Which British trading company was at the center of the South Sea Bubble collapse in 1720?

The South Sea Company was at the center of the South Sea Bubble collapse in 1720.

Founded in 1711, the company received a government-backed monopoly over trade with parts of Spanish South America, although its actual trading opportunities were limited. In 1720, a plan allowed the company to assume a large portion of Britain's government debt. Promotion, political support, and speculative buying pushed its share price to extraordinary levels.

The price later collapsed, ruining many investors and damaging confidence in British finance. Other speculative ventures were affected, and Parliament investigated the conduct of company directors and officials. The episode became one of the best-known early examples of a speculative bubble involving a publicly traded company. A common confusion is to merge the South Sea Bubble with the Mississippi Bubble in France; they were separate bubbles that unfolded in the same broad period. The South Sea Company's name refers to its proposed trade region, not to a successful commercial empire.