Precision Castparts Corporation
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Precision Castparts Corp. is an American industrial goods and metal fabrication company that manufactures investment castings, forged components, and airfoil castings for use in the aerospace, industrial gas turbine, and defense industries. In 2009 it ranked 362nd on the
Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
list, and 11th in the aerospace and defense industry.Precision Castparts.
Fortune 500: 2009. CNNMoney.com. Retrieved on April 20, 2009.
In 2015 it ranked 322nd overall and 9th in the aerospace and defense industry. In 2014 it ranked 133rd on the S&P 500 based on market capitalization. In January 2016, the company became a
subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...
of Berkshire Hathaway. Before that event, it used to be one of the three Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Oregon.


History

Precision Castparts (PCC) was founded by Joseph Buford Cox on April 1, 1953.History.
Precision Castparts. Retrieved on February 28, 2008.
Cox was owner of Oregon Saw Chain and in 1949 had started a casting operation to make saw teeth with assistant general manager Ed Cooley also working on the project. In 1953 Cox separated the two companies and PCC was formed, moving into a new larger facility in 1955, and incorporating the following year with Ed Cooley as one of the owners.


1960s and 1970s

Beginning in the 1960s, the company began to secure contracts to provide parts for jet engines. In 1967 they were awarded a contract by General Electric to provide parts for their TF39 engine and another contract with
Pratt & Whitney Pratt & Whitney is an American aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies. Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation (especially airlines) and military aviat ...
. The following year the company was taken public and began work with Boeing. In 1968 Precision Castparts became a public company with the offering 120,000 shares of common stock to 1,100 new shareholders. By the 1970s PCC was also casting parts for body part replacements such as hips and knees.


1980s and 1990s

In the early 1980s, PCC expanded their facilities with several additions. In 1985 the company acquired a titanium foundry in Europe and built a new plant the next year in France. Over the next few years PCC acquired other companies such as Airfoils, and AETC Limited of Britain. In 1989, PCC was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading as PCP. In 1991, Bill McCormick became CEO. Acquisitions continued in the 1990s with Advanced Forming Technology, ACC Electronics, Quamco, Astro Punch, and Olofsson Corporation. In 1997 PCC bought J&L Fiber Services, Pittler Maschinenfabrik GmbH, and Schlosser Casting Company. Over the next ten years the company continued to grow through acquiring other companies around the world in places such as Romania, Scotland, Switzerland, and Australia as well as companies within the United States including SPS Technologies. One of the company's largest purchases was the $990 million acquisition of Wyman-Gordon Company in 1999. They have also built or joined with partners to build plants in many countries around the world, including India, the Czech Republic, Hungary, China, and Malaysia.


2000s to present

In 2002, Mark Donegan became President and CEO. Precision received tax breaks from local governments in the Portland metro area in 2006 in exchange for a plant expansion. In 2007, the company purchased Cherry Aerospace to expand their fastener business. After ranking as the 568th largest U.S. company by ''Fortune'' in 2007, the company became a
Fortune 500 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
the next year when it ranked 444, and rose to 362 in 2009. It ranked 322 prior to its sale to Berkshire in 2016. PCC announced the purchase of Carlton Forge Works in October 2009 for $850 million and Primus International Inc. in July 2011 in a $900 million deal. Primus made parts for airplanes, selling their products to both Airbus and Boeing. In May 2012 PCC acquired Centra Industries Inc. a builder of aircraft parts for Boeing,
Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...
, Northrop Grumman,
Spirit AeroSystems Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc., based in Wichita, Kansas, is the world's largest first-tier aerostructures manufacturer. The company builds several important pieces of Boeing aircraft, including the fuselage of the 737, portions of the 787 fus ...
, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Bombardier. They have two plants based in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Texas Honing was purchased by PCC in October 2012, followed by the $2.9 billion acquisition of
Titanium Metals Titanium Metals Corporation, or most commonly referred to as TIMET, a shortened version of "TItanium METals" that is a registered company trademark. TIMET, founded in 1950, is an American manufacturer of titanium-based metals products, focusing ...
in November 2012. On August 10, 2015, the boards of directors of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Precision Castparts Corp. unanimously approved a definitive agreement for Berkshire Hathaway to acquire, for $235 per share in cash, all outstanding PCC shares, for a total sum of $37 billion including assumed debt. The sale was finalized on January 29, 2016, on which date Berkshire Hathaway took ownership of Precision Castparts. In 2021, Berkshire Hathaway took an almost $11 billion writedown on the investment.


Environment

In May 2011, toxic chemicals such as nitrogen dioxide and hydrochloric acid were unexpectedly released at the company's titanium plant on Johnson Creek Blvd, Portland, Oregon. Although four people were hospitalized, nobody was permanently injured from the fumes. Firefighters had difficulty shutting down the plant. The Toxic 100 Air polluters index from the University of Massachusetts listed Precision Castparts as the number one air polluter in the U.S. in the August 2013 edition, which the company called a flawed study.


Financials

*In millions of US dollars.Annual Report: 2006.
Precision Castparts. Retrieved on February 28, 2008.
Listed on the New York Stock Exchange as PCP, the company was part of the S&P 400. In 2007, Precision was moved to the S&P 500 stock index.Precision Castparts to join S&P 500.
CNNMoney.com. Retrieved on May 31, 2007.
Precision Castparts
Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved on February 28, 2008.
As seen in the table above, PCP's revenue increased by 52 percent in 2007, to $5.4 billion from $3.5 billion in 2006. Total debt increased by 29 percent, from $677 million in 2006 to $873 million in 2007. The increases in revenue and debt were due in part to a pair of acquisitions in February 2007: GSC Foundries, Inc. (GSC), formerly a competitor to PCP in producing aluminum and steel structural investment castings, and Cherry Aerospace LLC (Cherry), a manufacturer of aerospace blind rivets and blind bolts.


Products

The company manufactures a variety of parts for the aerospace industry including many
jet engine A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and hybrid propulsion, the term ...
components. PCC also makes medical prostheses and parts for other industrial applications such as in the oil industry, in the gas industry, and for use in power generating turbines for producing electricity. They are considered a leader in the manufacturing of both jet engine airfoils and gas turbines used for generating electricity. The company generates $1.5 million in revenue for each Boeing 787 Dreamliner built.Read, Richard. "Boeing's newest bird takes a giant leap forward". '' The Oregonian'', March 18, 2007. Other products made from the various metals are fasteners, products for the paper industry, parts used in the defense industry, and parts for the automotive industry. PCC's main markets are the United States, Europe, and Asia.


Investment cast

The
investment casting Investment casting is an industrial process based on lost-wax casting, one of the oldest known metal-forming techniques. The term "lost-wax casting" can also refer to modern investment casting processes. Investment casting has been used in vari ...
segment of Precision Castparts includes PCC Structurals and PCC Airfoils. It manufactures castings for
aircraft engines An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years many ...
, industrial gas turbine engines, airframes, medical implants, armament, unmanned aerial vehicles, and other industrial applications. They are the market leader in manufacturing large, complex, structural investment castings and the leading manufacturer of airfoil investment castings used in jet engines. The structural casting business manufactures the largest-diameter, nickel-based super-alloy, titanium and stainless steel investment castings in the world.


Forged

The Forged Products segment includes Wyman-Gordon, PCC Energy Group,
Titanium Metals Corporation Titanium Metals Corporation, or most commonly referred to as TIMET, a shortened version of "TItanium METals" that is a registered company trademark. TIMET, founded in 1950, is an American manufacturer of titanium-based metals products, focusing ...
(Timet), and
Special Metals Corporation Special Metals Corporation (SMC) is an American supplier of special refractory alloys and is headquartered in New Hartford, New York, United States. The company has operations in Huntington, West Virginia; Dunkirk, New York; Burnaugh, Kentucky; ...
and serves the aerospace and power generation markets. They produce engine components as well as airframe structural components for both military and commercial aircraft. They also produce mechanical and structural tubular products for use in energy markets.


Airframe

The Airframe Products segment includes PCC Fasteners and PCC Aerostructures. It is the leading developer and manufacturer of highly engineered fasteners, fastener systems, aerostructures and precision components primary used in critical aerospace applications. In addition to the aerospace and gas turbine markets, this segment serves the construction, automotive, heavy truck and general industrial markets.


See also

*
List of companies based in Oregon This is a list of companies based in Oregon. Oregon is the ninth largest by area and the 27th most populous of the 50 United States. The gross domestic product (GDP) of Oregon in 2010 was $168.6 billion; it is the United States's 26th wealthies ...


References

{{Authority control 1953 establishments in Oregon 2016 mergers and acquisitions Aerospace companies of the United States American corporate subsidiaries Berkshire Hathaway Companies based in Portland, Oregon Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Defense companies of the United States Manufacturing companies established in 1953 Manufacturing companies based in Oregon