It all started in 1945 when he and his friend, Edouard Buffard, acquired at little cost an empty factory shell near Paris. They had no machines, no products, no customers and very little capital. Marcel Bich’s sound knowledge of the writing instrument trade enabled him to see the enormous potential of the ballpoint pen. By 1950, Mr. Bich launched his first ballpoint pen, which fully satisfied his demanding criterias: a precision instrument which wrote evenly and reliably for a long time, and which would be sold for an affordable price.

The product was right, the price was right, the time was right. The name became right - BIC – short, simple, attention-capturing, in any language. A simple, yet effective, award-winning advertising campaign led the new BIC pen and the young company to success.

In the following years, Marcel Bich continued to focus on his philosophy of offering consumers around the world maximum service at minimum fair price.

He diversified his activities by introducing the BIC® Lighter in 1973 and the BIC® Shaver in 1975 that offer the highest quality products at an affordable price to the consumer.

Marcel Bich once wrote in a 1973 letter to shareholders that his success was " … not the result of a formal education received in a business school, American or French, it is the result of the tough school of business which I entered at 18 years old by the smallest door." This road to success has been built on well-informed risk-taking, technical innovation and the aggressive
merchandising of quality, consumable goods.

Not only was Marcel Bich a great competitor in business, he also led the French challenge in the prestigious yachting race, the America's Cup, defending the colors of the French flag in the years 1970, 1974, 1977 and 1980.

Today, BIC is the world's no.1 manufacturer of ballpoint pens and is a leader in all three of its markets. Every day, consumers all over the world choose to buy more than 22 million BIC stationery products, 4 million BIC lighters and 11 million BIC shavers.