RL Polk & Co.
| RL Polk & Co.
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1870 |
| Seat |
Southfield , Michigan ,
|
| management | Stephen R. Polk ( Chairman , President and CEO ) |
| Number of employees | 1,278 (2007) |
| sales | 280.2 million US dollars (2007) |
| Branch | Information services for the automotive industry |
| Website | www.polk.com |
RL Polk & Co. is a privately held US service company headquartered in Southfield near Detroit , Michigan . The main business area of RL Polk & Co. is the collection, processing and marketing of information about vehicles (for example registration and sales figures, as well as usage-related vehicle data, creating market studies and production planning aids). As an information broker and processor, RL Polk & Co. offers the data and marketing and customer loyalty instruments developed from the information to vehicle owners, manufacturers, dealers, the spare parts trade, insurance companies, banks, direct marketing companies, the media, market research companies, authorities and many other customers.
The company was founded in Detroit in 1870 by Ralph Lane Polk as a publisher of magazines, directory books, and automotive-related reference books. A meeting of Ralph Lane Polk II with Alfred P. Sloan Jr. , later President of General Motors , was decisive for the orientation of RL Polk & Co. towards the automotive industry. Today, in addition to the USA, RL Polk & Co. is also active in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom. The German subsidiary RL Polk Germany GmbH is based in Essen .
Carfax, Inc. has been a subsidiary of the Polk Group since 1999. This company, founded in 1984, provides potential vehicle buyers with information on individual vehicle history that can be accessed on the Internet, including, for example, the number of previous owners, any major damage, the type of use (private car / company car ) and mileage. Carfax is also the main sponsor of the Carfax 250 car race . In 2007 CARFAX Europe GmbH was founded - as a direct and full subsidiary of CARFAX, Inc. - which is currently expanding the business model in Europe. In addition to vehicle reports on imported used cars from the USA, CARFAX Europe GmbH already offers vehicle reports for used cars from Sweden and Slovenia.