The Plessey Company was created in 1917 and became a public company in 1937. In 1961 it merged with the British Ericsson Telephone Company and the Automatic Telephone & Electric Company. Following an unsuccessful takeover bid by the General Electric Company in 1985-6, the two firms merged their telecommunications interests to form GEC Plessey Telecommunications Ltd in 1988. In 1989 GEC and Siemens formed a joint company to take over the whole of Plessey, which in 1998 became Marconi Communications. Plessey found its initial success in radio production, extending this to television, computers, communications and defence electronics.