One will see Brown-Forman Corp.’s shining head office in Louisville, Kentucky, where it was founded in 1870. As of the moment, the company is currently being lead by Paul C. Varga, its Chairman and CEO or chief Executive Officer. With about 3,350 employees and a whooping revenue of 2.444 billion dollars at the end of fiscal year 2006, one can say that it is strong in its own right in terms of the stock market as a distilled beverage manufacturer and producer—even a stock trading software program will say so.

Specializing in wines and other alcoholic drinks called spirits, Brown-Forman Corp. is said to be the largest companies in this industry owned by Americans. As people know, majority of alcohol manufacturers are found in Spain and Europe. Few people also know that it is Brown-Forman Corp. that manufactures Jack Daniels’s Early Times, and Southern Comfort. It outshines a lot of its competitors because its alcoholic products are very consistent in taste and manufacturing quality.

Also, about 70% of the voting shares of the corporation are controlled by the Brown family.  This is so because the original founder of the corporation is George Garvin Brown. He was a pharmaceutical salesman back in 1870s and he decided to brew his own wine. The corporation has two classes of stocks—common stocks—and has a Class A voting share using the ticker symbol. However, stocks are thinly traded because, as mentioned earlier, the Brown family controls majority of the stocks of the corporation.