Franklin Covey Co., trading as FranklinCovey and based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a coaching company which provides training and assessment services in the areas of leadership, individual effectiveness, and business execution for organizations and individuals. The company was formed on May 30, 1997, as a result of merger between Hyrum W. Smith's Franklin Quest and Stephen R. Covey's Covey Leadership Center. Among other products, the company has marketed the FranklinCovey planning system, modeled in part on the writings of Benjamin Franklin, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, based on Covey's research into leadership ethics. FC Organizational Products, LLC is the official licensee of FranklinCovey products and continues to produce paper planning products based on Covey's time management system. FranklinCovey also has sales channels in more than 120 countries worldwide. History FranklinCovey began as a result of separate entities founded by two different Utah entrepreneurs. Franklin Quest Co. was founded in Salt Lake City in 1983 by Hyrum W. Smith and was so named because of its focus on time management and the organizational principles based on Benjamin Franklin’s writings. Two years later, Stephen Covey formed Stephen R. Covey and Associates in Provo, Utah, to offer leadership seminars based on his ongoing research on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a book he would publish four years later. Stephen R. Covey and Associates changed its name to the Covey Leadership Center the same year. Franklin Quest and the Covey Leadership Center operated independently until January 22, 1997, when the two companies jointly announced a merger and public offering valued at $160 million. The merged entity took its new name, FranklinCovey, from the first part of Franklin Quest's name and founder Stephen Covey's last name. Both Covey and Smith remained as co-chairs of the new company's board and remained so until their deaths in 2012 and 2019, respectively. Effect of merger Hyrum W. Smith, then the CEO of Franklin Quest, expected that the 1997 acquisition would increase market value through the synergistic combination of Covey's 7 Habits book with the Franklin Planner system and with the company's associated training courses. However, after the merger FranklinCovey's stock price dropped from around $20 per share to a low of under $1 per share by early 2003. As of June 1, 2006, it traded around $7 per share which has increased their purchase rate. From late 2009 to mid-2010, the