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E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company

(NYSE:DD)
Company Financials
Income Statement
Balance Sheet
Cash Flow Statement

Contact Information
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
1007 Market St.
Wilmington, DE 19898
DE Tel. 302-774-1000
Toll Free 800-441-7515
Fax 302-999-4399

Type: Public
On the web: http://www.dupont.com
Employees: 60,000
Employee growth: 1.7%

E. I. du Pont de Nemours wants to cover your house, feed your crops, and coat your car. The #3 US chemical maker (behind Dow and ExxonMobil Chemicals) operates through five business units. These segments produce coatings (automotive finishes and coatings), crop protection chemicals and genetically modified seeds, electronic materials (LCDs, sensors, and fluorochemicals), polymers and resins for packaging and other uses, and safety and security materials (under brand names like Tyvek, Kevlar, and Corian). In this decade, the company has slimmed down, exiting the pharmaceutical business and spinning off its fibers operations, and DuPont is now focusing on biotechnology and safety and protection.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending December, 2007:
Sales: $30,653.0M
One year growth: 5.8%
Net income: $2,988.0M
Income growth: (5.1%)

Officers:
Chairman and CEO: Charles O. (Chad) Holliday Jr.
EVP and COO: Richard R. Goodmanson
EVP and CFO: Jeffrey L. Keefer

Competitors:
BASF SE
Bayer AG
Dow Chemical

 
 
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Company History: E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company

Incorporated: 1915
NAIC: 325211 Plastics Material and Resin Manufacturing; 313210 Broadwoven Fabric Mills; 324110 Petroleum Refineries; 325131 Inorganic Dye and Pigment Manufacturing; 325188 All Other Inorganic Chemical Manufacturing; 325998 All Other Miscellaneous Chemical Product Manufacturing

E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company is undoubtedly better known by consumers under the name DuPont, one of the oldest family names in American business. The company operates in more than 70 countries, selling a wide range of products competing in the agriculture, nutrition, electronics, communications, safety and protection, home and construction, transportation, and apparel markets. After a century of focusing on synthetics derived from oil-based ingredients, DuPont is focused on biological materials as the basis for its products.

Founder Éleuthère Irenée du Pont de Nemours was born to French nobility. He studied with the chemist Antoinne LaVoisier, in charge of manufacturing the French government's gunpowder. The years of turmoil preceding the French Revolution caused him to immigrate to the United States in 1797. He chose to build his production facilities on a site on the Delaware's Brandywine River, which was central to all of the states at the time and provided sufficient water power to run the mills. Du Pont rapidly established a reputation for superior gunpowder. He died in 1834, leaving his sons Alfred and Henry to buy out French financiers and continue the business. His sons expanded the company's product line into the manufacture of smokeless powder, dynamite, and nitroglycerine.

One century after its founding, the gunpowder and explosives combine faced dissolution when senior partner Eugene du Pont died at the age of 62, after having served 42 years. With no new leadership, the surviving partners decided to sell the company to the highest bidder. Alfred I. du Pont, a distant relative of the founder, purchased the firm with the aid of his cousins. Alfred was intent on saving the family business. Although he had grown up working in gunpowder yards, he lacked the organizational skills needed to run the firm. His cousins Pierre S. du Pont and Thomas Coleman possessed the financial acumen and led the family company to unprecedented success. The purchase price was set at $12 million, but secret investigations by the cousins unveiled company assets conservatively valued at $24 million. The old partnership also held a great deal of undervalued shares in other companies, among them their direct competitors in the gunpowder business, Hazard and Laflin & Rand. Not having the initial capital for the purchase, the young cousins negotiated a leveraged buyout, giving them a 25 percent interest in the new corporation and 4 percent paid on $12 million over the next 30 years. Coleman was president, Pierre treasurer, and Alfred vice-president of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. The only cash involved in the takeover was $8,500 in incorporation fees.

Sound management, luck, and hidden wealth resulted in the acquisition of 54 companies within three years. Pierre set out to dominate the industry through payoffs and by purchasing minority shareholders and vulnerable competitors. When the cousins first incorporated in 1902, the company controlled 36 percent of the U.S. powder market. By 1905 it held a 75 percent share of the market. DuPont alone supplied 56 percent of the national production of explosives, with $60 million in estimated assets; it had become one of the nation's largest corporations.

A new method of operation was required to keep track of the rapidly growing organization. The cousins solicited the aid of Amory Haskell and Hamilton Barksdale, managers who had reorganized their dynamite business into an efficient organization. They remodeled the unwieldy company using elaborate family tree charts composed of levels of managers. The new structure revolutionized American business and gave birth to the modern corporation. The system of organization worked so well that Pierre bailed out the then struggling General Motors Corporation, buying 23 percent of the shares and applying the skills DuPont had perfected. (The Department of Justice later ordered DuPont to divest its General Motors holdings in 1951.)

DuPont grew to command the entire explosives market. So dominant was the company that by 1907 the U.S. government initiated antitrust proceedings against it. DuPont was deemed a gunpowder monopoly in 1912 and ordered to divest itself of a substantial portion of its business. In addition, early years of incorporation were fraught with tension between Alfred and his more practical cousins. Arguments ensued over the modernization of the Brandywine yards. Coleman and Pierre saw modernization as the only way to fully utilize the plant. The quarrel, along with other incidents, prompted Coleman and Pierre to take away Alfred's responsibilities in 1911. In effect, this left Alfred a vice-president in name only.

Modernization, diversification, good management, and a command of the market characterized DuPont's industrial era phase. The experiments of DuPont chemists with a product known as guncotton, an early form of nitroglycerine, led to the company's involvement in the textile business. The end of World War I proved the peacetime use of artificial fibers to be more profitable than explosives. In the 1920s DuPont acquired French rights for producing cellophane. DuPont made it moistureproof, transforming cellophane from a decorative wrap to a packaging material for food and other products. DuPont also produced the clothing fiber Rayon in the 1920s, and used a stronger version of the fiber for auto tire cord.

DuPont gradually moved away from explosives and into synthetics. Their most important discovery, Nylon, was created in 1935 by a polymer research group headed by Wallace H. Carothers. The synthesis of nylon came from the hypothesis that polymeric substances were practically endless chains held together by ordinary chemical bonds. Long chain molecules could be built one step at a time by carrying out well understood reactions between standard types of organic chemicals. Carothers chose one of nature's simplest reactions--alcohols reacting with acids to form esters. By reacting compounds with alcohol groups on each end with analogous acids, polyesters were produced. Super polymers were later formed when a molecular still was used to extract the water that was formed in the reaction. The excess water had created a chemical equilibrium that stopped reaction and limited chain growth. Experimentation with diamine-dibasic pairs produced a molten polyamide that could be drawn into filaments, cooled, and stretched to form very strong fibers. DuPont later marketed a 6-6 polymer, which was made from the inexpensive starting compound Benzene. The new fiber proved remarkably successful. It was employed as a material for undergarments, stockings, tire cord, auto parts, and brushes.

A large number of plastics and fibers followed. Products such as Neoprene (synthetic rubber), Lucite (a clear, tough plastic resin), and Teflon (a resin used in nonstick cookware) became commonplace, as did Orlon (a bulky acrylic fiber), Dacron polyester, and Mylar. DuPont quickly became known as the world's most proficient synthesizer. The range of textiles it supplied reoriented the whole synthetic field.

Not every DuPont invention was a success, however. Corfam, a synthetic leather product, proved to be a disaster. Lammont du Pont Copeland, the last du Pont to head the company, invested millions of dollars into promoting Corfam in the 1960s. The product was not successful because, although the material lasted practically forever, it lacked the flexibility and breathability usually found in leather products. Lammont relinquished the chief executive post in 1967 and was succeeded by Charles B. McCoy, son of a DuPont executive. Irving Shapiro took the post in 1974. Shapiro had served DuPont well, acting as the principal lawyer negotiating the antitrust suit brought against DuPont and General Motors Corporation.

Shapiro led DuPont for six years during a period when the fibers industry stagnated from overcapacity. DuPont's stream of synthetic fiber discoveries had led it into a trap, for it left them content to exploit the fiber market without looking elsewhere for new products. The demand for fibers collapsed in the mid-1970s, causing a halt in the company's main business. Climbing raw material costs and declining demand combined to depress the market in 1979. The innovator of a new technology had been the last to recognize that the market it created was losing momentum. The collapse compelled DuPont to concentrate exclusively on repairing its old business, delaying actions to create a new base. DuPont's rebuilding efforts were also hindered by reducing its commitment to research and development. Continued reliance on fibers caused DuPont to be one of the worst hit chemical companies in the 1980 recession.

DuPont's continued attention to the fibers business, however, resulted in an important discovery in 1980. Kevlar was added to the company's assemblage of synthetic textiles. DuPont scientist Stephanie Kwolek discovered the solvent that unclumped the hard chains of molecules comprising an intractable polymer. The resultant revolutionary material proved to be light yet strong, possessing a tensile strength five times that of steel. Fabrics made of Kevlar were heat and puncture resistant. When laminated, Kevlar outstripped fiberglass. DuPont made the largest financial gamble in its history, investing $250 million in a Kevlar plant expansion. Applications for Kevlar ranged from heat resistant gloves, fire resistant clothing, and bullet resistant vests to cables and reinforcement belting in tires. Kevlar also proved successful in the fabrics industry: one half of the police force in the United States soon wore Kevlar vests. Kevlar's true success, however, depended on the price of its raw material--oil. Kevlar showed no threat of becoming a steel replacement, since the price of its production was considerably higher.

DuPont reacted to the depressed market in textiles by arranging mergers and acquisitions of other companies in other industries. DuPont's takeover of Conoco Oil (the United States' number two petroleum firm) was the largest merger in history. Issues of antitrust were prevalent in negotiation for the merger, but in the end DuPont bought Conoco for $7.8 billion. DuPont merged with Conoco to protect itself from the rise in crude oil prices. As oil supplies dwindled, a supply of Conoco oil and coal as raw material for DuPont's chemicals provided a competitive advantage. Conoco's sites in Alberta, Canada, and off the north slope of Alaska provided large amounts of these resources. DuPont's only disadvantage in the Conoco takeover was the introduction of Edgar Bronfman, chairman of the Seagram Company, the world's largest liquor distiller, into a minority position in DuPont-Conoco. Conoco had been a major acquisition target for Seagram. The merger left Seagram with 20 percent of DuPont. Bronfman saw himself as a long-term investor in DuPont and desired an important voice in the company's direction. However, Seagram and DuPont arrived at an agreement whereby Seagram could not purchase more than 25 percent of DuPont stock until 1991.

Growth and greater financial security came to DuPont in 1980 when it bought Remington Arms, a manufacturer of sporting firearms and ammunition. The Remington Arms unit of DuPont made a number of multimillion-dollar contracts with the army to operate government-owned plants. DuPont also expanded its scope in the early 1980s with other major purchases. New England Nuclear Corporation, a leading manufacturer of radioactive chemicals for medical research and diagnosis, was acquired in April 1981, and Solid State Dielectrics, a supplier of dielectric materials used in the manufacture of multilayer capacitors, was acquired in April 1982.

DuPont management was determined to reduce the company's dependence on petrochemicals. It decided to take some risks in becoming a leader in the life sciences by delving into development and production of biomedical products and agricultural chemicals. In April 1982 DuPont purchased the agrichemicals division of SEPIC. In November the company acquired the production equipment and technology for the manufacture of spiral wound reverse osmosis desalting products. In March 1986 DuPont acquired Elit Circuits Inc., a producer of molded circuit interconnects.

In addition to mergers and acquisitions, DuPont became heavily involved in joint ventures. DuPont had agreements with P.D. Magnetics to develop, manufacture, and sell magnetic tape. It also became involved with PPG Industries to manufacture ethylene glycol. Aided by Olin Corporation, it planned to construct a chlor/alkali production facility. DuPont also forged extensive connections with Japanese industry. The 1980s united them with Sankyo Company (to develop, manufacture, and market pharmaceuticals), Idemitso Petrochemicals (to produce and market butanediol), Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company, and Mitsubishi Rayon Company. Furthermore, DuPont established connections in Europe, becoming partners with N.V. Phillips (to produce optical discs), EKA AB (to produce and market the Compozil chemical system for papermaking processes), and British Telecom (to develop and manufacture optoelectronic components).

In addition to stock chemicals and petrochemically based synthetic fibers, DuPont looked to the life sciences and other specialty businesses to produce earnings. Edward G. Jefferson, a chemist by training, succeeded Shapiro and directed the company into the biosciences and other specialty lines. DuPont supported these businesses with large amounts of capital investment and research and development expenditures. The company's fields of interest were genetic engineering, drugs and agricultural chemicals, electronics, and fibers and plastics.

DuPont had the kind of multinational marketing capability and resources to become a major influence in the life sciences. The company sought ways to restructure living cells to mass produce specific microorganisms in an attempt to manufacture commercial quantities of interferon, a human protein that was considered potentially useful in fighting viruses and cancer. DuPont claimed to be the first company to have purified fibroblast interferon, one of the three types of human interferon in the mid-1970s. DuPont developed a blood profile system, artificial blood, and a test for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The company created drugs that controlled irregular heartbeats, aid rheumatoid arthritis pain, and were antinarcotic agents. In addition to new drugs, DuPont worked to develop new pesticides and herbicides. DuPont built a $450 million business as a major supplier to the electronics industry, providing sophisticated connectors and the dry film used in making printed circuits. DuPont also developed new high-performance plastics. The company's scientists developed a process called group transfer polymerization for solvent-based polymer acrylics, which was the first major polymerization process developed since the early 1950s.

In the early to mid-1980s DuPont had approximately 90 major businesses selling a wide range of products to different industries, including petroleum, textile, transportation, chemical construction, utility, healthcare, and agricultural industries. Business operations existed in more than 50 nations. DuPont had eight principle business segments: biomedical products; industrial and consumer products; fibers; polymer products; agricultural and industrial chemicals; petroleum exploration and production; petroleum refining, marketing and transportation; and coal. Total expenditure for research and development amounted to more than $1 billion in 1985, and over 6,000 scientists and engineers were engaged in research activities.

However, by this time DuPont was bloated with the numerous businesses it had acquired over the years. Management decided to return to its former policy of focusing on areas of maximum profit. It began moving away from commodity production, instead concentrating on oil, healthcare, electronics, and specialty chemicals.

By 1987 the changes were paying off in some areas, as discretionary cash flow reached $4.5 billion. Biomedical products represented only 4 percent of sales, but the firm was moving into the large markets for cancer and AIDS testing and research. Breaking into its new markets was expensive, however. Earnings soared at rivals Rhone-Poulenc and Dow Chemical, which were less diversified. Meanwhile DuPont's pretax income climbed only 4.5 percent, to 3.8 billion in 1988, although sales climbed by 8 percent. DuPont still had problems with quality control. In 1988 Ford Motor Co. gave DuPont's contract for mirror housings to General Electric because paint kept flaking off DuPont's plastic, according to an April 1989 Business Week article.

Edgar Smith Woolard, Jr., became president in 1989, backed by the Bronfman family. As part of his mission to raise the price of DuPont's stock and prevent a takeover, the firm bought back about 8 percent of its outstanding stock. The electronics division had $1.8 billion in annual sales and had won business in films and imaging, though it was losing money in the highly competitive areas of fiber optics and optical disks. In addition, the pharmaceuticals business was still losing money. Investment in research and equipment had reached $1.8 billion since 1982, yet most of the drugs under development were years from the market. One area of clear success was DuPont's textile business. The $5.8 billion division was the firm's most profitable.

Seeking to raise public awareness of its fibers, DuPont started a consumer products catalogue featuring household items made from its products. The catalogue mentioned copyrighted fiber names including Lycra, Zytel, and Supplex as it advertised the clothes, sporting goods, and housewares. DuPont had reason to be interested in maintaining brand-name recognition in fibers. Lucre, a stretch polymer invented in 1959 and originally used for girdles, became a huge hit after being adopted for biking clothes and other exercise outfits during the early 1980s. By the end of the decade, Lucre clothing had become fashionable. Big name designers incorporated it into their wardrobes, and by 1990, Lucre profits topped $200 million a year. DuPont's patent on Lucre, the generic name of which is spandex, had long since expired, but DuPont had continued to improve the fabric and was its only major manufacturer. To make certain things stayed that way, the firm announced in 1990 that it would spend $500 million over three years to build or expand Lucre plants.

Another important area for DuPont was pollution control and cleanup. According to Forbes magazine, the firm was one of the country's biggest air polluters and was in the process of spending well over $1 billion on pollution control and cleanup. The firm's chlorofluorocarbon business was being replaced by chemicals less harmful to the ozone layer, at a cost of another $1 billion. DuPont also stood to make money, however, by creating safer herbicides and expanding into the growing recycling market. Partly because of these trends, DuPont's sales of agricultural chemicals tripled between 1985 and 1990, to $1.7 billion.

The Gulf War temporarily drove up oil prices and refinery margins, leading to profits of over $1 billion for Conoco in 1990. But a worldwide recession was hurting most of the rest of the company. Profits for 1991 fell to $1.4 billion on sales of $38.7 billion, down from sales of $40 billion in 1990. The firm's electronics products had garnered little prestige within the industry and had fallen well behind earlier projections. Consequently, DuPont began pulling back, beginning by selling an electronic connectors business with $400 million in annual sales. DuPont also took a step back from pharmaceuticals, putting that division into a joint venture with Merck & Co.

Although the company had been divesting businesses for a few years, it accelerated its efforts at streamlining in the early 1990s. With 133,000 employees and numerous management layers in 1991, DuPont was ready to cut back the bureaucracy. Chairman and CEO Edgar S. Woolard took several classic steps to restructure the company. The number of employees was reduced steadily in the early 1990s, to 97,000 in 1996, and several layers of vice-presidents and managers were eliminated. The remaining employees were given stock options for 600 shares each to encourage a sense of ownership and responsibility for the company. Executives were required to own shares more than equal to their annual salary. "Everyone is now connected to the company," John A. Krol, who became CEO in 1995, told Forbes in 1997. "They post the price of DuPont stock on watercoolers and safety signs around the company."

DuPont also continued to sharpen its focus on its core businesses of chemicals and fibers. The firm closed its declining Orlon division and in 1991 it sold half of Consolidation Coal Co. for over $1 billion to Germany's Rheinbraun A.G. In addition, Du Pont sold all of its medical products businesses. In 1993 the company also sold its acrylic business to ICI and in turn bought ICI's nylon business and later its worldwide polyester films, resins, and intermediates businesses. By acquiring the ICI polyester technology, DuPont could make plastic bottles, a growing market, at less cost than any competitor in the world. The company increased its marketing of synthetic fibers. DuPont looked for new uses for its popular spandex fabric Lycra, its high-performance fiber Tyvek (best-known for its use in Federal Express envelopes), and its synthetic Kevlar.

After several years of declining profits (from $2.5 billion in 1989 to $0.6 billion in 1993), DuPont reaped the rewards from the restructuring years. The company reported a streak of record profits in the mid-1990s, beginning in 1994 with a net income of $2.7 billion and continuing through 1996 with a net income of $3.6 billion. The company's stock price enjoyed a corresponding rise: from a low around $15 a share in 1990 to a high of almost $50 in 1996.

Some of these earnings were used in 1995 to buy back the shares owned by Seagram since 1980. To raise money for a venture into showbusiness, Seagram sold its 24 percent stake in DuPont back to the company for $8.8 billion, a discount of 13 percent from the market value of the stock at the time.

Conoco played an important role in the rejuvenation of DuPont. In 1995 some analysts (and DuPont shareholders) were recommending DuPont sell off the subsidiary, which they felt was not even returning the cost of its capital. After scrutinizing the numbers, the DuPont management team decided to hold on to Conoco but reevaluate its decision in a year. In 1996 Conoco returned $860 million in net earnings and bought the support of DuPont's board. In 1997 Conoco acquired heavy oil reserves in Venezuela and a gas field in Texas, thus increasing its oil reserves by 50 percent.

Joint ventures continued to be an important strategy for DuPont in the mid- to late 1990s. From 12 joint ventures in 1990, DuPont had reached 37 by 1997. Among the most significant were its partnership with the Japanese chemical firm Asahi to market synthetic fibers in Asia, the 50-50 venture with Dow called DuPont Dow Elastomers, and the alliance with Pioneer Hi-Bred International to form Optimum Quality Grains.

DuPont reaffirmed its commitment to the life sciences as a core business in the late 1990s. Bioindustrial, pharmaceutical, and feed and food industries were seen as the new ground for the increasing integration of chemistry and biotechnology. As part of this push, in 1997 DuPont purchased Protein Technologies International, which developed soy-based products, from Ralston Purina for $1.5 billion. The following year the company agreed to buy Merck's 50 percent share in the joint venture DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Company.

In 1998 DuPont announced its intention to sell Conoco, a divestiture that became part of a sweeping restructuring program that had as profound an effect on the organization as its transformation a century earlier from explosives to chemicals manufacturing. The individual who led the company during this period of redefining itself was Charles O. "Chad" Holliday, a career DuPont executive who was named president in 1997, chief executive officer the following year, and chairman in 1999. Holliday's mission centered on using DuPont's legacy in chemistry, begun in 1902 during the company's first great transformation, and using it to usher in a new era of DuPont innovations in bioscience. For years, the company had lacked a breakthrough product to drive its sales and earnings growth. Stainmaster fabric protection, introduced in 1986, was the last of the company's line of synthetics (Nylon, Lycra, Dacron, Mylar, Kevlar, etc.) to become a household name. The company, according to the February 3, 2003 issue of Forbes, had suffered from "an overemphasis on 'new-and-improving' its old brands," creating a "mix of mediocrity, malaise, and investor ambivalence." To inject vitality into the company, Holliday demanded that new synthetics be developed, synthetics that would use biological materials rather than the oil-based ingredients that formed the basis of DuPont's pioneering work in the 20th century. The company, for example, directed its resources at developing Sorona--described as a "cousin" to polyester--that used a polymer derived from corn, not petroleum. Fittingly, given the company's new orientation toward bioscience, the 1999 spinoff of Conoco occurred at roughly the same time Holliday spent $7.6 billion to acquire Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., the world's largest producer of hybrid corn and soybean seeds. The year also marked the official recognition of the addition of biology to chemistry as DuPont's core science platform. The company's corporate brand identity, which had been expressed in the slogan "Better Things for Better Living," was changed to "The Miracles of Science."

The company's far-reaching restructuring program occupied Holliday's attention in the years before and after DuPont's 200th anniversary. Between 1998 and 2004, the company's divestiture and acquisition transactions totaled $60 billion, a period that saw its annual revenue volume drop from $45 billion to $27 billion and its workforce cut from 98,000 to 55,000. Holliday had decided to exit the drug business, selling the company's pharmaceutical division in 2001 to Bristol-Myers Squibb for $7.8 billion, and he sold the company's textile fibers business in 2004 to Koch Industries for $4.2 billion, which had been responsible for 25 percent of its annual revenue. DuPont was leaner, focused on execution and efficiency, and intent on achieving 6 percent annual sales growth and 10 percent annual earnings growth. To help achieve this goal, Holliday established a target of achieving $900 million in cost savings by 2005, a figure the company was "on track to significantly exceed," according to the September 20, 2004 issue of Chemical Market Reporter. An analyst who had attended the company's annual shareholder meeting confirmed the assessment, telling Chemical Market Reporter, "We came away with the distinct impression that DuPont had gotten its house in order and both top-line and bottom-line growth are improving." Holliday offered his own assessment in the same article, expressing an optimistic tone as DuPont began its third century of business. "We've been working for six years to put in place the right business mix and the right set of operating processes in this company to deliver our long-term goals. We now have both in place to move us forward. We are clearly in the deliver and execute mode."

Principal Subsidiaries

Agar Cross S.A. (Argentina); Antec International Ltd. (U.K.); Building Media, Inc.; ChemFirst Inc.; Christiana Insurance Limited (Bermuda); Destination Realty, Inc.; DPC (Luxembourg) SARL; DPC S/A Brazil; DPC South America (Brazil); DSRB Ltda (Brazil); DuPont--Kansai Automotive Coatings Company; DuPont (Australia) Ltd.; DuPont (Korea) Inc.; DuPont (New Zealand) Limited; SuPont (South America), Holdings, LLC; DuPont (Thailand) Co. Ltd.; DuPont (U.K.) Investments; DuPont (U.K.) Limited; DuPont Agricultural Caribe Industries, Ltd. (Bermuda); DuPont Agricultural Chemicals Ltd. (China); DuPont Agro Hellas S.A. (Greece); DuPont Argentina S.A.; DuPont Asia Pacific, Ltd.; AuPont Beteiligungs GmbH (Austria); DuPont de Nemours (Deutschland) GmbH (Germany); Dupont de Nemours (France) S.A.; DuPont de Nemours Italiana S.r.l. (Italy); DuPont Iberica, S.L. (Spain); DuPont Services B.V. (Netherlands); Dupont S.A. de C.V. (Mexico); Griffin, LLC; UNIAX Corporation.

Principal Divisions

Dupont Electronic & Communication Technologies; DuPont Performance Materials; DuPont Coatings & Color Technologies; DuPont Safety & Protection; DuPont Agriculture & Nutrition.

Principal Competitors

BASF Aktiengesellschaft; Bayer AG; The Dow Chemical Company.

Further Reading

Chandler, Alfred D., Jr., and Stephen Salsbury, Pierre S. du Pont and the Making of the Modern Corporation, New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

Chang, Joseph, "DuPont Focuses on Execution Following Transformation: Next Big Thing Could Be Biosciences," Chemical Market Reporter, September 20, 2004, p. 1.

------, "Major Chemicals Reap Profit Bonanza," Chemical Market Reporter, November 1, 2004, p. 1.

Colby, Gerald, du Pont Dynasty, Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, 1984.

"E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co.," Business Record, August 16, 2004, p. 37.

Lenzer, Robert, and Carrie Shook, "There Will Always Be a DuPont," Forbes, October 13, 1997, pp. 60-69.

Lovell, Michael, "Pioneer Finding Place in DuPont Shift to Biotech," Business Record, April 21, 2003, p. 1.

Mosley, Leonard, Blood Relations: The Rise and Fall of the du Ponts of Delaware, New York: Atheneum, 1980.

Norman, James R., "Turning Up the Heat at DuPont," Forbes, August 5, 1991.

Plishner, Emily S., "The Dilemma: Will DuPont's New CEO Spin Off Conoco?," Financial World, December 5, 1995, pp. 34-37.

Scherreik, Susan, "Analysts Are Standing by DuPont," Money, September 1998, p. 32.

Schoenberger, Chana R., "Greenhouse Effect," Forbes, February 3, 2003, p. 54.

------, "A Run in the Stocking," Forbes, February 3, 2003, p. 59.

Taylor, Graham D., and Patricia E. Sudnik, DuPont and the International Chemical Industry, Boston: Twayne, 1984.

Weber, Joseph, "DuPont's Trailblazer Wants to Get Out of the Woods," Business Week, August 31, 1992.

------, "DuPont's Version of a Maverick," Business Week, April 3, 1989.

Weiner, Steve, "But Will They Ever Know Zytel from Lycra?," Forbes, June 26, 1989.

Westervelt, Robert, "DuPont Confirms Talk on Sale of Textiles Unit," Chemical Week, April 23, 2003, p. 8.

Wood, Andrew, "DuPont Expects Lower Growth, but Maintains Earnings Targets," Chemical Week, September 22, 2004, p. 7.

— Scott M. Lewis


 
Wikipedia: DuPont
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Type Public (NYSEDD (common stock), NYSEDDPRA, NYSEDDPRB (preferred stock))
Founded 1802
Headquarters Flag of the United States Wilmington, Delaware, USA
Key people Charles O. Holliday Jr., Chairman & CEO
Jeffrey L. Keefer, CFO
Richard R. Goodmanson, Exec. VP & COO
Thomas M. Connelly, CTO
Industry Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber
Products Neoprene, Nylon resins, Teflon, Delrin, Mylar, Kevlar, Zemdrain,Corian and Tyvek
Revenue Green_Arrow_Up_Darker.svg$28.982 Billion USD (2006)
Net income Green_Arrow_Up_Darker.svg$3.148 Billion USD (2006)
Employees 60,000 (2005)
Slogan The miracles of science
Website www.dupont.com

E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (NYSEDDPRA, NYSEDDPRB, NYSEDD) was founded in July 1802 as a gun powder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont on Brandywine Creek, near Wilmington, Delaware, USA. DuPont is currently the world's second largest chemical company (behind BASF) in terms of market capitalization and fourth (behind BASF, Dow Chemical and Ineos) in revenue. Its stock price is also a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

In the twentieth century, DuPont led the polymer revolution by developing many highly successful materials such as Vespel, neoprene, nylon, Corian, Teflon, Mylar, Kevlar, Zemdrain, M5 fiber, Nomex, Tyvek and Lycra. DuPont has also been significantly involved in the refrigerant industry, developing and producing the Freon (CFCs) series and later, more environmentally friendly refrigerants. In the paint and pigment industry, it has created synthetic pigments and paints, such as ChromaFlair.

DuPont is often successful in popularizing the brands of its material products such that their trademark names become more commonly used than the generic or chemical word(s) for the material itself. One example is “neoprene”, which was intended originally to be a trademark but quickly came into common usage.

History

Original DuPont powder wagon
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Original DuPont powder wagon

1802

DuPont was founded in 1802 by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, two years after he and his family left France to escape the French Revolution. The company began as a manufacturer of gunpowder, as du Pont had noticed that the industry in North America was lagging behind Europe and saw a market for it. The company grew quickly, and by the mid nineteenth century had become the largest supplier of gunpowder to the United States military, supplying as much as half of the powder used by the Union Army during the American Civil War. (The Eleutherian Mills site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and holds a museum covering this history that may be visited today.)

1902 To 1912

Working powder mills on Brandywine Creek, about 1905. Note the handwritten "These blow up occasionally, and then?"
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Working powder mills on Brandywine Creek, about 1905. Note the handwritten "These blow up occasionally, and then?"

DuPont continued to expand, moving into the production of dynamite and smokeless powder. In 1902, DuPont's president, Eugene du Pont, died, and the surviving partners sold the company to three great-grandsons of the original founder. The company subsequently purchased several smaller chemical companies, and in 1912 these actions gave rise to government scrutiny under the Sherman Antitrust Act. The courts declared that the company's dominance of the explosives business constituted a monopoly and ordered divestment. The court ruling resulted in the creation of the Hercules Powder Company, now Hercules Inc., and Atlas Chemical companies. [1]

DuPont also established two of the first industrial laboratories in the United States, where they began work on cellulose chemistry, lacquers and other non-explosive products. DuPont's Central Research Department was established at the Experimental Station, across the Brandywine River from the original powder mills.

1914

In 1914, Pierre S. du Pont, invested in the fledgling automobile industry, buying stock of General Motors (GM). The following year he was invited to sit on GM's board of directors and would eventually be appointed the company's chairman. The DuPont company would assist the struggling automobile company further with a $25 million purchase of GM stock. In 1920, Pierre S. du Pont was elected president of General Motors. Under du Pont's guidance, GM became the number one automobile company in the world. However, in 1957, because of DuPont's influence within GM, further action under the Clayton Antitrust Act forced DuPont to divest itself of its shares of General Motors.

1920

In the 1920s DuPont continued its emphasis on materials science, hiring Wallace Carothers to work on polymers in 1928. Carothers discovered neoprene, the first synthetic rubber, the first polyester superpolymer and in 1935, nylon. Discovery of Lucite and Teflon followed a few years later. 1935 was also the year that DuPont first introduced the chemical Phenothiazine as an insecticide.

1943

Throughout this period, the company continued to be a major producer of war supplies in both World War I and World War II, and played a major role in the Manhattan Project in 1943, designing, building and operating the Hanford plutonium producing plant and the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina.

1950 To 1970

After the war, DuPont continued its emphasis on new materials, developing Mylar, Dacron, Orlon and Lycra in the 1950s, and Tyvek, Nomex, Qiana, Corfam and Corian in the 1960s. DuPont materials were critical to the success of the Apollo Space program.

DuPont has been the key company behind the development of modern body armour. In World War II DuPont's ballistic nylon was used by the RAF to make FLAK Jackets. With the development of Kevlar in the 1960s, DuPont began tests to see if it could resist a lead bullet. This research would ultimately lead to the bullet resistant vests that are the mainstay of police and military units in the industrialized world.

1981 To 1995

In 1981, DuPont acquired Conoco Inc., a major American oil and gas producing company that gave it a secure source of petroleum feedstocks needed for the manufacturing of many of its fiber and plastics products. The acquisition, which made DuPont one of the top ten U.S. based petroleum and natural gas producers and refiners, came about after a bidding war with the giant distillery, Seagram Company Ltd. which would become DuPont's largest single shareholder with four seats on the board of directors. On April 6, 1995, after being approached by Seagram Chief Executive Officer Edgar Bronfman, Jr., DuPont announced a deal whereby the company would buy back all the shares owned by Seagram.

1999

In 1999, DuPont sold all of its Conoco shares, the business merging with Phillips Petroleum Company. That year, CEO Chad Holliday switched the company's focus towards producing DuPont chemicals from living plants rather than processing them from petroleum.

Current activities

DuPont describes itself as a global science company that employs more than 60,000 people worldwide and has a diverse array of product offerings.[2] In 2005, the Company ranked 66th in the Fortune 500 on the strength of nearly $28 billion in revenues and $1.8 billion in profits.[3]

DuPont businesses are organized into the following five categories, known as marketing "platforms": Electronic and Communication Technologies, Performance Materials, Coatings and Color Technologies, Safety and Protection, and Agriculture and Nutrition.

In 2004 the company sold its textiles business, which included some of its best-known brands such as Lycra (Spandex), Dacron polyester, Orlon acrylic, Antron nylon and Thermolite, to Koch Industries. DuPont also manufactures Surlyn, which is used for the covers of golf balls, and, more recently, the body panels of the Club Car Precedent golf cart.

DuPont's annual R&D budget is $1.3 billion; its latest project is a research center in Hyderabad, A.P., India scheduled to open in mid-2008, that will focus on agriculture and nutrition products.[citation needed]

NASCAR sponsorship

DuPont is widely known for its sponsorship of NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon and his Hendrick Motorsports #24 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. DuPont has been sponsoring Jeff Gordon since he began in NEXTEL Cup (then Winston Cup) in 1992. DuPont has said this about their sponsorship:

Our sponsorship of Jeff Gordon helps keep DuPont brands and products in the public eye. Branding is a key component of the DuPont knowledge intensity strategy for achieving sustainable growth.[1]

In 2007, DuPont, Jeff Gordon, and Hendrick Motorsports are celebrating their 15th season together. It is currently the longest driver/sponsor/owner combination in NASCAR.

Corporate governance

Current board of directors

Environmental record

DuPont has a mixed environmental record, receiving praise from some for environmentally friendly practices while at the same time incurring large government fines and stern criticism from environmental researchers. In 2005, BusinessWeek magazine, in conjunction with the Climate Group, ranked DuPont as the best-practice leader in cutting their carbon gas emissions [4] [5]. They pointed out that DuPont reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 65% from the 1990 levels while using 7% less energy and producing 30% more product. However, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst ranked DuPont as the largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States. [6] The study found DuPont's most toxic pollution comprised Chloroprene (855,370 lb/yr), Sulfuric acid (804,501 lb/yr), and Chlorine (65,088 lb/yr) based on Toxics Release Inventory data. The most massive releases came in the form of more than 4 million lbs of Carbonyl sulfide followed by 2 million lbs of Hydrochloric acid.[7]

May 24, 2007, marked the opening of the USD 2.1 million DuPont Nature Center at Mispillion Harbor Reserve, a wildlife observatory and interpretive center on the Delaware Bay near Milford, Delaware, USA. DuPont contributed both financial and technological support to create the center, as part of its "Clear into the Future" initiative to enhance the beauty and integrity of the Delaware Estuary. The facility will be state-owned and operated by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC).[8][9]

DuPont is a founding member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development with DuPont CEO Charles O. Holliday being Chairman of the WBCSD from 2000-2001.

Positive recognition

DuPont was four times awarded the National Medal of Technology, first in 1990, for its invention of "high-performance man-made polymers such as nylon, neoprene rubber, "Teflon" fluorocarbon resin, and a wide spectrum of new fibers, films, and engineering plastics"; the second for 2002 "for policy and technology leadership in the phaseout and replacement of chlorofluorocarbons". Additionally, DuPont scientist George Levitt was honored with the medal in 1993 for the development of sulfonylureas — environmentally friendly herbicides for every major food crop in the world. In 1996, DuPont scientist Stephanie Kwolek was recognized for the discovery and development of Kevlar.

Controversies

Hemp

It is often asserted in pro-cannabis publications that DuPont actively supported the criminalization of the production of hemp in the US in 1937 through private and government intermediates, and alleged that this was done to eliminate hemp as a source of fiber — one of DuPont's biggest markets at the time. The company denies these allegations. [10][11]

Price fixing

In 1941, an investigation of Standard Oil Co. and IG Farben brought evidence concerning complex price and marketing agreements between DuPont, U.S. Industrial Alcohol Company, and their subsidiary Cuba Distilling Company. The investigation was eventually dropped, like dozens of others in many different kinds of industries, because of the need to enlist industry support in the war effort.[12]

"Behind the Nylon Curtain"

In 1974, Gerard Colby Zilg, wrote , a critical account of the role of the DuPont family in American social, political and economic history. The book was nominated for a National Book Award in 1974.

A du Pont family member obtained an advance copy of the manuscript and was “predictably outraged”. A DuPont official contacted The Fortune Book Club and stated that the book was “scurrilous” and “actionable” but produced no evidence to counter the charges. The Fortune Book Club (a subsidiary of the Book of the Month Club) reversed its decision to distribute Zilg's book. The editor-in-chief of the Book of the Month Club declared that the book was “malicious” and had an “objectionable tone”. Prentice-Hall removed several inaccurate passages from the page proofs of the book, and cut the first printing from 15,000 to 10,000 copies, stating that 5,000 copies no longer were needed for the book club distribution. The proposed advertising budget was reduced from $15,000 to $5,000.

Zilg sued Prentice-Hall (Zilg v. Prentice-Hall), accusing it of reneging on a contract to promote sales.

The Federal District Court ruled that Prentice Hall had "privished" the book (the company conducting an inadequate merchandising effort after concluding that the book did not meet its expectations as to quality or marketability) and breached its obligation to Zilg to use its best efforts in promoting the book because the publisher had no valid business reason for reducing the first printing or the advertising budget. The court also ruled that the DuPont Company had a constitutionally protected interest in discussing its good faith opinion of the merits of Zilg's work with the book clubs and the publisher, and found that the company had not engaged in threats of economic coercion or baseless litigation.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned the damages award in September of 1983. The court stated that, while DuPont's actions “surely” resulted in the book club's decision not to distribute Zilg's work and also resulted in a change in Prentice-Hall's previously supportive attitude toward the book, DuPont's conduct was not actionable. The court further stated that the contract did not contain an explicit “best efforts” or “promote fully” promise, much less an agreement to make certain specific promotional efforts. Printing and advertising decisions were within Prentice-Hall's discretion.

Zilg lost a Supreme Court appeal in April 1984.

In 1984 Lyle Stuart re-released an extended version, Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain.[13]

Chlorofluorocarbons

Along with General Motors, DuPont was the inventor of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), and the largest producer of these ozone depleting chemicals (used primarily in aerosol sprays and refrigerants) in the world, with a 25% market share in the late 1980s.

In 1974, responding to public concern about the safety of CFCs,[14] DuPont promised through newspaper advertisements and congressional testimony to stop production of CFCs should they be proved to be harmful to the ozone layer. On 4 March 1988, U.S. Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.), David Durenberger (R-Minn.), and Robert T. Stafford (R-Vt.) officially wrote to DuPont, in their capacity as the leadership of the Congressional subcommittee on hazardous wastes and toxic substances, asking the company to keep its promise to completely stop CFC production (and to do so for most CFC types within one year) in light of the 1987 international Montreal Protocol for the global reduction of CFCs (signed for the United States by President Ronald Reagan). The Senators argued that “DuPont has a unique and special obligation” as the original developer of CFCs and the author of previous public assurances made by the company regarding the safety of CFCs. DuPont's response was that the senatorial demand was more drastic than the scientific evidence warranted, and that alternative chemicals were only in their infancy.[citation needed]

In a dramatic turnaround on 24 March 1988, DuPont announced that it would begin leaving the CFC business entirely after a 15 March NASA announcement that CFCs were not only creating a hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica but also thinning the layer elsewhere in the world.

DuPont announced that it would stop selling CFCs with a full page ad in the 27 April 1992 New York Times stating “we will stop selling CFC's as soon as possible, but no later than year end 1995 in the US and other developed countries.”[15]

In later years, DuPont would maintain that the company had taken the initiative in phasing out CFCs[16] and in replacing CFCs with a new generation of refrigerant chemicals, such as HCFCs and HFCs.[17] In 2003, DuPont was awarded the National Medal of Technology, recognizing the company as the leader in developing CFC replacements.

Iraq's nuclear program

In a report submitted by Saddam Hussein to the United Nations shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it was revealed that DuPont had participated in Iraq's nuclear weapons program. (Though the U.S. attempted to redact the names of all U.S. companies involved, an uncensored copy was leaked to the press.)[18][19] DuPont has not faced any sanctions because of this. The company denies that it sold materials to Iraq for any nuclear weapons program.


Further reading

  • Ashish Arora, Ralph Landau and Nathan Rosenberg, eds. Chemicals and Long-Term Economic Growth: Insights from the Chemical Industry (2000)
  • Alfred D. Chandler, Pierre S. Du Pont and the making of the modern corporation (1971)
  • Alfred D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise (1969)
  • Williams Haynes. American chemical industry (1983)
  • David A. Hounshell. Science and Corporate Strategy: Du Pont R and D, 1902-1980 (1988)
  • Adrian Kinnane. DuPont: From the Banks of the Brandywine to Miracles of Science (2002)
  • Pap A. Ndiaye, Nylon and Bombs: DuPont and the March of Modern America (trans. 2007)

See also

External links

References and notes

  • Corporate History as presented by the company: Online Interpretive Exhibit. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (6 June 2002). Retrieved on 2006-12-12.
  1. ^ The Historical Society of Delaware–The DuPont Company. (URL accessed March 29, 2006).
  2. ^ DuPont–Company at a Glance. Retrieved on March 29, 2006
  3. ^ http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500_archive/full/2005/ Fortune 500: 1955–2006. CNNMoney.com. Retrieved on May 16, 2007.
  4. ^ Unknown Author (December 6, 2005). "DuPont Tops BusinessWeek Ranking of Green Companies". GreenBiz News. 
  5. ^ Green Leaders Show The Way Business Week
  6. ^ Political Economy Research Institute Toxic 100 retrieved 13 Aug 2007
  7. ^ Toxic 100 company profile
  8. ^ "State’s DuPont Nature Center at Mispillion Harbor Reserve Opens"
  9. ^ "DuPont Nature Center Dedicated in Delaware"
  10. ^ [Hemp & the Marijuana Conspiracy:] The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer, various editions.
  11. ^ The Elkhorn Manifesto: Shadow of the Swastika by R. William Davis
  12. ^ Unknown Author (Wednesday, December 14, 2005). "DuPont settles toxin case". The Associated Press. ; Eilperin, Juliet (15 December 2005). "DuPont, EPA Settle Chemical Complaint Firm Didn't Report Risks, Agency Says". Washington Post Business Week: D03. 
  13. ^ Unknown Author (17 April 1984). "High Court Rebuffs Author". The New York Times: Section C; Page 16, Column 1. ; Flaherty, Francis J. (2 April 1984). "Authors Fighting for 'Voice in the Process'". The National Law Journal: 26. ; Unknown Author (April 1984). "Federal Court of Appeals reverses award of damages to author Gerard Zilg in his breach of contract action against Prentice-Hall; District Court's dismissal of Zilg's action against E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company for tortious interference with contractual relations is affirmed". Entertainment Law Reporter 5 (11). ; Slung, Michele (9 October 1983). ""Privish" and Perish". The Washington Post: 15. 
  14. ^ DuPont Refrigerants–History Timeline, 1970. (URL accessed 29 March 2006).
  15. ^ Unknown Author (27 April 1992). "The World is Phasing Out CFCs, It Won't Be Easy". The New York Times: A7. 
  16. ^</