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The Weyland-Yutani Corporation, often shortened to Weyland-Yutani and commonly referred to as Wey-Yu or simply "The Company", is a large British/Japanese multinational conglomerate.
It was founded in 2099 by the merger of Weyland Corp and the Yutani Corporation.
Weyland-Yutani is primarily a technology supplier, manufacturing synthetics, spaceships and computers for a wide range of industrial and commercial clients, making them a household name.
Weyland-Yutani also has numerous non-manufacturing interests; the company has extensive assets in interplanetary shipping and transport, and is one of the corporations that operates human colonies outside the solar system through the Extrasolar Colonization Administration, which it owns or controls. The company also has a seat in the Interstellar Commerce Commission's Company Review Board, and owns or controls the United States Colonial Marine Corps. They hold their main offices in Tokyo, London, San Francisco, the Sea of Tranquillity on Luna and on Thedus.
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The Weyland-Yutani Corporation was formed when Weyland Corp absorbed the Yutani Corporation in a hostile takeover in 2099. Following the merger, Weyland-Yutani opened with the largest share value ever recorded on the Systems Exchange. The company would go on to buy out numerous other businesses, investing in almost every sector, and had a controlling stake in a vast number of diverse corporations. According to some, Weyland-Yutani owned "pretty much everything" by the 2150s. Many of the companies wholly or partly owned by Weyland-Yutani continued to operate under their own brand, such as the Kelland Mining Company.
The Weyland-Yutani corporation was originally named Weylan-Yutani, the original name was created by Ron Cobb, one of the designers of the Nostromo and its crew's uniforms
"One of the things I enjoyed most about Alien was its subtle satirical content. Science fiction films offer golden opportunities to throw in little scraps of information that suggest enormous changes in the world. There's a certain potency in those kinds of remarks. Weylan Yutani for instance is almost a joke, but not quite. I wanted to imply that poor old England is back on its feet and has united with the Japanese, who have taken over the building of spaceships the same way they have now with cars and supertankers. In coming up with a strange company name I thought of British Leyland and Toyota, but we couldn't use "Leyland-Toyota" in the film. Changing one letter gave me "Weylan," and "Yutani" was a Japanese neighbor of mine."
—Ron Cobb, "The Authorized Portfolio of Crew Insignias from The United States Commercial Spaceship Nostromo Designs and Realizations" by John Mollo and Ron Cobb
The original spelling of the Company's name was Weylan Yutani (note that there was no D in the name). At no time in Alien nor in the portfolio was the name of the Company spelled with a D. This was changed to "Weyland-Yutani" in Aliens.
From the start, even the lowliest of Weyland-Yutani's employees were aware of the corrupt nature of the conglomerate. It was common knowledge amongst the company's commercial haulage fleet that senior management routinely bribed and paid off inspectors rather than submit to thorough safety inspections and reviews of their vessels.
Some time prior to 2122, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation detected the signal being broadcast from the derelict on Acheron (LV-426), the middle moon of 3 orbiting the ringed planet Calpamos. While the language was unknown, the company succeeded in deciphering enough of the message to learn it was a warning regarding the deadly species Xenomorph XX121. They subsequently dispatched the USCSS Nostromo to investigate, without the crew's knowledge, leading to initial human contact with the Xenomorph, the death of all but one of the ship's crew and the loss of the Nostromo itself. While the incident and the existence of the Xenomorph was apparently covered up by those involved, in a twist of irony the company later coincidentally established the Hadley's Hope terraforming colony on LV-426.