Mattel Skip-Bo. Mattel purchased Fisher-Price, Inc. in 1993, Tyco Toys, Inc. (owners of the Matchbox and Dinky Toys brands) in 1997, and Pleasant Company (maker of the American Girl brand) in 1998. Mattel purchased The Learning Company in 1999 for $3.5 billion, but sold it in 2000 at a loss. The company had a $430.9 million net loss that year. Mattel earned the first grant for Disney Princess doll licenses in 2000. In December 2000, Mattel sued the band Aqua, saying their song "Barbie Girl" violated the Barbie trademark and turned Barbie into a sex object, referring to her as a
Charoen Pokphand Shanghai-based animal feed and poultry group to the Shanghai exchange, a real estate development arm, Hong Kong Fortune, to the Hong Kong exchange, and Ek Chor China Motorcycle to the New York exchange. Having been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 1981, C.P. Lotus - a major retail arm of C.P. Group in China - opened its first store in Shanghai in 1997. After the Asian financial crisis in 1997, C.P. consolidated into three business lines under its main “brand names”: foods (C.P. Foods), retail (7-Eleven), and telecommunications (True). By the early 2000s, the CP Group claimed $9