Wayne Enterprises

This needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2006)

Wayne Enterprises (formerly WayneCorp) is a fictional company in the DC Universe. Wayne Enterprises is owned by billionaire Bruce Wayne and run by his business manager Lucius Fox. It was founded by merchant ancestors of the Wayne family in the 17th century.

In addition to providing an income for Wayne, the various activities of the organization help facilitate his Batman activities.

Fictional company history

Beginnings and Wayne Corp

Based in Gotham City, Wayne Corp was founded in the seventeenth century as a merchant house, eventually becoming a large multinational conglomerate. The company opened new subsidiaries, such as Wayne Shipping, Wayne Chemicals and Wayne Aerospace, while shutting down others, such as Wayne Manufacturing.

Branches

Wayne Technologies

Wayne Technologies, also known as WayneTech, is the biggest division of Wayne Enterprises. It is involved in the retrieval and research of alien technology. Its main rival was LexCorp before its assets were liquidated and Wayne bought them out. The subsidiary is sometimes used by Batman as a means to acquire new technologies or to use the medical facilities.

Other subsidiaries of WayneTech include: Holt Holdings Inc., (the company formerly owned by Michael Holt (Mister Terrific), Wayne Biotech, Waynel Pharmaceuticals, and Wayne Healthcare, which runs Gotham City's healthcare system.

Recently, Talia al Ghul secretly purchased enough shares to own this division and Kord Industries.^[1]

Wayne Biotech

Wayne Biotech is the company mostly responsible for the Gotham healthcare system. The company itself is a facility for researching and developing new medical procedures and systems. It also trains and teaches a huge number of people annually. Wayne Chemicals and Wayne Pharmaceuticals work closely with Wayne Biotech to develop medicines for different diseases.

The current research at Wayne Biotech is focused on finding the cure for cancer. Since the human genome has already been unlocked, Wayne Biotech is studying cloning to produce organs for future transplants. The company is involved in research into brain surgery methods, the fight against AIDS and HIV, and reconstructive plastic surgery. Batman uses Wayne Biotech as a research tool for finding medical information, patient histories and information on illnesses.

Wayne Agricultural

Wayne Foods is a little known subsidiary of WayneTech mostly based in Gotham City. It runs farms and cattle ranches in the Midwest United States, and imports meat from Argentina and other countries. Wayne Foods produces specialized products like ecological foods and natural lines with no additives and controlled growing. Batman uses Wayne Foods as a means to keep tabs on the food produce market. In recent times, Wayne Foods has concentrated development efforts on organic produce, as a result of changing fashion and consumer demand.

Wayne Shipping

Wayne Shipping owns dozens of freighters and handles three-and-a-half billion tons of freight each month and is used by Batman to gain an inside view on smuggling and drug trafficking. In 1986 Wayne Shipping merged with PAAL Ship Corporation, creating the worlds largest commercial shipping operation for precious metals. The former PAAL CEO, Andreas Milanic, successfully floated Wayne Shipping on the New York Stock Exchange in 1988. The Wayne Family currently owns 57% of the company, with Milanic's second son Dragoslav owning 20% (with the remaining 23% in public ownership). Despite a lack of investment in Wayne Shipping since the merger took place, the company still remains an important player in world ocean transportation.

Wayne Steel

Wayne Steel is one of the oldest steel mills and metal refineries in Gotham and supplies steel for shipbuilding. It also studies and replicates alien technology. This has also led to Batman getting priority on technology and alloys for him to study. Wayne Steel's alliance with the US Navy and the government has produced numerous contacts for Wayne Enterprises.

Wayne Shipbuilding

WayneYards is responsible for the building of a large number of naval warships, commercial, and private ships and is currently building a Nimitz class aircraft carrier in Gotham. WayneSteel and WayneYards facilities repair a large number of cruisers and destroyers and also has contacts within the upper pylons of the Navy and the global maritime business.

Wayne Aerospace

Wayne Aerospace builds luxurious and exclusive corporate and private jets and airliners. Its experimental aviation branch produces experimental and research planes built for the United States government and NASA. The military aviation branch designs and manufactures jet fighters and helicopters for the US military. The most notable models of these are the W-4 Wraith fighter and the Kestrel attack helicopter. Wayne Aerospace maintains competition with other aerospace corporations like Ferris Air and LexAir.

Wayne Chemicals

Wayne Chemicals controls Wayne Oil, Wayne Pharmaceuticals and Wayne Botanical. Wayne Chemicals also has a small percentage of ownership in Tyler Chemicals, based in New York City. Wayne Chemicals is primarily a research and development firm. Wayne Oil researches petrochemicals and alternative fuel sources. Wayne Chemicals is the first company to have created a power generator using algae. Wayne Pharmaceuticals is another one of Wayne Chemicals' research and development branches.

Wayne Industries

Wayne Industries is a research and development company used for industrial purposes. The company studies, researches and develops cleaner, mechanical fission and fusion power plants and also owns many factories and normal labor units, from manufacturing cars to making cloth and so on. Wayne Mining is also a part of Wayne Industries, along with the few power stations the company owns. Wayne Mining mostly produces gold and some precious stones in Africa.

Wayne Medical

Wayne Medical is Wayne Biotech’s sister company but both have different fields of study and work. Wayne Medical handles most of the healthcare system in Gotham and also studies cancer and AIDS with Wayne Biotech. Wayne Medical is focused more on researching illnesses than treating them and maintains and runs many hospitals in Gotham City and helps the Foundation with the orphanages.

Wayne Electronics

Wayne Electronics is a large consortium that manufactures portable radios, stereo and Hi-Fi systems, movie cameras, cameras and electronics, measuring devices, scanners, surveillance equipment, computers and other electronics devices. Its other branches of business include information technology, wired networks, wireless networks and space exploration systems and satellites. It also has contracts with the aerospace, nautical and military industries.

Wayne Entertainment

Wayne Entertainment owns many arenas and stadiums in Gotham and has leased out the Sommerset Stadium to the Metropolis Monarchs. Furthermore, Wayne Entertainment has working partnerships with several modeling agencies and multimedia houses and provides a large number of contacts and information. The Daily Planet newspaper, where Clark Kent and his wife, Lois Lane, work, is operated by Wayne Entertainment.^[2] Wayne Entertainment is in direct competition with WGBS (run by Galaxy Communications) and LexCom (run by LexCorp). Those companies, along with other television and movie companies provide the same services as Wayne Entertainment. Through Wayne Entertainment, Batman has contacts in the media and entertainment industries.

Wayne Foundation

The Wayne Foundation is the holding company for the Thomas Wayne Foundation and the Martha Wayne Foundation. The Wayne Foundation funds scientific research and helps people with research by providing facilities and training.

The foundation has its own building called the Wayne Foundation Building which includes a penthouse where Batman lived for a period of time. It also has a secret elevator which leads to a matching Batcave in a secret sub-basement under the building.

Through the Wayne Foundation and the organizations underneath, Wayne not only addresses social problems encouraging crime and assisting victims in a way that his Batman persona cannot, but the arrangement also provides a large network of connections in the world of charities. He finds out about the newest trends and newest arts, but at the same time maintains connections to the streets through the soup kitchens and social services groups, which augments his crime fighting efforts.

Thomas Wayne Foundation

The Thomas Wayne Foundation is a foundation for medicine and medical help. This foundation gives annual awards for medical breakthroughs and lifelong commitment, similar to the Nobel Foundation. The Thomas Wayne Foundation is also responsible for funding the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic in Park Row, Gotham's infamous Crime Alley. The foundation funds and runs dozens of other free clinics all over the city and in other trouble cities like the Blüdhaven. Bruce Wayne's surrogate mother, Dr. Leslie Thompkins, ran the Memorial Clinic in Crime Alley and governed the other clinics until she left Gotham.

Martha Wayne Foundation

The Martha Wayne Foundation is a patron and supporter of arts, families, education and tolerance. The foundation supports and helps to run a number of orphanages and free schools, and provides teachers for those who have learning difficulties. Artists can apply for grants from the foundation to help support them in furthering the arts. The foundation sponsors companies like Family Finders Inc. in Gotham. Family Finders is an organization directed at finding lost people and uniting families. The foundation sponsors and runs dozens of soup kitchens within the city.

In other media

DC animated universe

In Batman: the Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures, Wayne Enterprises was run both by Bruce Wayne and Lucius Fox. Attempts at taking over the company were made by rival companies, including Roland Daggett of Dagget Industries. After GothCorp's CEO Ferris Boyle was arrested, Wayne Enterprises helped keep GothCorp running without firing any employees. It once partnered with LexCorp for the development of cybernetic scouting drones, the Waynelexes, but Bruce terminated their contract after Lex Luthor created several large-scale military prototypes, violating the joint approval clause stipulated in their agreement, as well as his involvement in the Joker's rampage on Metropolis. Wayne Enterprises also hired Arnold Wesker after his release from Arkham Asylum.

In Batman Beyond, the elder Bruce Wayne defended against numerous hostile takeovers by shrewd industrialist Derek Powers of Powers Technology. However, sometime after Bruce retired as Batman, Powers succeeding in merging the two companies, creating Wayne-Powers Enterprises. Powers have used Wayne-Powers' resources for many illegal business transactions, include making biological weapons for rogue nations. After Derek Powers' criminal identity as Blight was revealed, his son Paxton took over as CEO. Paxton was soon arrested after attempting to murder Bruce and for several major art thefts. Bruce then finally reclaimed the company as his own.

Teen Titans

In an episode of Teen Titans, when Robin defected to Slade, the remaining four Titans fight Robin on top of Wayne Enterprises, destroying the letters "A" and "Y" in the process.

Film

Batman 1989

No mention is made of any family company owned by Bruce Wayne in this film. In the beginning of the film at the Harvey Dent Press Dinner, there is a seat for Bruce Wayne which is empty (because he is busy working as Batman), suggesting that he funded Dent's campaign. In the casino scene in Wayne Manor, Vicki Vale asks him what he does for a living and he is about to answer, but is interrupted by Alfred.

Batman Returns

In the 1992 sequel, once again, no mention is made of Wayne Enterprises in any capacity, however Bruce is shown attending a meeting with Max Shreck, suggesting that he is a known as a stockholder with holdings in various companies.

Batman Forever

In the 1995 film Batman Forever, Wayne Enterprises was briefly shown, with Bruce Wayne serving as head of the entire company (CEO) while Fred Stickley was head of the research department before being murdered by Edward Nygma, an employee in the research department. Bruce also has a transport tunnel on his desk from his main office that transports him back to Wayne Manor.

Batman Begins

In the 2005 film Batman Begins, board member William Earle takes over the companies after the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne. In one scene, he assures Bruce that the company will be in good hands until he is old enough to claim Wayne Corp. However, after Bruce's disappearance for many years, Earle has Wayne declared legally dead.

When Bruce finally returns to Gotham, he does not show obvious interest in reclaiming the family business. He is given a generous trust fund off which to live. Instead, he chooses to work in the Applied Sciences division, using it and his coworker Lucius Fox to provide him with high-tech equipment. He takes gear originally made for the U.S. military, including body armor and a prototype armored vehicle, and uses them to create equipment for his war on crime. At the film's end, when Wayne Enterprises becomes a public corporation, Bruce reveals he has become majority shareholder by means of a number of shell companies he used his trust fund to establish. He then installs Fox as the active CEO.

According to Forbes' 25 Largest Fictional Companies, it had 2007 estimated sales of $31.3 billion.

The Dark Knight

In The Dark Knight, Lucius Fox remains as the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. According to the viral campaign, the company's Research & Development Department has produced specialized fabrics and materials, electromagnetic gyroscopic navigational satellite systems (as shown on Batman: Gotham Knight), antihemorrhagic agent, radiation stamping technology, and rotor blades made of metal composites that have low radar signature and special acoustic design. As in Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne continues to utilize the resources of his company to aid his vigilante work as Batman. For example, he has Fox arrange a business meeting with a Chinese mogul named Lau in order to "get a closer look" at Lau's business practices and confirm his own suspicions that Lau, and his company LSI Holdings had been cooperating with the mob in money laundering schemes. He also had Fox build components for his new Batsuit. Batman also used the company's radiation stamping technology to lightly irradiate a large quantity of dollar bills for Gotham PD's Major Crimes Unit's detectives to use to track the mobs' money and identify which banks in the city are aiding them. Later on, Batman uses a sonar technology developed by Fox in order to track down and capture the Joker.

In addition, a subplot of the film involves a Wayne Enterprises' fiduciary named Coleman Reese, who accidentally discovers Bruce Wayne's identity as Batman while reviewing the company's budget and attempts to blackmail Wayne and Fox. Fox slyly frightens Reese into backing out, but Reese later attempts to reveal Batman's identity to the public after the Joker starts killing innocent people to goad Batman into revealing himself. The Joker changes his mind, however, and orders Reese killed to shut him up (on the basis that he will destroy a hospital if Reese is not dead in an hour). Reese is escorted to protection, and is saved from a rampaging truck by Wayne himself in his Lamborghini and Commissioner James Gordon from a police officer whose wife is in a hospital. Wayne feigns ignorance, but gives Reese a look which informs him that his life had just been saved by a man whom he had just tried to sell out. As Reese does not attempt to expose Wayne again, he evidently decided to keep his employer's secret.

Video Games

• In Batman: Arkham Asylum, at certain areas overlooking the harbor, a large building titled "W ENT" can be seen among the night skyline.

References

This article may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help by adding relevant internal links, or by improving the article's layout. (October 2008)

• "Batman Begins (2005)." IMDb. 27 Aug 2007. IMDb. 27 Aug 2007 <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372784/>.
• "Batman Begins." Batman Begins. 2006. Warner Brothers Studios. 27 Aug 2007 <http://www2.warnerbros.com/batmanbegins/>.
• "The Dark Knight" IMDb. 14 July 2008. IMDb. 14 July 2008. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/>.
• "The Dark Knight" The Dark Knight. 2008. Warner Brothers Studios. 14 July 2008 <http://wwws.warnerbros.de/thedarkknight/>.