Incorporated: 1900 as Crompton & Knowles Loom Works
NAIC: 325188 All Other Basic Inorganic Chemical Manufacturing; 325199 All Other Basic Organic Chemical Manufacturing; 325320 Pesticide and Other Agricultural Chemical Manufacturing; 325998 All Other Miscellaneous Chemical Product and Preparation Manufacturing
SIC: 2869 Industrial Organic Chemicals Nec; 2879 Agricultural Chemicals Nec; 2899 Chemical Preparations Nec
Chemtura Corporation is one of the largest U.S.-based manufacturers of specialty chemicals, creating additives, ingredients, and intermediates that are incorporated into the end products of its customers. Chemtura (pronounced "chem-CHOOR-a") has four main business segments: polymer additives, including plastic additives and flame-retardant additives; specialty additives, namely, petroleum additives, urethanes, optical monomers, and fluorine specialties; crop protection products, comprised of fungicides, insecticides, growth regulants, herbicides, and fumigants; and consumer products, which includes pool and spa chemicals and household cleaners. The company operates around 60 manufacturing facilities, research centers, and offices in 18 countries and offers its product lines in more than 100 countries, with 47 percent of revenues originating outside North America--27 percent from Europe and Africa, 15 percent from the Asia-Pacific region, and 5 percent from Latin America.
Chemtura counts three companies as its main predecessors. In 1999 Crompton & Knowles Corporation, founded in 1900, merged with Witco Corporation, whose roots dated back to 1920, to form Crompton Corporation. Then in 2005 Crompton merged with Great Lakes Chemical Corporation, a concern formed in 1933, to create Chemtura Corporation.
C&K: Origins in Loom Manufacturing
Crompton & Knowles's roots lie in the cotton weaving industry, one of the first enterprises to be mechanized in western Europe in the late 18th century. William Crompton was a New England businessman who originated an improved loom, which he began manufacturing and marketing in the town of Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1837. For the next four decades, Crompton Loom Works was practically without competitors, and it steadily prospered. Toward the end of this exclusive reign, Lucius J. Knowles, another New England businessman, developed an improved version of the textile loom in 1862, whereupon he, too, in concert with his brother, Francis, established his own company, L.J. Knowles & Brother Co., in the town of Warren, Massachusetts.
There was no bad blood between the two competitors until 1879, when Knowles decided to move his manufacturing establishment to Crompton's hometown of Worcester. The next 18 years witnessed fierce rivalry between the two firms, both of which meanwhile developed many improvements in their respective looms, perhaps because of the intense pressure of competition. Finally, in 1897, the two companies took the surprising but sensible step of merging into Crompton & Knowles Loom Works, which was incorporated in 1900. The new company prospered and expanded; by 1907 it had opened offices and warehouses in Philadelphia and in Charlotte, North Carolina. In time, Crompton & Knowles, whose mainstay was the manufacture and marketing of the textile loom, became renowned for the production of multicolor weaving machines, which were exported all over the world. By World War II, the company was one of the largest textile machinery manufacturers in the world.
Meanwhile, the Neversink Dyeing Company, a business that would add an important dimension to the Crompton & Knowles firm in future decades, operated in Reading, Pennsylvania. Founded by Nathan Althouse, this company became one of the biggest textile dyeing facilities in the nation by World War I. Unfortunately, as the war in Europe progressed, the company increasingly was deprived of dyestuffs. To relieve this crisis, the firm began manufacturing its own dyes. By the end of the war, the company had changed so much that it adopted a new name, the Althouse Chemical Company, and thereafter it emphasized research into new and improved dye products for natural textiles as well as for the increasingly popular synthetic fabrics.
Crompton & Knowles Loom Works continued to produce and sell its famous textile machines until the advent of World War II, when traditional production gave way to fulfilling military needs. With the return to civilian production in 1945, Crompton & Knowles once again began making textile machines with its workforce of 3,000.
The Diversifying of C&K
While there was still strong demand for the textile machinery in the early 1950s, it became apparent that the company's future success depended on diversification rather than reliance on only one major commercial product. In 1954 the firm branched off into the dye and chemical business with the purchase of the Althouse Chemical Company. The purchase laid the foundations for the manufacture of dyestuffs, which eventually would become the company's most important enterprise.
Crompton & Knowles continued to manufacture textile weaving machines, and through most of the 1960s the textile machinery division was the company's biggest in terms of revenues. Diversification continued, however, and other enterprises gradually dwarfed the textile machinery business. The process drastically altered the company's identity and size. In 1956 stockholders changed the name of the company from Crompton & Knowles Loom Works to Crompton & Knowles Corporation; the company ceased manufacturing textile looms altogether by 1981.
Further expansion took place in 1969, when Crompton & Knowles established its first European subsidiary, Crompton & Knowles Tertre, a dye and chemical company in Belgium; this was followed in 1971 with the acquisition from Ciba Chemical & Dyestuff Company of Intracolor, another dye and chemical enterprise that further strengthened Crompton & Knowles's dye manufacturing base. Seven years later, the company bought the dye business of Harshaw Chemical Company, based in Lowell, North Carolina.
When the Du Pont Company exited the dye business in 1979, Crompton & Knowles was waiting eagerly in the wings to purchase its holdings, which included the high-quality Sevron dye products. The range of Crompton & Knowles's dyestuffs expanded significantly. Two years later, the company bought the rights from the Du Pont Company to manufacture Dybln dyes for polyester and cotton textiles. Crompton & Knowles acquired and absorbed other dye and chemical businesses, becoming in the process a leader in the domestic dye business. The company's dye and chemical business had expanded so much that, by the early 1980s, Crompton & Knowles supplied dyes and chemicals to a variety of industries including paper, leather, printing ink, and heat transfer printing establishments, in addition to the textile and garment industry.
Over the years, dye and chemical operations became the company's biggest division and its mainstay. In 1960 the company diversified further into the manufacture of flavors, food colorings, and fragrances for the food processing and drug industries, the company's second major operation. In that year, Crompton & Knowles acquired the Bates Chemical Company, founded in 1923 when the federal government first certified food colorings. Crompton & Knowles expanded even further in this direction when it acquired the American Flavor & Fragrance Company in 1980.
A third significant operation was added to the company in 1961 with the purchase of the Davis-Standard Company, a major manufacturer of plastic processing, or extrusion, machinery and systems, marking the origins of Crompton & Knowles's extrusion machinery business. This purchase added a great variety of products to Crompton & Knowles's inventory. Within two decades, the company had not only survived but altered its identity significantly, expanding from the production of only one major commercial product, to hundreds of diverse products and three principal operations.
Further Expansion and International Growth at C&K
By the mid-1980s, Crompton & Knowles was one of the last remaining U.S. dye producers and marketers, and one of the largest, marketing its products to Europe, Latin America, and Asia. It was also a leading provider of dyes to the clothing and hosiery businesses in North America. How and why this company succeeded--increasing sales revenues 15 percent during the worst year of the recession in the early 1990s--had much to do with the dynamic leadership of President and CEO Vincent Calarco. When he came on board in 1985, having previously headed the specialty chemical division of Uniroyal Inc., the company had not fully recovered from the economic downturn of the early 1980s. Calarco expanded the company's business by buying dye operations that large companies, such as Du Pont and Allied Chemical, were unloading. By the early 1990s, Crompton & Knowles had a healthy 8 percent share of the worldwide market in dye products and had strengthened its own dye business, especially in carpeting and clothing. Moreover, Crompton & Knowles became the sole producer of at least 40 percent of its own dye products, making it the most influential dyestuff producer and marketer in North America. Under Calarco's management, the firm also became a major player in the flavor/fragrance market, following the 1988 acquisition of the Ingredients Technology Corp. of Pelhem, New York. At the same time, the company's specialty process equipment and controls division gradually moved out of the cable business and into the far more lucrative medical tubing, food packaging, and blow molding equipment fields, which were ignored or underestimated by bigger competitors. Calarco also led Crompton & Knowles further into international business endeavors.
By the early 1990s, 75 percent of Crompton & Knowles's sales came from its specialty chemicals division. The company had become the leading manufacturer of dyestuffs in North America, and it produced a variety of chemical intermediates (essential to the making of dyes) for the textile industry as well as a steady stream of artificial flavor, color, and fragrance ingredients to the food and drug industries. Approximately one-quarter of Crompton & Knowles's sales derived from the specialty process equipment and controls division. Overseas expansion continued in the early 1990s, including the 1992 purchase of the Oissel, France-based Colours unit of Imperial Chemical Industries PLC, a major British chemical firm. In one stroke, this acquisition doubled Crompton & Knowles's productive capacity in Europe, making the company a major player in the European dye and chemical markets. Worldwide sales of Crompton & Knowles's products in Latin America, Europe, and Asia soon reached record levels, constituting approximately one-third of sales revenues.
By 1995, sales at Crompton & Knowles had reached $665.5 million. The company surprised many industry observers the following year with a blockbuster acquisition. In August Crompton & Knowles spent about $365 million in stock and agreed to assume $1 billion in debt to take over Uniroyal Chemical Corporation, the former specialty chemical division of Uniroyal. Uniroyal Chemical, which had 1995 revenues of $1.1 billion, had been having difficulty servicing its large debt load, enabling Crompton & Knowles to acquire the much larger company. Aside from the rarity of a smaller company swallowing a larger one, the deal also was unexpected because the two firms had little in common in terms of their product portfolios, with few opportunities for synergistic savings. Uniroyal Chemical's largest area of operation was in polymer products and rubber chemicals and additives; it also produced crop protection products, including fungicides, insecticides, and herbicides, as well as other specialty chemicals, such as lubricant additives. In one of the few synergies, Uniroyal's polymer product business served the same customers as Crompton & Knowles's polymer processing equipment operation. Calarco remained chairman and CEO of Crompton & Knowles following the purchase of the company he formerly headed.
In the immediate aftermath of the Uniroyal takeover, Crompton & Knowles concentrated on debt reduction; by the end of 1998, $400 million had been removed from the debt load. The company also expanded into new international markets, set up a joint venture in Mexico in 1998 to build a rubber plant, and made selective acquisitions, including the 1998 purchase of Betol Machinery, a U.K. maker of polymer processing equipment. In November 1998 the company sold a 50 percent interest in Gustafson, its North American seed treatment business, to Bayer Corporation for $180 million, thereby turning Gustafson into a joint venture of the two firms. Crompton & Knowles continued its full ownership of crop protection operations in international markets. In January 1999 the company exited from the specialty ingredients sector through the sale of that business to Chr. Hansen Holding A/S of Denmark for $103 million. Five months later Crompton & Knowles agreed to merge with Witco Corporation.
Witco's Roots and Early History
Witco was founded as Wishnick-Tumpeer Chemical Company by Robert I. Wishnick in association with brothers Julius and David Tumpeer. Wishnick was president, owning 51 percent of the company's shares, and was chairman emeritus of Witco until his death in 1980. It was Wishnick who shaped the company's growth and direction for over half its life. His two original partners, who together owned only 20 percent of the company's shares, sold their interest shortly after World War II.
Born in Koltchina, Russia, in 1892, Robert Wishnick came to the United States to join his father and oldest brother in 1896. At age seven he lost his right arm at the elbow after breaking it badly in a fall. This childhood accident seems only to have hardened Wishnick's determination to succeed in life. He put himself through school, earning one of the first degrees in chemical engineering from the Armour Institute of Technology, now the Illinois Institute of Technology. Then, employed days as a chemist, he worked toward a law degree, which he received in 1917 from Kent College of Law.
His first job with the American Magnesium Products Company brought near disaster to his employers, but ironically foretold the successful business strategy Wishnick would follow to bring Witco to its position in the chemical industry in the late 20th century. His company sold a floor wax that complemented its product line of magnasite floor materials. Wishnick, however, thought that the company should produce its own floor wax, rather than reselling floor wax originally purchased elsewhere. He had his own mixture of wax and turpentine on a burner when the telephone rang and drew him away. In his absence, the mixture boiled over and set the entire factory on fire, burning it to the ground. This may not have been the most auspicious of beginnings, but it demonstrated clearly Wishnick's drive for independence. From that time Wishnick continually strived to push Witco to self-sufficiency through manufacturing its own products.
In 1920, after working as a sales representative with A. Dager & Company for two years, Wishnick, with Julius Tumpeer, incorporated Wishnick-Tumpeer Chemical Company as a chemical distributing concern on East Illinois Street in Chicago. The company's largest market was in carbon black and various other coloring agents needed by Chicago's vigorous printing industry. Before the company was a year old, however, a recession set in and sales declined considerably. Wishnick responded by cutting costs wherever possible. He reduced his own salary, cut the company's profit margin, then worked to increase volume. These measures were successful and were used later to great effect whenever Witco suffered from changes in the market. Cost-cutting also helped the company record a profit during its first year, despite the recession.
In 1922 the company was able to buy a 20 percent interest in a carbon black plant in Swartz, Louisiana. Witco then marketed the product on a commission basis in its own area. In 1923 Wishnick felt it was time to expand further and asked Julius Tumpeer to head the company's first New York office, though Wishnick later replaced him.
Also in 1924, Wishnick-Tumpeer purchased its first manufacturing concern, Pioneer Asphalt Company in Lawrenceville, Illinois. By 1926 so much of the company's business was in asphalt products that the board elected to drop "Chemical" from the company name, making the new name simply Wishnick-Tumpeer Incorporated. The steady growth that had marked the company from its beginnings continued through the 1920s until the crash of 1929.
Once again, Wishnick and his company implemented cost-cutting measures. Wishnick reduced wages, salaries, and, of course, margins. This strategy worked again and the company managed to turn a profit in each year of the 1930s. During this time, cash flow was a severe problem, but Wishnick had a unique solution. Most of the company's cash flow problems were caused by its customers' late bill payments. Each month Wishnick made a special trip to the accounts payable departments of the company's major accounts. There he left a small gift of candy or flowers with the secretaries and politely suggested that his bill be moved from the bottom of the pile to the top where it could be paid as soon as possible.
In 1933 the company acquired another carbon black plant, which, after additional negotiations, led to Wishnick's formation of Continental Carbon Company in association with Continental Oil Company and Shamrock Oil and Gas Company. These two other concerns supplied the needed natural gas for carbon black production and Wishnick-Tumpeer became the exclusive sales agents for the new company.
In 1935 Wishnick's first overseas operation was created in Britain: the company acquired an interest in Harold A. Wilson & Company, a supplier of pigments to the United States. Eventually, the entire company was bought by Wishnick.
The company's last important move before World War II came in 1939, when it built its first chemical plant in Chicago to produce industrial chemicals and asphalt products. The war brought large amounts of business for Wishnick-Tumpeer, but it also led to problems of shortages and rationing. Most of the company's business was still in distribution, and at times Wishnick's suppliers were unable to deliver what was needed.
Witco's Postwar Transition to Manufacturing
As the war was ending, annual sales were at approximately $7.8 million. The company was larger than ever before, but its future was uncertain. Many of the larger chemical companies from which Wishnick was accustomed to buying were developing their own competing sales forces. In 1944 Wishnick changed the name of his company to Witco Chemical Incorporated, "Witco" having been used as a brand name for several years. Then, in 1945, the board of the new company made official its plans to move as quickly as possible into manufacturing and to leave the distributing business.
Soon thereafter, the Chicago plant was expanded to include the production of metallic stearates, and then a number of new companies were acquired. Franks Chemical Products Inc. was purchased and then moved to less expensive quarters in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. A Los Angeles plant was bought from the India Paint and Varnish division of American Marietta, and new equipment was ordered for the plant to begin production of stearates. In 1954, by the time sales had grown to nearly $20 million, a British stearate plant also was purchased. This steady and extended expansion was not without difficulties, however. There were recurring operating problems in the Perth Amboy plant, some of which William Wishnick, the president's son, was asked to help solve. There was also a major fire in the Chicago plant, and then in 1953 the first strike in Witco's history took place in the Lawrenceville plant.
None of this weakened William Wishnick's resolve, however. In 1955 the decision was announced to end the company's distributing business altogether and to begin moving toward complete self-sufficiency. Witco sales were as high as $30 million, but over a ten-year period only 35 percent of that was from its own manufacturing operations. Some major acquisitions were on the horizon, but not until after a management reorganization. The Tumpeer brothers were no longer with the company (Julius had retired in 1947 and David had died in 1951). It was then, in 1955, that Robert Wishnick became chairman of the board, and Max Minnig, a longtime senior employee, became president. At that time, William Wishnick rose to the executive vice-presidency from his position as vice-president and treasurer.
In keeping with its new corporate strategy, Witco spent the next two years making acquisitions and expanding operations. Sales rose to $40 million, 40 percent of which came from Witco manufacturing facilities. Then, in 1958 Witco went public and sold 150,000 shares of common stock. This expansion continued unabated through the mid-1960s. In 1960 the Sonneborn Chemical and Refining Corporation was acquired, bringing sales up to the $100 million mark. International expansion accelerated as well, with new acquisitions in Belgium, France, and Canada.
Witco's Expansion
In 1964 further administrative changes led the way for even greater expansion. Robert Wishnick became chairman of the finance committee as well as managing director of international activities. Robert's son, William, succeeded him as chairman of the board, and Max Minnig became CEO while maintaining his position as president. As chairman, William initiated the greatest growth period in Witco's history. He began with the 1966 acquisition of Argus Chemical Corporation at a price of $22 million. This provided Witco with a new plastics operation, specializing in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) additives, and one of its senior managers, William Setzler. Later in 1966 Witco acquired Kendall Refining Company, a maker of lubricants. The younger Wishnick also spent considerable sums on plant modernization and research and development. This tendency toward reinvestment of generated capital was to characterize the next two decades of Witco growth. In the period from 1966 to 1975 William Wishnick increased the company's sales by 250 percent. During this period he also assumed the duties of president and CEO after Minnig's retirement in 1971.
In fulfillment of Robert Wishnick's dream, Witco became a firm devoted exclusively to manufacturing chemical products when its 1933 agreement with Continental Carbon Company expired in 1970. Witco kept its 20 percent interest in the company, but did not renew its licensing contract with the company. Witco now sold only Witco-manufactured products.
The recession in 1974 led to the traditional cost-cutting measures at Witco. The recession also brought a fourth-quarter drop of 50 percent in sales compared with the previous quarter. In addition, there was a sharp earnings drop in early 1975. By the end of 1975 matters had returned to normal, but there was still an overall drop in operating earnings of 23 percent. Despite this, Witco continued to expand, albeit more slowly. The Waverly Oil Works was purchased and a new $10 million hydrogenation plant was built in Pennsylvania.
The year 1975 witnessed additional administrative changes as highly talented managers from acquired companies rose to executive levels. Henry Sonneborn, brought in when his company was purchased in 1960, assumed the presidency and also became CEO while William Setzler of the Argus division was appointed to the board of directors. William Wishnick returned to the position of chairman and his father Robert was appointed chairman emeritus, a position he held until his death in 1980.
Witco's Acquisitions and Divestments
The period from 1975 to 1986, half of it spent without the founder's presence, was characterized by a somewhat haphazard approach to acquisitions. Under William Wishnick's guidance, the new administration made several purchases, such as the $38 million deal with Kraft in 1980 for Humko Chemical, a manufacturer of oleochemicals that are used in a variety of industries. Other acquisitions made during the period diversified Witco away from its core specialty chemicals and petroleum businesses. This was particularly true of the 1982 purchase of the Richardson Company for $62.6 million. Although the company was a market leader, Richardson's variety of products--including battery casings, conveyor belts, and offset plates for printing--had little in common with Witco's product lines.
At this same time, Witco, along with the U.S. chemical industry in general, was hit hard by the "double-dip" recession of the early 1980s, brought on by the oil shock of 1979. The company's numerous acquisitions of the 1970s and 1980s had created not only a much larger company but also a more unwieldy one with 18 operating divisions. Wishnick was forced to launch a divestment program to improve earnings. From 1981 through 1985, a variety of operations were sold, including a detergent business, urethane systems operations, Richardson's offset plates business, and Pioneer Asphalt's Lawrenceville plant (which had been Witco's first manufacturing facility). Witco also sold some of its oil reserves because petroleum prices were falling rapidly. Coupled with the divestments, Wishnick began to invest more heavily in the company's existing operations, in particular upgrading aging facilities; by 1985, 75 percent of the $70 million used for reinvestment went to plant modernization.
Although the company's growth was slowed during this retrenchment--sales increased only to $1.35 billion in 1986 from the $1.2 billion posted in 1980--net income of $65.2 million was a company record. Further, Witco's 1986 profit margin of 4.8 percent was the best in 18 years.
In October 1985 "Chemical" was again dropped from the company name, making the new company title Witco Corporation. At that time lubricants and specialty petroleum products made up 53 percent of the company's business, and specialty chemical products accounted for only 41 percent. The remaining 6 percent consisted of a variety of engineered materials for special applications.
In 1986 Thomas J. Bickett took over as president and CEO from the retiring William J. Ashe, who had occupied the job since Henry Sonneborn retired. In 1978 Bickett had been asked to join Witco while working for an accounting firm contracted by Witco. His appointment to the position came after he had been with the company for 12 years, serving for much of that time on the board of directors. Although Bickett was considered a possible heir apparent to Wishnick, who was nearing retirement, Bickett left the company in 1989, reportedly because his and Wishnick's operational styles clashed. Although Denis Andreuzzi was named president and chief operating officer following Bickett's departure, it was William R. Toller whom Wishnick recommended be elected chairman upon his retirement in October 1990. Toller had joined Witco in 1984 when the company acquired Continental Carbon Company from Conoco Inc.
Witco's Restructuring
Toller inherited a company that had struggled during the latter half of the 1980s. Net sales reached only $1.59 billion by 1989, an increase of just 9.7 percent over a five-year period. The company stayed away from major acquisitions during the period, while organic growth was difficult given Witco's mature markets.
Toller knew that major changes were needed to get the company growing again. Just two months after gaining the chairmanship, he asserted that the company had to globalize its operations. He also set a goal of reaching $2 billion in sales and a 16 percent return on equity by 1995. In 1991 Toller's first major undertaking was to commit the company to developing a state-of-the-art information system that would help the divisions' managers run their operations more efficiently as well as provide upper management a better handle on the overall operations. The new system began operation in 1994.
Meanwhile, the future shape of Witco took form as Toller slowly began to win over the other senior managers to his vision of a company dedicated to the specialty chemicals business. Although some managers recommended that the company remain diversified, Witco's largest acquisition to date propelled it into a new era. In 1992 Witco acquired the Industrial Chemicals and Natural Substances divisions of Germany's Schering AG for $440 million. The deal not only solidified the company's future in specialty chemicals (in 1993 chemicals accounted for 58 percent of Witco's sales), it also significantly enhanced the firm's global presence. A key symbol of the company's newfound international strength came in 1994 when Witco stock began to be traded on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Also in 1994, Witco moved its corporate headquarters from New York to Greenwich, Connecticut.
A major reorganization in 1993 did away with the divisional structure, replacing it with a structure that revolved around market-focused operating units. Initially, the groups included Oleo/Surfactants, Polymer Additives, and Resins within the chemicals area; Petroleum Specialties and Lubricants within the petroleum area; and the Diversified Products Group, which consisted of noncore businesses to be divested. During the mid-1990s, Witco divested itself of numerous nonchemical units and announced in 1995 that it intended to divest its Lubricants Group as well, after which it would be almost exclusively in the specialty chemicals business (with a relatively small Petroleum Specialties Group).
Toller's goal of international expansion led to another major acquisition in 1995, which improved Witco's position in Europe but, more important, expanded the company's presence in the Pacific Rim and South America. Witco acquired OSi Specialties, Inc., in October 1995 in a $486 million deal. OSi was the global leader in silicone specialty chemicals and had significant operations in Asia, a region in which Witco was eager to expand. Under Witco, OSi became one of the company's operating groups, the OSi Specialties Group. Also in 1995 Witco took a $33.8 million charge related to the closure of five facilities.
In a few short years, Toller and his team had overseen a major transformation at Witco, one at least as important as the shift from distribution to manufacturing that occurred earlier in the century. Witco had becom a major player in the international specialty chemicals industry and was more focused than ever before. In 1993 the company had already passed the $2 billion sales goal Toller had set when he took over the chairmanship, and even when the company began in 1995 to report its Lubricants Group as a discontinued operation, Witco fell just barely short of the $2 billion mark that year, thanks to its acquisition of OSi. In mid-1996 Toller retired. Hired as chairman, president, and CEO was E. Gary Cook, who had been president of Albemarle Corporation.
Under Cook's leadership, the restructuring pace quickened. In late 1996 Witco announced that it would close an additional 15 manufacturing plants over a three-year period, with a concomitant workforce reduction of 1,800. This restructuring, which involved a 1996 charge of $345.1 million, aimed to reduce operating costs by more than $200 million per year by the end of the decade. During the same period, Witco planned to invest more than $600 million in plant modernizations, capacity upgrades, environmental and safety enhancements, and information systems upgrades. During 1997 the company finally completed its long anticipated exit from the lubricants sector and divested a number of other noncore businesses. Witco's remaining operations were reorganized into four units: oleochemicals and derivatives, polymer chemicals, performance chemicals, and organosilicones. In May 1998 Witco swapped its epoxy and adhesives business for Ciba Specialty Chemicals Holding Inc.'s PVC heat stabilizer business, thereby bolstering its vinyl additives business. In January 1999 the company announced that it was seeking a buyer for its oleochemicals and derivatives unit. In May came a similar announcement regarding the firm's petroleum additives business. The following month, Witco agreed to a merger with Crompton & Knowles Corporation, leading to a decision to retain the petroleum additives unit, in order to combine it with Crompton's plastics and lubricant additives business. Then in August, immediately prior to the consummation of the Witco-Crompton union, Witco completed the sale of its oleochemicals and derivatives unit to Goldschmidt AG, a unit of Viag AG, for around $249 million.
Late 20th-Century Creation of Crompton Corporation
The specialty chemicals sector was marked by a consolidation trend in the late 1990s fueled by intensifying global competition, cutthroat pricing, and the concomitant need for greater economies of scale. Joining in on the merger wave, Witco and Crompton & Knowles announced in June 1999 that they would combine forces. The two companies were near equals in size (Witco posted 1998 revenues of $1.94 billion, while Crompton & Knowles brought in $1.8 billion in sales that year), but Crompton was operating at a higher profit level. The two firms' product lines were complementary, with 84 percent of the combined operations situated in overlapping end-use markets--most notably, rubber and polymer processing, elastomers, crop protection chemicals, and lubricant/petroleum additives. Through the merger, which was completed in September 1999 with the creation of the newly formed CK Witco Corporation, the companies aimed to achieve pretax operating savings of about $60 million per year by the second full year of combined operations. Cook retired soon after the merger was finalized, leaving Calarco fully in charge of CK Witco as chairman, president, and CEO.
In addition to integration efforts, CK Witco concentrated on divesting a number of noncore businesses, mainly to cut an onerous long-term debt load. In December 1999 the company sold its entire textile dyes operation and most of its non-U.S. industrial colors business, both of which had come from the Crompton & Knowles side, to Yorkshire Group PLC for $86.5 million. Then in April and May 2000, CK Witco announced that it was seeking to sell two units that had been part of Witco's performance chemicals unit: refined products and industrial surfactants; a quick sale, however, failed to materialize in either case. Also that April, the company changed its name to Crompton Corporation, in part because the Crompton name had a better reputation with the financial community than that of the tarnished Witco; the company continued to market products under other established brand names, including Witco, Uniroyal Chemical, OSi, and Davis-Standard.
The chemical industry was hit hard by the early 21st-century economic downturn, and Crompton faced the even greater challenge of simultaneously integrating a major merger. Cost cutting and debt reduction were consequently high on the company agenda. In 2001 the firm launched a restructuring program that involved the closure of six plants and the elimination of 700 jobs, or 8 percent of the workforce, toward shaving annual costs by $60 million. Late in the year Crompton sold what remained of its industrial colors business to Sensient Technologies Corporation for $32 million. After-tax special charges of nearly $140 million relating to the restructuring, asset impairment, and divestments pushed Crompton into a net loss for 2001 of $123.9 million.
Crompton finally managed to unload its industrial surfactants unit in June 2002, selling it to Akzo Nobel N.V. for $95 million. Toward the end of the year, Crompton relocated its headquarters to Middlebury, Connecticut. The company was still contending with poor economic conditions, and it would have reported only a small net profit for the year before special items were added in. A special accounting charge of nearly $300 million sent the bottom line deeply into the red. In July of the following year, Crompton completed a major divestment in an effort to further reduce its debt burden. Crompton sold OSi to General Electric Company (GE) for $633 million in cash plus three years of additional performance-based quarterly payments. In addition, as part of the deal, Crompton gained GE's plastic additives unit, a $165 million business that was the world's largest supplier of organophosphites, used in antioxidants and other applications. In the wake of the OSi divestiture, Crompton launched another restructuring to reduce its global workforce by 7 percent, or 375 jobs, aiming to generate a reduction in annual expenses of $40 million.
Crompton barely managed a return to the black in 2003, posting net profits of just $19 million. The industrial economy remained in the doldrums, while the company also had to contend with rising raw material and energy prices as well as excess industry capacity, which made it more difficult to pass cost increases onto customers. As Crompton struggled to turn around its financial performance, it also became the subject of an embarrassingly large number of price-fixing cases. By mid-2003, criminal investigations were underway in the United States, Canada, and Europe exploring allegations that Crompton had fixed prices in ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber (EPDM), plastic additives, and rubber chemicals. The company was soon named in a number of federal and state class-action lawsuits initiated by customers. Thus, when Robert L. Wood was brought onboard as president and CEO in January 2004 to succeed Calarco, the new leader faced the daunting task of both sparking an operational turnaround and shepherding the company through a thicket of legal challenges. Wood was a 27-year veteran of the Dow Chemical Company where he had most recently served as president of one of the company's business groups.
Under Wood's stewardship in 2004, Crompton made progress on a number of fronts. Yet another restructuring featured plant closures and a 500-employee reduction in the workforce, a 10 percent cut, with the goal of slashing annual costs by $50 million. Crompton also overhauled its management team, improved its balance sheet by refinancing its debt, and placed added emphasis on four core areas: crop protection products, petroleum additives, plastics additives, and urethane polymers. The company narrowed its crop protection activities by selling its share of the Gustafson seed treatment joint venture to its partner, Bayer, for $128.9 million. While the company also planned to hold onto its EPDM and rubber chemicals businesses, the refined products and polymer processing equipment units were earmarked for divestment. Crompton also managed to resolve many of its antitrust issues. In March 2004 the company agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges of conspiring to fix rubber chemicals prices in both the United States and Canada and to pay $57 million in fines to authorities in the two countries. By early 2005 Crompton had also reached agreements to settle most of the class-action lawsuits it had faced, with payments totaling $102 million. The European Commission later fined the company an additional $16 million, also for rubber chemicals price fixing.
By the end of the first half of 2005, Crompton had completed the divestments of its refined products and polymer processing equipment businesses. In the meantime, in March 2005, Crompton reached an agreement to merge with Great Lakes Chemical Corporation to create one of the largest specialty chemical companies in the United States, with a particularly strong position in additives for plastics.
Early History of Great Lakes Chemical
Great Lakes Chemical was originally founded in 1933 as an oil and gas exploration company called the McClanahan Oil Company. Its founder, W. L. McClanahan, established the company to take advantage of a growing oil industry centered near Mount Pleasant in central Michigan. The company remained small for many years, restricted both by competition from larger companies and limited oil reserves in Michigan.
In 1946 Charles Hale, a geologist and Wall Street financier, became the largest shareholder of the McClanahan Oil Company and later assumed its presidency. As part of his goal to create a natural resources conglomerate, Hale engineered the company's acquisition of the Great Lakes Chemical Corporation in March 1948. Great Lakes Chemical, founded in 1936, held titles to oil and gas reserves, as well as some bromine wells near Filer City, Michigan. In May 1950 the combined companies began operating as Great Lakes Oil & Chemical Company.
During the 1950s Great Lakes expanded its petroleum interests by purchasing the Olds Oil Corporation in December 1951 and the Cleveland Oil Company in October 1952. These companies were later merged with Great Lakes Oil & Chemical as part of a program to rationalize production. The company's ability to compete in its traditional petroleum markets began to erode during the late 1950s. Faced with impending bankruptcy, Great Lakes was forced to alter substantially its business strategies.
Earl T. McBee, a professor of industrial chemistry at Purdue University and a consultant to Great Lakes since 1953, advocated the company's gradual withdrawal from the petroleum industry, favoring instead the expansion of its bromine operation. Charles Hale agreed with McBee and in 1957 authorized the sale of the company's oil properties in California. Through the sale of additional California real estate during 1960, Great Lakes raised enough capital to purchase a 50 percent share of Arkansas Chemicals Inc., which owned several bromine-rich brine wells in Arkansas. As a result, Great Lakes became a major bromine products company by gaining a stake in the best deposits before the industry leader Dow Chemical could do so.
The company changed its name to Great Lakes Chemical Corporation on May 9, 1960, and continued its reorganization process by attempting to diversify into financial services. The venture was unsuccessful, however, and was discontinued in 1963. That same year, Great Lakes Chemical moved its headquarters to West Lafayette, Indiana, in order to gain proximity to Purdue's research-rich campus.
At the time, the largest application for bromine was ethylene dibromide, an additive to leaded gasoline. Ethylene dibromide, however, was a simple commodity chemical with a low profit margin. In an effort to create a line of more profitable specialty chemicals, Great Lakes Chemical devoted 5 percent of its sales to develop new bromine compounds in a joint venture with PPG Industries, Inc. Applications were found for bromine in a wide variety of products, including biodegradable soil fumigants and herbicides, dyes, cleansing powders, synthetic rubber, refrigerants, photographic papers, and flame-retardant additives for plastics.
In 1969 Great Lakes Chemical purchased the Cavedon Chemical Company and the Microseal Corporation, in addition to Lunevale Products Ltd. of Lancaster, England. The following year Great Lakes Chemical formed a joint venture with Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann of France called Sobrom. Sobrom was established to develop brominated soil fumigants for the European market. The company increased its presence in France in 1972 when it formed another company called Microfral with Compagnie Français des Lubricants. Through these companies, Great Lakes Chemical enlarged its marketing network on an international scale.
In 1973 Earl McBee died of a heart attack. He was succeeded by Emerson Kampen, an employee of many years who gained a reputation for strong central management. Kampen continued many of McBee's policies, including that of cooperation with French companies. In February 1976 Great Lakes Chemical agreed to form an American joint venture with Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann called the Forex Chemical Corporation, which was established to develop fire extinguishing compounds.
In the latter half of the 1970s, other chemical manufacturers accidentally released bromine fire retardants into rivers, causing cattle to be poisoned in Michigan and raising questions about the safety of these retardants in children's pajamas. Great Lakes Chemical maintained that its bromine products were safe, but it was forced to observe costly new regulatory measures imposed on the industry.
Expanding into New Areas
Great Lakes Chemical had become highly profitable, taking advantage of higher demand and new applications for bromine. The company nearly doubled its brine reserves near El Dorado, Arkansas, when it purchased the bromine operations of Northwest Industries' Velsicol subsidiary in 1981. In doing so, Great Lakes Chemical prevented competitors such as Dow Chemical and Ethyl Corporation from increasing their bromine assets. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), however, filed suit to prevent the takeover on antitrust grounds. After several years of litigation the matter was finally settled in March 1984, when the FTC agreed to permit the takeover on the condition that Great Lakes would license its technologies to PPG Industries, in order to make it a "viable competitor."
In 1984 the federal government banned ethylene dibromide for nonfuel uses. As a result of the ban, Great Lakes Chemical lost only 2 percent of profits; the increased use of unleaded gasoline during the late 1970s, however, forced the company to de-emphasize production of ethylene dibromide.
To compensate, Great Lakes Chemical chose to expand into biotechnology and in 1982 took control over the Enzyme Technologies Corporation. Another promising area for expansion was oilfield chemicals. Clear fluids containing bromine salts are effective agents in flushing oil out of the ground. In July 1982 Great Lakes purchased a fluids company called Mobley Chemical and in October acquired a 63 percent share of the Oilfield Service Corporation of America (OSCA).
In September 1983 Great Lakes Chemical purchased the Inland Specialty Chemical Corporation for $10 million. The acquisition marked the entry of Great Lakes into the area of electronic chemicals, where it sought to apply its halogen-based X-ray resist technology to semiconductors.
By the mid-1980s, Great Lakes Chemical claimed to be the largest producer of bromine products in America, largely through the benefit of licensing agreements with other companies. Although bromine chemistry accounted for over 80 percent of Great Lakes' products, Great Lakes management denied that the company was dependent on one product. The company had several hundred different products and efforts to diversify continued.
Over the next five years, Great Lakes continued its domestic and international expansion by making seven more acquisitions. In April 1985 the company purchased the remaining shares of Enzyme Technology Corp. in exchange for Great Lakes shares worth approximately $331,000 and all of the outstanding stock of Purex Pool Products, Inc., for almost $21 million. The Purex acquisition marked the establishment of a new specialty in recreational water treatment products. This investment was further developed with the purchase in 1990 of Bio-Lab, Inc., a manufacturer of swimming pool and spa products, for $55.4 million in cash. Meanwhile, in 1986, the company acquired Pentech Corp. and QO Chemicals, Inc., a furfural specialty chemicals group, for $121.6 million in cash.
In 1989 Great Lakes acquired a 51.15 percent interest in Octel Associates and its operating company Associated Octel Company, Limited, for $198 million. That interest was raised to 87.82 percent when Great Lakes purchased Shell U.K. Limited's 36.67 percent interest. This acquisition was a major advancement in Great Lakes' strategy to keep "a specialty chemical orientation, leveraging strong raw materials positions, being a low-cost manufacturer, and developing high performance products." Octel Associates was the world's largest supplier of motor fuel compounds and Europe's leading producer of key raw materials.
Great Lakes grew internationally over the next few years with the acquisition of Degussa AG's chemical manufacturing facility in Konstanz, Germany; Bayrol Chemische Fabrik GmbH; Société Française d'Organo-Synthèse, a polymer additives and specialty polymer producer based in France; Chemische Werke Lowi, a German-based manufacturer of polymer stabilizers; and Milan-based polymer additive maker EniChem Synthesis S.p.A. By 1994, Great Lakes was in the number two position in the $2 billion polymer stabilizers market, trailing only Ciba-Geigy Ltd. The acquisition of Bayrol had given the company access to the European and Mediterranean markets. With Bio-Lab's presence in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, and the acquisition of Aqua Chem to strengthen U.S. market penetration, Great Lakes was well represented in all the key markets for water treatment products.
In 1994 Kampen stepped down because of serious medical complications and was succeeded by senior executive Robert B. McDonald as CEO and by board member Martin Hale as chairman. In the 20 years of Kampen's tenure, the company had grown more than a hundredfold in annual revenue. His strategy of taking a "disproportionate share of the growth markets for bromine-based chemicals, both domestically and internationally" had made the company successful and continued to be its dominant principle.
By 1994, the company described itself as having operations in one dominant industry segment, but as being diversified within that segment. Great Lakes announced a reorganization dividing the company into six autonomous business units by product type: flame retardants, intermediates and fine chemicals, petroleum additives, polymer stabilizers, specialized services and manufacturing, and water treatment. Each group would include its own manufacturing, research and development, and marketing functions. The company had grown to hold plants at 32 locations in 14 states and eight foreign countries, with operations around the world. More than half of net sales to unaffiliated customers were derived from transactions with foreign companies.
Great Lakes' bromine capacity represented 20 percent of the world's supply in 1992. By 1995, capacity constraints were preventing the company from accepting profitable business. Strong markets for flame-retardant products encouraged Great Lakes to invest $60 million in enhancing bromine derivative production capacity. An estimated additional $40 million was earmarked to enhance bromine production capacity in the United States and abroad.
Restructuring and Early 21st Century Developments
In the later years of the 1990s, a period of slower growth and reduced demand for the company's products, Great Lakes Chemical restructured and divested a number of noncore operations. This period began, however, with a failed takeover. In mid-1996 Great Lakes sought to triple its oilfield-services operations via a CAD 695 million buyout of the Canadian firm Nowasco Well Service Ltd., but BJ Services Company stepped in with a higher bid.
By this time, Octel, the tetraethyl lead petroleum additives business, remained a profitable operation but was in clear decline as countries continued to phase out leaded gas. In July 1997, after months of speculation, Great Lakes announced plans to spin Octel off into a separate, publicly traded company. In November of that year, Great Lakes acquired Cookson Group plc's global antimony products business, Anzon, for $90 million. Anzon specialized in antimony-based flame retardants and polymer additives. Next, Great Lakes launched a major restructuring in December 1997 that entailed the planned divestments of its furfural and derivatives, environmental services, and Eastern European trading businesses. An after-tax charge of $96 million was taken in connection with this restructuring. In May 1998 the spinoff of Octel Corp. was completed. Great Lakes used the proceeds to reduce its net debt by $380 million to just $100 million, resulting in one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry.
One month before the Octel spinoff, Great Lakes brought onboard a new president and CEO to proceed with the restructuring efforts. Succeeding McDonald was Mark Bulriss, who had been the president of AlliedSignal Inc.'s $2 billion polymers division. Earlier in his career, Bulriss had spent 16 years at the GE Plastics unit of General Electric Company. Bulriss moved quickly to overhaul Great Lakes' senior management team, and he also reorganized the firm into four main units: polymer additives, performance chemicals, water treatment products, and energy chemicals and services. Another restructuring program was launched that involved cutting 600 jobs, or about 12 percent of the total workforce, in an effort to shave annual operating costs by $40 million. In addition, the Eastern European trading business was wound down in 1998, the environmental services unit was sold in January 1999, and the sale of the furfural and derivatives business was completed in June 1999.
Also on the agenda for the new leader was acquisitions, and Great Lakes completed two deals in 1999. In May, the company bought NSC Technologies from Monsanto Company for around $125 million. NSC Technologies, a producer of pharmaceutical intermediates, became part of the fine chemical group within Great Lakes' performance chemicals unit. In August, Great Lakes acquired the process additives division of FMC Corporation for $159 million. This brought into the company fold the production of phosphate-based flame retardants, thereby further diversifying the company away from bromine. The FMC unit also produced lubricant additives and specialty water treatment chemicals, providing those areas with added heft. Great Lakes ended the 1990s on the upswing as the $139.4 million in net income for 1999 was a 57 percent increase over the previous year's total; revenues were up just 4 percent, though the divestments were a main reason for this result.
In 2000 Great Lakes Chemical moved to narrow its focus even further by spinning off its oilfield services subsidiary into a separate firm called OSCA, Inc. Great Lakes sold 40 percent of OSCA's common stock through a June 2000 initial public offering. Two years later, BJ Services acquired OSCA. Great Lakes, which at the time still held a stake in OSCA of more than 50 percent, garnered about $220 million from this deal, using the proceeds to pay down debt. In the meantime, Great Lakes continued to restructure as it dealt with rising raw material costs at the same time that prices for flame retardants were falling. In June 2000 the company revealed plans to close two manufacturing plants and eliminate about 375 jobs to save about $20 million per year before taxes. The following year, Great Lakes launched another restructuring, this one involving the shutdown of three more plants and the elimination of nearly 500 jobs. Already operating in the red because of the economic downturn, the company incurred an after-tax restructuring charge of $153.6 million in 2001, resulting in a net loss for the year of $289.5 million. Revenues for the year were down 4.5 percent, to $1.6 billion.
Great Lakes announced plans to exit from the fine chemicals sector in 2002 and gradually pulled out of this business over the next couple of years. By 2003 the company was still contending with a weak industrial economy as well as rising raw material and energy costs. In October of that year, a restructuring of the polymer additives unit was launched that entailed three plant closures and the layoff of 400 employees. Restructuring charges pushed Great Lakes into the red once again, a loss totaling $51.4 million. One bright spot was the firm's strongly performing BioLab spa and pool chemicals unit. In 2003 Great Lakes launched an effort to push this unit into household chemicals, and BioLab acquired Lime-O-Sol Company and A&M Cleaning Products, Inc., that year. These acquisitions, not universally applauded by investors, brought into the company fold bathroom cleaners, glass and surface cleaners, toilet bowl cleaners, drain openers, and rust and calcium removers sold under the brand The Works as well as Greased Lightning and Orange Blast multipurpose cleaners.
This latest initiative had barely gotten underway when Bulriss abruptly resigned for "personal reasons." His six-year tenure was generally judged a failure, particularly from a shareholder perspective as the price per share fell from more than $52 to around $28. The company's future strategy also seemed muddled. Great Lakes carried on after Bulriss's November 2004 departure under the interim leadership of John J. Gallagher III, but less than half a year later the firm agreed to a merger with Crompton.
2005 Merger of Crompton and Great Lakes to Form Chemtura
In July 2005 Crompton and Great Lakes completed their merger to form Chemtura Corporation. Although called a merger, the $1.8 billion stock-for-stock deal was technically a takeover of Great Lakes by Crompton. Wood, the latter's chairman, president, and CEO, continued in the same roles at Chemtura. The merger created the largest plastic additives company in the world, as well as one of the largest specialty chemical firms in the United States, with annual revenues of nearly $4 billion. Plastic additives comprised more than half of these revenues, with the remainder derived from operations in polymers, crop protection products, specialty additives (including petroleum additives and rubber chemicals), and consumer products (including pool and spa chemicals and household cleaners).
By the end of 2006 Chemtura had achieved merger-related annual cost savings of $94 million. The company had also launched a plan to divest businesses with combined sales of $400 million as part of its restructuring of the combined businesses, with an overall goal of focusing on the areas in which its competitive position was the strongest. After selling several smaller units, Chemtura in June 2007 completed the sale of its rubber chemicals unit and its EPDM business to the New York-based private-equity firm Lion Chemical Capital for approximately $160 million. In the meantime, in January 2007, Chemtura acquired New Jersey-based lubricant manufacturer Kaufman Holdings Corporation, a firm with revenues of more than $200 million. Chemtura thereby gained strong positions in two growing markets: lubricants for CFC-free refrigeration compressors and high-purity synthetic lubricants. Additional restructuring efforts were set into motion in 2007 as Chemtura continued to focus on enhancing its growth prospects and competitive position over the long haul. Several plants were slated to be closed, and around 800 jobs were earmarked for elimination from the workforce, a reduction of about 13 percent. These cutbacks were expected to generate annual savings of more than $50 million.
Principal Subsidiaries
Anderol Inc.; BAYROL Deutschland GmbH (Germany); Bio-Lab, Inc.; Chemtura Belgium N.V.; Chemtura Canada Co./Cie; Chemtura Chemicals (Nanjing) Company Limited (China); Chemtura Chemicals India Private Limited (99.9%); Chemtura Corporation U.K. Limited; Chemtura Corporation, S.A. de C.V. (Mexico); Chemtura Europe GmbH (Switzerland); Chemtura France SAS; Chemtura Holdings GmbH (Germany); Chemtura Industria Quimica do Brasil Limitada (Brazil); Chemtura Italy S.r.l.; Chemtura Japan Limited; Chemtura LLC (Russia); Chemtura Manufacturing Germany GmbH; Chemtura Manufacturing Italy S.r.l.; Chemtura Manufacturing UK Limited; Chemtura Netherlands B.V.; Chemtura Shanghai Co., Ltd. (China); Chemtura UK Limited; Hatco Corporation; Kaufman Holdings Corporation; Uniroyal Chemical Company Limited.
Principal Competitors
BASF Corporation; Albemarle Corporation; Bayer MaterialScience AG.
Further Reading
"An Acquiring Lifestyle," Forbes, July 19, 1993, p. 230.
Brown, Alan S., The Witco Story: Hard Work and Integrity, Lyme, Conn.: Greenwich Publishing, 1995, 107 p.
Bryner, Michelle, "Chemtura Reorganizes Business, Cuts Jobs," Chemical Week, April 11-18, 2007, p. 9.
Byrne, Harlan S., "Great Lakes Chemical," Barron's, April 15, 1991, pp. 61+.
Chang, Joseph, "C&K and Witco Combination to Create $3.2 Billion Entity," Chemical Market Reporter, June 7, 1999, pp. 1, 19.
------, "Chemtura Looks to Make a Comeback," Chemical Market Reporter, June 26-July 2, 2006, pp. 24-25.
------, "Crompton Names Robert Wood CEO," Chemical Market Reporter, January 19, 2004, p. 2.
------, "Great Lakes Spinning Off Octel to Fund Specialties Expansion," Chemical Market Reporter, July 21, 1997, pp. 1, 32.
"Crompton & Knowles Corp. to Purchase a Unit of Imperial Chemical Industries PLC," Wall Street Journal, May 11, 1992, p. B3.
Fink, Ronald, "Pass the Rolaids: The Chemical Businesses Witco Has Acquired Will Sharpen Its Focus and Broaden Its Reach--If They Aren't Too Much to Digest," Financial World, June 22, 1993, pp. 54-55.
Freedman, William, "Witco Absorbs OSi," Chemical Week, September 20, 1995, p. 8.
Gain, Bruce, "Cook's Recipe for a Trimmer Witco," Chemical Week, December 10, 1997, p. 34.
"Great Lakes Chemical: An Aggressive Growth Plan Pays Off," Chemical Week, March 21, 1984, pp. 74+.
"Great Lakes Restructures," Chemical Marketing Reporter, May 30, 1994, p. 13.
Gubitosi, James, "Great Lakes Banks on Bromine Making It Big," Chemical Marketing Reporter, May 3, 1982, pp. 24+.
Henry, Brian, "C&K and Uniroyal Sign Merger Deal," Chemical Marketing Reporter, May 6, 1996, pp. 3, 40.
Hunter, David, "Witco's $5-Billion Ambitions," Chemical Week, June 26, 1996, p. 12.
Johnson, J. Douglas, "The Chemistry's Right," Indiana Business Magazine, December 1991, pp. 12+.
Kampen, Emerson, Great Lakes Chemical Corp.: A History of Innovation and Success, New York: Newcomen Society of the United States, 1989, 16 p.
Kiesche, Elizabeth S., "Entrepreneurial, Yet Frugal, Great Lakes Defies the Odds," Chemical Week, May 6, 1992, pp. 26+.
Labate, John, "Crompton & Knowles," Fortune, July 12, 1993, p. 100.
Lerner, Ivan, "Chemtura: A Powerhouse Emerges," Chemical Market Reporter, July 18-24, 2005, pp. 26, 28, 30.
------, "Crompton Moves to Sell Off Its Industrial Specialties Unit," Chemical Market Reporter, May 29, 2000, pp. 1, 21.
------, "Crompton Selling OSi to GE in $1 Billion Deal," Chemical Market Reporter, April 28, 2003, pp. 1, 19.
------, "Great Lakes Takes Big Steps for Future Growth," Chemical Market Reporter, March 4, 2002, p. 10.
Lipin, Steven, "Crompton to Purchase Uniroyal for Stock Valued at $363 Million," Wall Street Journal, May 2, 1996, p. B4.
Lipin, Steven, and Susan Warren, "Crompton & Knowles and Witco to Merge in $1 Billion Stock Deal," Wall Street Journal, June 1, 1999, p. A4.
McCarthy, Joseph L., "Better Living Through Chemistry," Chief Executive, April 1996, p. 25.
Miller, James P., "Great Lakes Set to Buy Shell's Stake in Venture," Wall Street Journal, October 15, 1991, p. C12.
------, "Once-Obscure Great Lakes Chemical Is a Cash Cow," Wall Street Journal, September 28, 1994, p. B4.
Mitchell, Gordon, "The Right Chemistry: It's Now the Main Line for Crompton & Knowles," Barron's, January 30, 1994, pp. 43+.
Morris, Kathleen, "Crompton & Knowles: Playing the Niches in Slumping Markets," Financial World, November 12, 1991, p. 16.
"New Crompton Bets on Global Reach and Broad Product Line," Chemical Market Reporter, April 16, 2001, p. 7.
Plishner, Emily S., "Crompton & Knowles: The Pessimism Could Also Fade," Financial World, November 7, 1995, p. 20.
------, "Passing the Baton: Bill Toller Has Transformed Witco into a Growing Specialty Chemical Company. Who's Next?" Financial World, November 21, 1995, pp. 52-53.
Protzman, Ferdinand, "Witco's Move in Europe Grows into Better-Than-Expected Fit," New York Times, November 16, 1993, p. C6.
Reingold, Jennifer, "Niche Rich: Crompton & Knowles Hunts for Treasure in Staid Markets--And Strikes Gold," Financial World, June 22, 1993, p. 56.
Scheraga, Dan, "Witco and C&K Merger Draws Industry Praise," Chemical Market Reporter, June 7, 1999, pp. 1, 23.
Sissell, Kara, "Crompton to Pay $57 Million for Fixing Rubber Chemicals Prices," Chemical Week, March 24, 2004, p. 7.
------, "Great Lakes Agrees to Flame Retardant Phaseout," Chemical Week, November 12, 2003, p. 13.
Stringer, Judy, "Managing Change at Witco," Chemical Week, June 7, 1995, pp. 44-45.
Tinsley, John F., Looms for the World: Crompton & Knowles in Textile Machinery Manufacture, Since 1837, New York: Newcomen Society in North America, 1949, 36 p.
Upbin, Bruce, "Paddling Upstream," Forbes, November 15, 1999, pp. 108-110.
Vila, George R., The Story of Uniroyal: 75 Years of Progress, New York: Newcomen Society in North America, 1968, 24 p.
Walsh, Kerri, "Akzo Bags Crompton's Industrial Surfactants," Chemical Week, July 3-10, 2002, p. 16.
------, "Chemtura to Buy Kaufman; Enters Bromine Supply Agreement," Chemical Week, January 3-10, 2007, p. 11.
------, "Crompton Agrees to $97-Million Price-Fixing Settlement," Chemical Week, January 19, 2005, p. 12.
------, "Crompton to Buy Great Lakes Chemical in $1.8-Billion Deal," Chemical Week, March 16, 2005, p. 8.
------, "Great Expectations for Great Lakes," Chemical Week, January 20, 1999, p. 58.
------, "Yorkshire Takes Textile Dyes off CK Witco's Hands," Chemical Week, December 8, 1999, p. 18.
Warren, J. Robert, "Witco Has Bold Asian Goals," Chemical Marketing Reporter, April 17, 1995, pp. 7, 20.
Westervelt, Robert, "CEO Departure Raises Questions on Great Lakes Strategy," Chemical Week, November 17, 2004, p. 7.
Wishnick, William, The Witco Story, New York: Newcomen Society in North America, 1976, 34 p.
"Witco Opts for Asset Focus to Carry Out Streamlining Plan," Chemical Marketing Reporter, February 24, 1997, pp. 8, 27.
Wood, Andrew, "Chemtura: Making a Merger Work," Chemical Week, August 10, 2005, pp. 17-19.
------, "Chemtura: One Year On," Chemical Week, June 21, 2006, pp. 33, 35-36.
------, "Crompton: Trying to Rebuild Confidence," Chemical Week, July 14, 2004, pp. 19-21.
------, "Trimming Down into One Witco," Chemical Week, March 5, 1997, p. 45.
Wood, Andrew, and Kerri Walsh, "Crompton Cleans Up: Winning Back Witco Customers," Chemical Week, June 14, 2000, pp. 24-26.
— Sina Dubovoj; Updated by Katherine Smethurst, David E. Salamie
