lower case, and the BIC Boy to its left. The rhomboid, which debuted in 1950 to coincide with the launch of the BIC Cristal, was originally red with white letters. The colors were eventually changed to orange (Pantone 1235C) with black letters and outline. Only the font of the letters remains unchanged. The BIC Boy is described on the corporation's website as "a school boy, with a head in the shape of a ball, holding a pen behind his back." The ball is the tungsten carbide one that was the key feature in BIC's new ballpoint pens in 1961. The schoolboy was designed by Raymond Savignac who also developed the product's advertising campaign which was intended to attract the attention of children. The BIC Boy was added to the left of the rhomboid one year later in 1962.