Corporation Service Company

Corporation Service Company (CSC) was founded in 1899 by Christopher L. Ward and Otho Nowland, who was then the president of Equitable Guarantee & Trust Company. Using an initial investment from Nowland, Ward, and their associate Willard Jackson, they established The Delaware Incorporators’ Trust Company. A similar company was formed separately by Josiah P. Marvel, an attorney and then-leader of the American Bar Association, The Delaware Bar Association, and the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce.

In 1920, Ward and Marvel merged their respective companies to form the Corporation Service Company. Through the 1970s, CSC exclusively served Delaware business entities. WMB Holdings is the parent company of CSC.

CSC's Corporate Domains division provides services to various corporations, including Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Amazon, Twitter, Starbucks, Lego, Sony, Disney, Ford, BMW, Toyota, Vodafone.

The company raised capital through the sale of its subsidiary company, the Delaware Charter Guarantee & Trust Company, which it had acquired in 1977. During the September 11 attacks, the company had offices on the 87th floor of the World Trade Center's South Tower. All 60 employees present at the time of the attacks managed to evacuate the tower before the second plane struck. In 2017, CSC opened its new headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware and rebranded from "Corporation Service Company" to "CSC."

In 1990, CSC acquired Florida-based Corporate Information Services. Between 1989 and 1998, CSC expanded through the acquisitions of nine other service providers, including Prentice Hall Legal & Financial Services in 1995, and Entity Service Group, LLC in 1998.

In 2003, CSC acquired LexisNexis Document Solutions to supplement its Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), secured lending, and motor vehicle services. Between 2005 and 2007, CSC acquired eBrandSecure, the corporate services division of Register.com, and NameProtect. In 2011, CSC acquired MLM Information Services, a tax management services provider. In 2012, CSC purchased Ingeo Systems, Inc., a provider of electronic real estate document recording (eRecording) services.

In 2013, CSC acquired the corporate domain name and online brand services division of Melbourne IT. The unit operates under a new name, CSC Digital Brand Services, and offers domain name management, trademark searching, phishing protection, SSL certificates, DNS services, and gTLD services.

In 2014, CSC announced that it had acquired IP Mirror, a Singapore-based provider of corporate domain name registration and online brand protection services. The acquisition of IP Mirror grew CSC Digital Brand Services’ ability to provide service in the Asia-Pacific region.