Nyassa.

The Nyassa Company was granted a charter by the Portuguese government to establish economic development and maintain Portuguese control in Nyassa (Niassa) Province and Cabo Delgado and was officially incorporated in March 1893. In the late 19th century Portugal’s dominance of Mozambique was being threatened by Great Britain and Germany, who planned to divide Mozambique between them.

Portugal, lacking the capital to colonize Mozambique properly, leased the territory and its people to charted companies. By 1891 one third of the country was handed over to three British companies, the Mozambique Company, the Zambezi Company and the Nyassa Company. 

Although founded by Bernard Daupais, a merchant from Lisbon, the Nyassa Company was pimarily owned by British and French interests. The company lost its purpose when its territory was transferred to the control of the Portuguese colonial government on 27 October 1929 after the government refused to grant an extension of its concession.