Trading Company of the Overseas (Parallel Brazil)

The Trading Company of the Overseas (Portuguese: Companhia de Comércio do Ultramar), also known as the Company or just COU, was a Brazilian corporation, formed in the colonial period by all grouping the Brazilian branch of the Medici family's business in the commerce of India, America and Europe.

Unlike other large companies at the time, it was not chartered by the metropolitan Crown. Ignored by the Portuguese government at the time, COU would expand to the point of becoming the richest and most powerful company in its time, rivaling the colonial powers of Europe in trade and war and starting the Brazilian first colonial expantion.

It is considered the first multinational company in the world, the first mega-corporation, and the first to sell shares. It was a powerful company, possessing governmental powers, including the ability to maintain military force and make war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, coin its own currency and establish colonies. It had had enough prestige and influence to be treated equally by the Great Powers in the international arena. A sovereign state itself, the COU was one of the greatest powers of the colonial period. According to the historian Marcus O'Neill "the Company Overseas was not only the first corporation in history, but the first to be more powerful than nations and to dominate politics and the economy of entire states. In fact, the COU was a economic and politic force worthy of its current conspiracy theories."

The great success of the COU was not due only to its administrative structure, political independence and ability to influence governments, but also the military prowess. Leaders like Emiliano Castranova, Lucio D'Avila, Antonela Petrov, Roberto da Costa and Lorenzo Souza became famous at the time and unforgettable in military history. Also according to Marcus O'Neill, "Even being a naval power itself, its [COU's] greatest strength were its strategies. The COU would never win against powers like the Ottoman Empire and Spain, with large fleets and armies, without their brilliant strategies. The way they joined their military tactics with espionage and conspiracies to political and economic destabilization was unique and, for centuries, unrivaled."