Remington Products

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Remington Products, commonly known as simply Remington, is a worldwide personal care corporation which manufactures razors (shavers), epilators, and haircare products for both men and women. It is a subsidiary of Spectrum Brands.

[edit] History

The origins of Remington Products date back to the formation of E. Remington & Son, a firearms maker founded in 1816. E. Remington & Son made occasional forays into products other than firearms, such as sewing machines and farm implements—but its most significant side venture was when inventor Christopher Sholes persuaded the firearms company to help him develop the typewriter with the QWERTY keyboard, which is still the standard today. In 1886, E. Remington & Son sold the typewriter company, which became Remington Typewriter Co. The gun company became Remington Arms Company, still a leading firearms maker.

Remington Typewriter Company merged with the Rand Kardex Corporation in 1927 to become Remington Rand. Remington Rand branched out into making adding machines, filing cabinets, punch card tabulating machines, and other office equipment to become a leading office equipment company. Remington Rand began to make electric shavers in 1937 with the Remington Model E. The company's most significant move was when it bought the pioneering Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company in 1950. Remington Rand delivered the first UNIVAC computer to the United States Census Bureau the following year.

Remington Rand merged with Sperry Corporation, developer of the automatic pilot, amongst other devices, in 1955. The combined company became the Sperry Rand Corporation. In 1979, Sperry Rand sold off its office machines business and Victor Kiam bought the electric shaver company in a leveraged buyout. This left Sperry Corporation, as the company became, with the computer company and related operations. Burroughs Corporation, another computer company, bought Sperry in 1986. The merged company became Unisys Corporation.

Victor Kiam's Remington Products Company became very profitable, branching out into other personal care appliances, buying Clairol's personal care appliance business in 1994. Kiam sold controlling interest in Remington to Ike Perlmutter prior to the Clairol acquisition that same year. Remington changed hands again on June 1996 when Ike and Victor sold controlling interest in the company to Vestar Investment Group. Victor Kiam died in 2001. In 2003, the Kiam family and Vestar sold Remington to the battery company Rayovac. Rayovac changed its name to Spectrum Brands and markets Remington brand men's and women's electric shavers, hair clippers, beard and moustache trimmers, nose and ear hair trimmers, foot massagers, make-up mirrors, heated hair rollers, blow dryers, and curling irons.