Grand Metropolitan plc was a leisure, manufacturing and property conglomerate headquartered in England. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it merged with Guinness plc to form Diageo in 1997.
History
1934 to 1970s
The business began in 1934 as a hotel business called MRMA Ltd (abbreviated from Mount Royal Metropolitan Association).[1] Grand Hotels (Mayfair) Ltd, a business founded after World War II by Maxwell Joseph, merged with MRMA in 1957[2] and the combined business expanded rapidly under Joseph's leadership.[3]