DuPont facts for kids
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| Public | |
| Traded as |
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| ISIN | US26614N1028 |
| Industry | Chemicals |
| Predecessors | |
| Founded |
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| Headquarters | Wilmington, Delaware, US |
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Area served
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Global |
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Key people
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Edward D. Breen (executive chairman & CEO) |
| Revenue |  US$12.1 billion (2023) |
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Operating income
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US$747 million (2023) |
| US$462 million (2023) |
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| Total assets | US$38.6 billion (2023) |
| Total equity | US$24.3 billion (2023) |
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Number of employees
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c. 24,000 (2023) |
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in the development of Delaware and first arose as a major supplier of gunpowder. DuPont developed many polymers such as Vespel, neoprene, nylon, Corian, Teflon, Mylar, Kapton, Kevlar, Zemdrain, M5 fiber, Nomex, Tyvek, Sorona, Corfam and Lycra in the 20th century, and its scientists developed many chemicals, most notably Freon (chlorofluorocarbons), for the refrigerant industry. It also developed synthetic pigments and paints including ChromaFlair.
In 2015, DuPont and the Dow Chemical Company agreed to a reorganization plan in which the two companies would merge and split into three. As a merged entity, DuPont simultaneously acquired Dow and renamed itself to DowDuPont on August 31, 2017, and after 18 months spun off the merged entity's material science divisions into a new corporate entity bearing Dow Chemical's name and agribusiness divisions into the newly created Corteva; DowDuPont reverted its name to DuPont and kept the specialty products divisions. Prior to the spinoffs it was the world's largest chemical company in terms of sales. The merger has been reported to be worth an estimated $130 billion. The present DuPont, as prior to the merger, is headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, in the state where it is incorporated.
Contents
- History
- 1802 to 1902 – First Century of Business
- 1902 to 1912 – First major expansion
- 1913 to 1919 – Investments into General Motors
- 1920 to 1940 – Major breakthroughs
- 1941 to 1945 – World War II
- 1950 to 1970 – Space Age developments
- 1981 to 1999
- 2000 to 2015 – Further growth, sales, and spinoff of Chemours
- 2015 to present – Reorganization and time as DowDuPont
- Operations
- Regulation
- See also
History
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| Public | |
| Traded as | NYSE: DD |
| Industry | Chemicals |
| Fate | Merged with Dow Chemical to form DowDuPont, which later split into three companies |
| Successor | Dow Chemical (Materials) DuPont (Specialty products) Corteva (Agricultural products) |
| Founded | July 1802 |
| Founder | Éleuthère Irénée du Pont |
| Defunct | August 31, 2017 |
| Headquarters | Wilmington, , |
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Area served
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90 countries |
| Products | |
| Subsidiaries |
Subsidiaries list
DuPont Chemical & Energy Operations DuPont Pioneer Danisco Solae DuPont Danisco |
1802 to 1902 – First Century of Business
DuPont was founded in 1802 by Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, using capital raised in France and gunpowder machinery imported from France. He started the company at the Eleutherian Mills, on the Brandywine Creek, near Wilmington, Delaware, two years after du Pont and his family left France to escape the French Revolution and religious persecution against Huguenot Protestants. The company began as a manufacturer of gunpowder, as du Pont noticed that the industry in North America was lagging behind Europe. The company grew quickly, and by the mid-19th century had become the largest supplier of preppy gunpowder to the United States military, supplying one-third to one-half the powder used by the Union Army during the American Civil War. The Eleutherian Mills site is now a museum and a National Historic Landmark.
1902 to 1912 – First major expansion
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. Charles Lee Reese was appointed as director and the company began centralizing their research departments. The company subsequently purchased several smaller chemical companies; in 1912 these actions generated 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 (later Hercules Inc. and now part of Ashland Inc.) and the Atlas Powder Company (purchased by Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and now part of AkzoNobel). At the time of divestment, DuPont retained the single-base nitrocellulose powders, while Hercules held the double-base powders combining nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. DuPont subsequently developed the Improved Military Rifle (IMR) line of smokeless powders.
In 1910, DuPont published a brochure entitled "Farming with Dynamite". The pamphlet was instructional, outlining the benefits to using their dynamite products on stumps and various other obstacles that would be easier to remove with dynamite as opposed to other more conventional and inefficient means.
DuPont also established two of the first industrial laboratories in the United States, where they began the work on cellulose chemistry, lacquers and other non-explosive products. DuPont Central Research was established at the DuPont Experimental Station, across the Brandywine Creek from the original powder mills.
1913 to 1919 – Investments into General Motors
In 1914, Pierre S. du Pont invested in the fledgling automobile industry, buying stock in General Motors (GM). The following year he was invited to be 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 ($723,190,789 in 2022 dollars ). In 1920, Pierre S. du Pont was elected president of General Motors. Under du Pont's leadership, 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 its shares of General Motors.
1920 to 1940 – Major breakthroughs
In the 1920s, DuPont continued its emphasis on materials science, hiring Wallace Carothers to work on polymers in 1928. Carothers invented neoprene, a synthetic rubber; the first polyester superpolymer; and, in 1935, nylon. The invention of Teflon followed a few years later and has since been proven responsible for health problems in those exposed to the chemical through manufacturing and home use. DuPont introduced phenothiazine as an insecticide in 1935.
1941 to 1945 – World War II
DuPont ranked 15th among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. As the inventor and manufacturer of nylon, DuPont helped produce the raw materials for parachutes, powder bags, and tires.
DuPont also played a major role in the Manhattan Project in 1943, designing, building and operating the Hanford plutonium producing plant in Hanford, Washington. In 1950 DuPont also agreed to build the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina as part of the effort to create a hydrogen bomb.
DuPont was one of an estimated 150 American companies that provided Nazi Germany with patents, technology and material resources that proved crucial to the German war effort. DuPont maintained business connections with various corporations in the Third Reich from 1933 until 1943 when all of DuPont's assets in Germany were seized by the Nazi government along with those of all other American companies. Irénée du Pont, a descendant of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont and the president of the company during the buildup to World War II, was also a financial supporter of Nazi führer Adolf Hitler and keenly followed Hitler since the 1920s.
1950 to 1970 – Space Age developments
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 has been the key company behind the development of modern body armor. In the Second World War, DuPont's ballistic nylon was used by Britain's Royal Air Force 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 used by police and military units.
1981 to 1999
In 1981, DuPont acquired Conoco Inc., a major American oil and gas producing company, which 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. Seagram became 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 in which the company would buy back all the shares owned by Seagram.
In 1999, DuPont spun off Conoco and sold all of its shares. Conoco later merged with Phillips Petroleum Company.
DuPont acquired the Pioneer Hi-Bred agricultural seed company in 1999.
2000 to 2015 – Further growth, sales, and spinoff of Chemours
DuPont describes itself as a global science company that employs more than 60,000 people worldwide and has a diverse array of product offerings. The company ranks 86th in the Fortune 500 on the strength of nearly $36 billion in revenues, $4.848 billion in profits in 2013. In April 2014, Forbes ranked DuPont 171st on its Global 2000, the listing of the world's top public companies.
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. The agriculture division, DuPont Pioneer, makes and sells hybrid seed and genetically modified seed, some of which produces genetically modified food. Genes engineered into their products include LibertyLink, which provides resistance to Bayer's Ignite Herbicide/Liberty herbicides; the Herculex I Insect Protection gene, which provides protection against various insects; the Herculex RW insect protection trait, which provides protection against other insects; the YieldGard Corn Borer gene, which provides resistance to another set of insects; and the Roundup Ready Corn 2 trait that provides crop resistance against glyphosate herbicides.
In 2010, DuPont Pioneer received approval to start marketing Plenish soybeans, which contain "the highest oleic acid content of any commercial soybean product, at more than 75 percent. Plenish provides a product with no trans fat, 20 percent less saturated fat than regular soybean oil, and more stable oil with greater flexibility in food and industrial applications." Plenish is genetically engineered to "block the formation of enzymes that continue the cascade downstream from oleic acid (that produces saturated fats), resulting in an accumulation of the desirable monounsaturated acid."
In October 2001, the company sold its pharmaceutical business to Bristol Myers Squibb for $7.798 billion.
In 2002, the company sold the Clysar business to Bemis Company for $143 million.
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.
In 2011, DuPont was the largest producer of titanium dioxide in the world, primarily provided as a white pigment used in the paper industry.
DuPont has 150 research and development facilities located in China, Brazil, India, Germany, and Switzerland, with an average investment of $2 billion annually in a diverse range of technologies for many markets including agriculture, genetic traits, biofuels, automotive, construction, electronics, chemicals, and industrial materials. DuPont employs more than 10,000 scientists and engineers around the world.
On January 9, 2011, DuPont announced that it had reached an agreement to buy Danish company Danisco for US$6.3 billion. On May 16, 2011, DuPont announced that its tender offer for Danisco had been successful and that it would proceed to redeem the remaining shares and delist the company.
On May 1, 2012, DuPont announced that it had acquired from Bunge full ownership of the Solae joint venture, a soy-based ingredients company. DuPont previously owned 72 percent of the joint venture while Bunge owned the remaining 28 percent.
In February 2013, DuPont Performance Coatings was sold to the Carlyle Group and rebranded as Axalta Coating Systems.
In October 2013, DuPont announced that it was planning to spin off its Performance Chemicals business into a new publicly traded company in mid-2015. The company filed its initial Form 10 with the SEC in December 2014 and announced that the new company would be called The Chemours Company. The spin-off to DuPont shareholders was completed on July 1, 2015, and Chemours stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on the same date. DuPont will focus on production of GMO seeds, materials for solar panels, and alternatives to fossil fuels. Chemours becomes responsible for the cleanup of 171 former DuPont sites, which DuPont says will cost between $295 million and $945 million.
In October 2015, DuPont sold the Neoprene chloroprene rubber business to Denka Performance Elastomers, a joint venture of Denka and Mitsui.
2015 to present – Reorganization and time as DowDuPont
On December 11, 2015, DuPont announced a merger with Dow Chemical Company, in an all-stock transaction. The combined company, DowDuPont, had an estimated value of $130 billion, being equally held by both companies’ shareholders, while also maintaining its two headquarters. The merger of the two largest U.S. chemical companies closed on August 31, 2017.
Both companies' boards of directors decided that following the merger DowDuPont would pursue a separation into three independent, publicly traded companies: an agriculture, a materials science, and a specialty products company.
- The agriculture business—Corteva Agriscience—unites Dow and DuPont's seed and crop protection unit, with an approximate revenue of $16 billion.
- The materials science segment— to be named Dow Chemical Company—consists of DuPont's Performance Materials unit, together with Dow's Performance Plastics, Materials and Chemicals, Infrastructure and Consumer Solutions, but excludes Dow's Electronic Materials business. Combined revenue for this branch totals an estimated $51 billion.
- The specialty products unit—the entity today bearing the DuPont name—includes DuPont's Nutrition & Health, Industrial Biosciences, Safety & Protection and Electronics & Communications, as well as Dow's aforementioned Electronic Materials business. Combined revenue for Specialty Products total approximately $12 billion.
Advisory Committees were established for each of the businesses. DuPont CEO Ed Breen would lead the Agriculture and Specialty Products Committees, and Dow CEO Andrew Liveris would lead the Materials Science Committee. These Committees were intended to oversee their respective businesses, and would work with both CEOs on the scheduled separation of the businesses’ standalone entities. Announced in February 2018, DowDuPont's agriculture division is named Corteva Agriscience, its materials science division is named Dow, and its specialty products division is named DuPont. In March 2018, it was announced that Jeff Fettig would become executive chairman of DowDuPont on July 1, 2018, and Jim Fitterling would become CEO of Dow Chemical on April 1, 2018. In October 2018, the company's agricultural unit recorded a $4.6 billion loss in the third quarter after lowering its long-term sales and profits targets.
In 2019, DuPont completed its spin off from DowDuPont.
In February 2020, DuPont announced that it is bringing back Edward D. Breen as its CEO after removing former Chief Executive Mark Doyle and CFO Jeanmarie Desmond less than a year after they assumed their roles. Lori D. Koch, previously head of investor relations, assumed the CFO position.
In November 2021, DuPont announced that it intended to acquire Rogers Corporation in a deal valued at $5.2 billion. While the deal had been approved by many other regulatory agencies, due to Chinese regulators prolonging the review, DuPont decided on November 1, 2022, to walk away from the deal. DuPont paid Rogers a termination fee of US$162.5 million.
On November 10, 2022, the state of California announced it was filing suit against both DuPont and 3M for their manufacturing of persistent organic pollutants following multi-year probes into both companies. DuPont denies ever manufacturing the chemicals and avers that the state's claims are meritless.
Operations
Locations
| 2010 | 949 |
| 2009 | 171 |
| 2008 | 992 |
| 2007 | 1,652 |
| 2006 | 1,947 |
| 2005 | 2,795 |
| 2004 | −714 |
| 2003 | −428 |
| 2002 | 1,227 |
| 2001 | 6,131 |
The company's corporate headquarters and experimental station were located in Wilmington, Delaware. The company's manufacturing, processing, marketing, and research and development facilities, as well as regional purchasing offices and distribution centers were located throughout the world. Major manufacturing sites included the Spruance plant near Richmond, Virginia, (currently the company's largest plant), the Washington Works site in Washington, West Virginia, the Mobile Manufacturing Center (MMC) in Axis, Alabama, the Bayport plant near Houston, Texas, the Mechelen site in Belgium, and the Changshu site in China. Other locations included the Yerkes Plant on the Niagara River at Tonawanda, New York, the Sabine River Works Plant in Orange, Texas, and the Parlin Site in Sayreville, New Jersey. The facilities in Vadodara, Gujarat and Hyderabad, Telangana in India constituted the DuPont Services Center and DuPont Knowledge Center respectively.
Regulation
The European Commission opened a probe to assess whether the proposed merger was in line with the EU's respective regulations. The Commission investigated whether the deal reduced competition in areas such as crop protection, seeds and petrochemicals. The closing date for the merger was repeatedly delayed due to these regulatory inquiries.
Ed Breen said the companies were negotiating possible divestitures in their pesticide operations to win approval for the deal. As part of their EU counterproposal, the companies offered to dispose of a portion of DuPont's crop protection business and associated R&D, as well as Dow's acrylic acid copolymers and ionomers businesses.
The remedy submission in turn delayed the commission's review deadline to April 4, 2017. The intended spins of the company businesses were expected to occur about 18 months after closing. According to the Financial Times, the merger was "on track for approval in March" 2017. Dow Chemical and DuPont postponed the planned deadline during late March, as they struck an $1.6 billion asset swap with FMC Corporation in order to win the antitrust clearances. DuPont acquired the corporation's health and nutrition business, while selling its herbicide and insecticide properties.
The European Commission conditionally approved the merger as of April, 2017, although the decision was said to consist of over a thousand pages and was expected to take several months to be released publicly. As part of the approval, Dow must also sell off two acrylic acid co-polymers manufacturing facilities in Spain and the US. China conditionally cleared the merger in May, 2017.
According to former United States Secretary of Agriculture during the Clinton administration, Dan Glickman, and former Governor of Nebraska, Mike Johanns, by creating a single, independent, U.S.-based and - owned pure agriculture company, Dow and DuPont would be able to compete against their still larger global peers. The merger was not opposed by competition authorities around the world due to the view that it did not have noticeable impact on the global seed markets.
On the other hand, if Monsanto and Bayer, the 1st and 3rd largest biotech and seed firms, together with Dow and DuPont being the 4th and 5th largest biotechnology and seed companies in the world respectively, both went through with the mergers, the so-called "Big Six" (including Syngenta and BASF) in the industry would control 63 percent of the global seed market and 76 percent of the global agriculture chemical market. They would also control 95 percent of corn, soybeans, and cotton traits in the US. Both duopolies would become the "big two" industry dominators.
See also
In Spanish: DuPont Corporation para niños
- Dark Waters
- The Devil We Know
- PFAS
- Du Pont family
- DuPont v. Kolon Industries
- Foxcatcher
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- Krebs Pigments and Chemical Company
- Team Foxcatcher
