The story
Background
The success of the British, Dutch, and French East India Companies led the merchants and shipowners of Ostend in the Austrian Netherlands to want to establish direct commercial relations with the Indies. The trade from Ostend to Mocha, India, Bengal, and China started in 1715. Some private merchants from Antwerp, Ghent and Ostend were granted charters for the East India trade by the Habsburg government of the Austrian Netherlands, which had recently gained control of the territory from Spain. Between 1715 and 1723, 34 ships sailed from Ostend to China, the Malabar or Coromandel Coasts, Surat, Bengal, or Mocha. Those expeditions were financed by different international syndicates composed of Flemish, British, Dutch, and French merchants and bankers.
Establishment
The mutual rivalry among the syndicates weighed heavily upon the profits and this resulted in the foundation of the Ostend Company, chartered by the Austrian ruler Charles VI, in December 1722. The capital of the company was fixed at 6 million guilders, composed of 6,000 shares at 1,000 guilders each. It was mainly supplied by the moneyed inhabitants of Antwerp and Ghent. The shares were issued on the Antwerp Exchange on 11 and 12 August 1723, with 3,037 of the shares coming to be held by 54 major investors, mainly Antwerp merchants. The seven directors were chosen from leading figures in trade and finance: Jacques De Pret, Louis-François de Coninck and Pietro Proli, from Antwerp; Jacques Maelcamp, Paulo De Kimpe and Jacques Baut, from Ghent; and the Irish Jacobite Thomas Ray, a merchant and banker based in Ostend. While the ships sailed from Ostend, the company's offices were located at the Stock Exchange in Antwerp. One of the leading shareholders was Leopold Philip, 4th Duke of Arenberg. The company's shares proved exceptionally profitable, providing a 15 percent return.
The company also possessed two factories (trading posts), at Cabelon (modern-day Covelong) on the Coromandel Coast and Banquibazar (Ichapore) in Bengal.
Between 1724 and 1732, 21 company vessels were sent out, mainly to Canton in China and to Bengal. Thanks to the rise in tea prices, high profits were made in the China trade. Between 1719 and 1728, the Ostend Company transported 7 million pounds of tea from China (roughly half of the total amount brought to Western Europe), which would be about the same as British East India Company during the same period.
From Wikipedia’s article on Ostend Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4