fmc corporation

FMC Corporation NYSE: FMC is a chemical manufacturing company headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. FMC employs over 5,000 people world wide, and had gross revenues of US$3,115.3 billion in 2008.

Founded in 1883 as the Bean Spray Pump Company in San Jose, California by John Bean, the company's first product was a piston pump. Bean invented the pump to spray insecticide on the many fruit orchards in the area. In 1928, Bean Spray Pump purchased Anderson-Barngrover Co. and Sprague-Sells, and changed its name to Food Machinery Corporation, and began using the initials FMC. FMC received a contract to design and build landing vehicles tracked for the United States War Department in 1941. FMC also built the M113 (APC) Armored Personnel Carrier and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle as well as the XR311 at its former facility in Santa Clara, California. The troubled development of the Bradley was satirized in the 1998 HBO movie The Pentagon Wars. In the movie FMC was fictionalized as A.O.C corporation. Bean also manufactured fire fighting equipment in the 1960s through the 1980s under the FMC and the Bean names.

FMC changed names again in 1948, becoming Food Machinery and Chemical Corporation. In 1961 the name was changed to FMC Corporation. In the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, FMC Corporation began spinning several of its divisions into separate companies, including United Defense and FMC Technologies, and selling its divisions, including the John Bean Company, now a subsidiary of Snap-on.

During the 1980s, FMC was involved in the insider trading scandals hitting Wall Street when Ivan Boesky used illegally gained information regarding a restructuring plan to turn a $975,000 profit.

In 2001, FMC spun off its energy, airport, and food equipment businesses into a separate company named FMC Technologies, Inc.

In 2006 FMC Corporation celebrated 75 years being listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

In 2009, CBS' television news magazine 60 Minutes ran an expose discussing the use of an FMC Corporation produced chemical, Furadan, as a poison used by Kenyan farmers to kill African lions. The piece suggested that the Furadan was a serious threat to the future of the lion population in Africa. FMC Corporation refused to comment for the piece. For more, see: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/26/60minutes/main4894945.shtml

References "FMC Corp"; Yahoo! Finance; retrieved January 28, 2006 "www.FMC.com"; FMC Corporation; retrieved January 28, 2006 "International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 11. St. James Press, 1995"; retrieved November 16, 2007 "Insider Trading - The Market's Albatross" "EPA report on cleanup at Middleport, NY site"

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Sunoco (60) • Comcast (84) • Cigna (139) • Aramark (214) • Lincoln National Corporation (277) • Crown Holdings (328) • FMC Corp. (781) • Pep Boys (794) Delaware