Unified Trade Consortium
Headquarters UTC was a massive multiblock compound in the Etoile Capital City, so when Toreo was escorted to the chairman's office, he had expected some sort of upper level pavilion, a palatial promenade of some type, with fawning attendants surrounding some old business tycoon with a penchant for smoky business deals and lavish attention by attractive women. Instead, he found himself facing a simple oak door in some deep part of the building, far enough inside to where there would be no exposed windows, but perhaps maybe some tiny vent-hole to an interior airshaft so the harried office workers inside wouldn't suffocate in the dark. The marshal grimaced at the memory before knocking on the door.
"Come in! Come in." The door opened, and a young woman, brow shiny with sweat, waved him in energetically. "Always have time for business of the Magistrates, though, as you can see, today's a little hectic." The single-desk office was crowded with filing cabinets and musty with the scent of old parchment and spilled inkstains. The woman sat behind the desk and quickly began scanning through the stack of papers in front of her, squinting through her glasses; the friction-lights in the room were relatively bright, but the cloudy day meant that virtually no light was coming through the clerestory.
Toreo cleared his throat and straightened his back. "I am Marshal Toreo in service to the Magistrates, and I bring a missive from Magistrate Caranda Valier of the Longhall of Ebensberg. Apologies for presumption, but I must confirm that you are Zeilinsk, Chairman of the Unified Trade Consortium? If not, may I be escorted to him?" He tilted his head slightly. This woman had the frantic energy of a mouse trapped in a box, quickly filing papers here and there, with the slightly sallow skin of someone who didn't get enough sunlight.
She glanced up quickly before turning back down to her papers. "Yes, yes. Helena Zeilinsk, Chairman of the UTC at your service. Disregard the title of Chairman, it's unisex." She held out a hand. "The message, if you would?" Her other hand was scratching out words and applying corrections with a quill, faster than Toreo could keep track.
The single wealthiest person in Etoile was doing her own paperwork? "Of course, Master Chairman. Mind the seal." His gloved hand contacted hers for a bit and she flinched slightly as she took the envelope, though she quickly unsealed it with a nail and a practiced gesture. Her eyes were a blur; Toreo could hardly believe how quickly she read the note.
"Please inform Magistrate Valier that I would love to discuss the issue with the Patino Lower Ward UTC manufactory tonight just before sundown, at the Radiant End at the south part of Central. She's welcome to bring her retinue and the UTC will cover expenses." Zeilinsk glanced up. "Do you require this in writing, Marshal?"
"If you would." Cara wouldn't have cared either way, but now Toreo was curious. The Chairman's hands were blazing fast with a quill, and she folded her reply and held it up. Toreo took the note and nodded before turning to leave.
"I'll be looking forward to seeing you tonight." Zeilinsk waved him off. Toreo closed the door and let out his breath. Being intimidated by a woman that looked like a librarian was new to him, but he supposed it was probably better than if he had had to deal with Milvanius or the other historical chairmans.
Structure
The Unified Trade Consortium is a single corporate body spanning multiple linked business interests, all reporting to a corporate head and internal management system. At the very top of the organization is the Board of Directors, led by a Chairman; underneath the board are the division chiefs of each business line and the financial and operations heads and support staffs. The business lines, including the Power Manufacturing business, Shipyards, and Strategic Investment groups, operate mostly independently from each other, and have their own top-down management structures from division chief and manufactory manager all the way down to the single manufactory employee running the lines.
The roots of the UTC in the 14th Company of the Nasse Ground Forces during The War of Unification are shown in the unusual ranking structure of the company - independently of title or role, all employees are assigned an alphanumerical rank (W1 through W6, L1 through L4), which determines seniority, pay scale, and ability to direct other employees of lower rank.
Culture
To the employees and leaders of the Unified Trade Consortium, the UTC is a family unit, though more hierarchical than most. The Consortium is famous for never conducting mass employee firings in response to economic conditions, and that quality is advertised in their annual recruiting fairs. Performing employees of the UTC can be expected to have jobs for life. The other side of this, however, is something that former employees refer to derisively as 'The Black Sheep Treatment' - those who leave the UTC are ostracized and social contact is cut off between current and former associates.
The UTC is well known for its ruthlessness in business dealings against its competitors. While historical incidents of sabotage and violence (ex. The Canardmort Affair) were common, the signing and enforcement of The Tradepact of the Consortiums has more or less restricted competition to legal means. Still, new businesses that directly compete with a UTC business line (for instance, parts manufactory) will find themselves undercut and their suppliers reticent, a phenomenon the Etoile Monitor named the 'Full-Press'.
Public Agenda
As supplied on it's annual report to investors, the UTC is the pre-eminent commercial interest in the Principality of Etoile, the largest enterprise by both total revenues and employee count. The initial investors (the soldiers that were under Victor Milvanius III's command) became fabulously wealthy, and investment in the UTC is considered the safest bet in Etoile.
As with all other large Consortium interests, the UTC is bound by the terms of The Tradepact of the Consortiums, requiring that the UTC assist and support the Principality when it comes to matters of state interest.
Assets
The Unified Trade Consortium, under its various subsidiaries, controls a virtual empire of commercial holdings of nearly every variety. Most famous of these are the manufactory blocks it runs in Patino, the Machine City, specifically in the Arsenal Ward, but the UTC runs everything from luxury resort destinations in The Stagonids to farming interests in the Endless Miles, mines deep within the Eastern Saibh frontier and patisseries in the Etoile Capital City. There is virtually no industry in which the UTC does not participate, with the possible exception of the activities of the Scarlet Block (though articles in The Scarlet Journal frequently imply otherwise).
The UTC's total asset value is the second largest accumulation of non-state wealth in Etoile (the fund controlled by Etoilean Term Insurance being by far the largest).
History
Founded as the 14th Company Consortium in 638 by Victor Milvanius III (and renamed to the Unified Trade Consortium not long after his passing), the UTC held one of the earliest Principality state charters for the mass production of power technology for non-military use, a state mandate after The War of Unification. This charter granted the UTC specific state subsidies in order to rapidly accelerate the state of Power technology, and with this advantage the UTC grew an enormous monopoly on the funding and deployment of power across the cities of Western Saibh.
The enormous profit margins reaped were invested into a massive number of different industries - Milvanius had little tolerance for business competition and took the conqueror's mentality of Unification to the commercial realm. Endless tales of skulduggery and near-illegal actions may be found across several histories of early Etoilean business dealings, but the Princeps of the time put a halt to this state shortly before Milvanius passed away in 693. By that time, of course, the UTC had become dominant in at least half of the known categories of economic activity in the Principality.
The modern UTC, while remaining the largest business interest and most widely distributed in terms of it's horizontal economic integration, is not nearly as dominant as it was a generation ago, with The Magistrates frequently inspecting and scrutinizing UTC activity.
Power and Progress
Founding Date
638
Type
Consortium, Business
Alternative Names
UTC
Founders
Location
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