Honest Business International
Honest Business International is believed to be one of the most secretive and profitable companies that currently exist. Although no exact amount of wealth can be pinpointed to them, it is believed that they possess more funds than all of the high elf banking houses combined. Operated by the strange and reclusive leader, who refers to himself solely as "the Honest Businessman," they have interests and affairs all over Emicara. In many places they function using shell companies and fronts, as open believers in free trade of all goods, some of what they trade is banned by moral and secular authorities alike. It is said that they have hands in many pies, stretching to every inch of the known world.
Structure
Honest Business International on its surface is managed like any large company or banking house, with a head of the company overseeing all of its various departments and agencies. In reality, however, it bears more resemblance to a feudal monarchy or even a religious organization. The Honest Businessman has run the company for its entire storied history, during times when it was both legal and illegal. It has a multitude of subsidiary organizations that it supports, each seeming to function as independent entities, but all reporting back directly to the Honest Businessman. In places where HBI can function openly, Regional Presidents are the direct representatives of the Honest Businessman. Many of them take on similar descriptive pseudonyms, especially in areas where anonymity is preferred. Each of them have ample flexibility in how their organizations function, as long as the Honest Businessman continues to get his cut, nothing will be disturbed.
On the flip side, companies or individuals who turn against the Honest Businessman or seek to use the secular authorities against him, rarely end up living. The lucky ones are simply assassinated or arrested on other trumped up charges, and those who stay loyal to the business are typically showered with wealth and power. No one has ever successfully usurped the company's position when it chooses to fight back.
Public Agenda
The agenda of HBI is clear: make a lot of money. Due to the widespread nature of the company, it has interests in every nation and region of Emicara. This has made a single agenda difficult to pin down, but they tend to ignore the political system, in favor of simply adjusting their operations to fit whatever monarchy may be leading a nation at any given time. It is believed that they were supporters of the Great Northern Rebellion and other interests seeking to undermine the Jakonian Empire, but none of these claims were ever proven, despite the efforts of aggressive litigators in the Imperial City.
Assets
There is no current known total value of the wealth of Honest Business International. Its assets and holdings expand into nearly every major town and city throughout Emicara, especially in independent communities and settlements where legislation is light and government is minimal. Each individual branch of the company has its own war vault to draw from in the cases of emergency or hiring mercenaries, and plenty of full-time muscle exists in independent towns and cities like Nahunta, Hilliard, and Waycross. Dwarven mercenary regiments are often employed in extreme cases where small sized forces just won't be enough.
Outside of these people and caches, according to legend, the Honest Businessman himself retains a hidden vault where all of his accumulated wealth gathers. A scholar in these matters at the Imperial University suggested that the value could be in the hundreds of millions of gold pieces. It is said to include valuable artifacts from before the collapse of the Nameless Empire and artwork that was believed to have been destroyed by various religious authorities. All of it could be priceless, and no one knows where the vault is or how it is hidden and protected except for the Honest Businessman himself.
Besides the material wealth of the organization, HBI's greatest asset is the information it has gathered over the years. Thousands of politicians, generals, and ordinary people have borrowed money or been supported by the company. Every single one of them left a trail and evidence of their affairs and other crimes they may have committed. HBI hoards this information just as much as any gold, helping it protect interests even in areas where their operations are supposedly illegal. The network of blackmail and spies helps keep the company in business, and on the rare occasion when they seek to depose a troublesome foe, they will auction off the compromising information to people who could use it.
Honest Business for Honest People
Founding Date
47 AF
Type
Illicit, Syndicate
Leader
Location
Controlled Territories
Notable Members
Comments