The Byfrost Group

Building Tomorrow, Today

Lead by Wall Street's darling, Chad Richards, the Byfrost Group (NYSE: BYFR) is a multifaceted corporation with investments in almost every industry, with a special focus on R&D and disruptive innovations. Which makes sense, as Richards started the Byfrost Group in Anaheim, California as a startup incubator and angel investor back when he was going to college.

However, Byfrost has expanded exponentially since then, especially in the wake of the Great Recession, where Richards began to scoop up failing companies and add them to Byfrost's growing portfolio. Nowadays, Byfrost has around a dozen subsidiaries, including:

• Atlantis Media: "America's News Network," Atlantis Media evolved from the Atlantis Broadcast Network, one of America's oldest news companies, and a historic rival of CBS, ABC, and NBC. Atlantis started up Atlantic World News, their own 24-hour cable network back in the 90s, and has generally served as something of a "less sensationalist CNN for pro-business moderates." ABN was acquired by Byfrost during the Great Recession, after ABN's ad revenue dried up, and since then has developed a reputation for pushing several otherwise discredited conspiracy theories.
• Basilisk Capital Partners: The original Byfrost operation, now continued under a new name, Basilisk is a venture capital and investment company based out of San Diego, California. Basilisk has helped a number of innovative startups off the ground, while also drawing them into Byfrost's ever-growing web of companies.
• Hermes Media: Based out of New York City, Hermes has connections in digital publishing, new media production, and even a few online news sites. They seem to be making a big play for podcasting, though it remains to be seen if this will be more effective than some of their other recent efforts.
• Mjolnir Arms: A leading weapons developer, Mjolnir Arms, based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, manufactures weapons for both public and private use. They are most well known for the MN7 semi-automatic handgun, which is quite popular among both police, for its reliability and its ease of concealment.
• Northern Crown Aerospace: Based out of Seattle, Washington, Northern Crown is Byfrost's young aerospace research division. Right now, they haven't created any major innovations, though they have begun production on high-end corporate and private jets and helicopters.
• Otherworld Digital: A video game publisher based in Paris, France, Otherworld has been making major strides into the world of virtual reality.
• Pandora Life Science: A cutting edge biotech firm based out of Montreal, Quebec, Pandora is well known for its ground-breaking vaccines, as well as for its research into combating aging and associated diseases.
• Pomegranate Agriculture: A leading-edge agri-science company headquartered in Hyderabad, India, Pommegranate is especially well-known for its GMO crops designed to help boost the productivity of farms in the developing world.
• Sol Financial: A fair sized retail bank in London, Sol was bought up after it nearly went bankrupt during the recession, and was transformed into a new, multinational financial services provider, with ties throughout the City of London, Wall Street, Le Defense, Bankenviertel, and Hong Kong.
• Vulcan Petrochemicals: Based in Calgary, Alberta, Vulcan has investments in the Alberta oil sands, fracking in the Appalachians, and deep sea drilling in the Grand Banks, North Sea, and Gulf of Mexico. Vulcan often makes risky bets, but has a tendency to exceed expectations.

Of course, that's all just the public story. Members of the supernatural world know better. See, the Byfrost Group is one of the newest players in the supernatural world, and it is playing to win. Richards pushes for results from his employees, regardless of the costs, and fully endorses of his researchers' less savoury actions. Research teams, armed with magic-dampening shields and occult weaponry, have raided supernatural ruins, magical laboratories, and arcane vaults across the world. Rumours persist of even shadier actives, such as blackmail, assassination, and even the abduction of supernatural individuals for experiments. There are whispers that Byfrost is actually a front for the Thule, or yet another branch of the Illuminati, but Richards doesn't seem to be the type of person who'd ever settle for being someone else's puppet. No, what Byfrost is doing, they're doing for their own ends...whatever those may be.