Tolian Metallurgy & Refining

Metallurgia & Raffinazione Toliana

Overview
Company Type	Publicly-traded
Owners	Majority worker-owned
Traded as	BdM: TMR
Industry	Mining Metal refining
Founded	161 TT
Founders	Vittorio Barozzo di Tolia
Headquarters	Tolia, La Rossa
Reach	International
Employees	11,800
Revenue	4.7Bꕥ

Tolian Metallurgy & Refining, formerly known as Barozzo Metallurgy & Refining, is a Rossan manufacturer that specializes in the extraction and refinement of metals and rare-earth minerals. It is a historically major supplier of raw and refined materials in the Rossan market, though it has expanded operations internationally after the Second Calming. Due to the massive resource exploitation that has occurred on La Rossa, it has significantly wound down extraction in its country of origin, and its biggest mines currently operate in the Gansu province on Nongba.

Though only officially formed in 161 TT, the company's existence came as a merger of various mining operations historically belonging to the Barozzo Family. Vittorio Barozzo di Tolia, an industrialist who had rose to be the head of his Family, consolidated his holdings with his relatives in order to achieve organized production at scale. The company's size would greatly increase following Barozzo's rise to the title of Dux, when it would receive huge backing from the government in an expansionary industrial effort. The massively increased operations have been a major factor in accelerating the Silver Crisis, as extraction proved to be unsustainable, leading to many mines shutting down after resource depletion.

History

Before and After Consolidation

Even before the Silver Rush of 1296 TT, the Barozzo Family has held an expansive grip over the region's mining operations. Being deeply rich in silver, Tolia would become one of the major exporters of the metal as trade spread across the island. Silver would become the de facto currency across much of the island, eventually becoming formally recognized as such. After the wars over the Montesuvian mountain range that resulted in the peaceful unification of the island, silver production, though now a little more spread out, remained highly concentrated in the city-province. The Barozzo family remained one of the island's most affluent for centuries afterwards. As time passed, however, acts of inheritance would divide the Family's collective holdings among vast numbers of relatives, with little cooperation between one another. The ascendance of Vittorio Barozzo as the head of the Family would see a shift in direction, as he sought to bring it together through cutthroat diplomacy with its branches. As the nation entered its early Industrial Age, the rise of rapidly-enriching private industrialists put significant pressure on the old aristocracy of the island to adapt.

The Barozzo family's holdings were consolidated under the banner of Barozzo Metallurgy & Refining, keeping most of its mines and factories individually managed while moving towards sharing operations when duplication was unnecessary. Receiving great support as Vittorio Barozzo (and other industrialists among the nobility) rose to be Dux, the holding company vastly expanded its assets and soon once more established a monopoly over the local region. It would nonetheless continue expanding across territory, much to the chagrin of other Families. Though efforts were placed by the other Families to protect their own mining efforts at the expense of the Barozzos, Barozzo M&R still quickly grew to become the island's biggest manufacturer of metals upon which nearly every other industry came to rely upon.

Silver Crisis

See also: Silver Crisis

The Silver Crisis, an economically devastating, deflationary period that came as a result of the slow depletion of silver from the island's mines, a metal which was used as the backing of currency for centuries prior. Though warnings have been there for years prior, as one mine shut down after another after exhausting their deposits, the rate at which new mines had been opening would slow down very little over time, with production only coming to decline as a result of scarcity of resources rather than a lack of effort. Barozzo M&R, still the largest producer of silver (among other metals) on the island, used vast sums of resources to prospect for new sites, albeit unsuccessfully. The announcement that the last of their silver mines was to shut down produced shocks in the economy.

Barozzo M&R, which had greatly contributed to the problem in the first place, was not immune from the consequences. The mining sector, which had employed over 130,000 total people at the time, was especially deeply hit as workers were laid off en-masse due to constraints in mining capacity. Barozzo M&R, which had come to struggle financially trying to keep its workers on its payroll, chose to massively downsize in efforts to save itself, creating vast unemployment and only adding to the peak of the crisis. The company would produce a vicious circle, where the more people it chose to drop, the worse the national economic situation would get, only making its own situation even more perilous. A true industrial giant, its slow demise reverberated throughout the nation as it left the country out of work.

The revolutionary event of La Denunzia led to a great restructuring of society, both through internal pressure and chaos caused by the Calming. The poverty the country found itself in was fought with massive redistribution of wealth, nationalizing industries and putting their profits into the hands of the people. Barozzo M&R would spend a few years in its first stint as Tolian M&R. The return to private ownership that followed the first few years saw attempts to restart the nation's mining sector, as currency switched to no longer be backed by silver, giving the nation room to reinvest into itself again. Tolian M&R would be reacquired by the Barozzos once more, who had chosen to reopen the company, now cautious in their expansion. Changing its remaining equipment to accommodate the other metals it now primarily concerned itself with, mainly iron, aluminum and rare-earth ventures, the new rise of the M&R accompanied a slow reawakening of the national economy.

Riorganizzazione

The reign of Dux Vincenzo Barozzo di Tolia ended in bloodshed and authoritarianism, as the disgraced Dux attempted to reassert control over the country for himself. After his ousting, Dux Giulio Moretti would set out to reform the country in a project briefly dubbed Riorganizzazione, to ensure another Dux could not come to power with the backing of the aristocratic elite, which once more came to dominate the island with their vast wealth and resources. Barozzo M&R would temporarily be placed under partial government control, with certain key administrative positions being taken away from the hands of the Barozzos and replaced with government bureaucrats, who would serve to manage the company as a regular private business until a more permanent solution came about. In 61 PC, Dux Moretti would finally proclaim that 37 corporations and conglomerates belonging to the Six Families would have their organizational structure changed and ownership diversified, with 3/4ths of the voting shares of the companies being distributed equally among their employees, putting them under mostly democratic control. Though some of the companies would eventually be bought back out by the Families in time, the heavily unionized Tolian environment allowed the now-renamed Tolian Metallurgy & Refinement to remain independently owned.

Gansu Operations

Since 65 PC, Tolian M&R has expanded into Nongba, operating in the TUN's province of Gansu. In 67 PC, Octavia, the ruler of Tun'ilhameng territories, would declare the land on which the company's mines sat on to be heritage land, unable to be owned by anyone. This has not affected its operations, however, as the mines have hired security staff to keep locals at bay, outside of the mines' operations. The company's treatment of Tun'ilhameng workers has seen some criticism in La Rossa, being seen as both contrary to the nation's values and that of the company, which has not extended the same protections to its foreign workers as it did to the Rossans.