The Rio Tinto Group is a diversified, multinational mining and resources group with headquarters in London, England and Melbourne, Australia. The company was founded in 1873, when a multinational consortium of investors purchased a mine complex on the Rio Tinto river, in Huelva, Spain from the Spanish government. Since then, the company has grown through a long series of mergers and acquisitions to place itself among the world leaders in the production of many commodities, including aluminium, iron ore, copper, uranium, coal, and diamonds. Although primarily focused on extraction of minerals, Rio Tinto also has significant operations in refining, particularly for refining bauxite and iron ore.The company has operations on six continents but is mainly concentrated in Australia and Canada, and owns gross assets valued at $81 billion through a complex web of wholly and partly owned subsidiaries.

Rio Tinto Group is a dual-listed company traded on both the London Stock Exchange where it is a component of the FTSE 100 Index and the Australian Securities Exchange where it is a component of the S&P/ASX 200 index.As of March, 2009, Rio Tinto is the fourth-largest publicly listed mining company in the world with a market capitalization of approximately $34 billion,and was listed in Fortune magazine's 2008 Global 500 ranking of largest worldwide companies by revenue at number 263.Although the company has a long record of producing profitable operating results and favorable investment returns, the company's 2007 acquisition of Canadian aluminium company Alcan burdened Rio Tinto with substantial debt, requiring it to dispose of assets to raise cash and consider accepting a large investment from the Chinese company Chinalco.

It refused Chinalco's $19.5 billion bid and announced to tie up with BHP Billiton on June 5,2009.

Type	Public (ASX: RIO, LSE: RIO, NYSE: RTP)
Founded	1873
Headquarters	London, England, UK Melbourne, Australia
Key people	Jan du Plessis, Chairman Tom Albanese, CEO Guy Elliott, Finance Director Dick Evans, Executive Director
Industry	Mining
Products	Iron ore Bauxite Alumina Aluminium Copper Molybdenum Gold Diamonds Coal Uranium Titanium Dioxide Borates Salt Talc
Revenue	$58,065 million (2008)
Operating income	$11,233 million (2008)
Net income	$4,609 million (2008)
Employees	35,000 (2007)
Website	www.riotinto.com

(Source: Wikipedia)