Precision Castparts Corp. is an American industrial goods and

metal fabrication Metal fabrication is the creation of metal structures by cutting, bending and assembling processes. It is a value-added process involving the creation of machines, parts, and structures from various raw materials. Typically, a fabrication sh ...

company that manufactures investment castings, forged components, and airfoil castings for use in the

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astr ...

, industrial gas turbine, and defense industries. In 2009 it ranked 362nd on the Fortune 500 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 of

Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from which it invests the float (the retained premiu ...

. Before that event, it used to be one of the three Fortune 500 companies headquartered in

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

History

Precision Castparts (PCC) was founded by

Joseph Buford Cox Joseph Buford Cox (1905 – August 10, 2002), was an American inventor and businessman. He invented what is now known as the chipper type chain for chain saws. He based his design on the C-shaped jaws of the larva of the timberman beetle. Cox wat ...

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 General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...

to provide parts for their TF39 engine and another contract with Pratt & Whitney. The following year the company was taken public and began work with

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...

. 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 Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

. 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 Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

, 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 Wyman-Gordon is a company that designs and manufactures complex metal components. Founded in 1883 as a manufacturer of crankshafts for looms, it has a long history of making forged metal components, particularly for the aerospace industry. Wyman-G ...

in 1999. They have also built or joined with partners to build plants in many countries around the world, including

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, Hungary, China, and

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

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 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 Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: ' ...

and

. In May 2012 PCC acquired Centra Industries Inc. a builder of aircraft parts for

, Lockheed Martin,

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military techn ...

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 fu ...

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi Mo ...

and Bombardier. They have two plants based in

Cambridge, Ontario Cambridge is a city in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, located at the confluence of the Grand and Speed rivers. The city had a population of 138,479 as of the 2021 census. Along with Kitchener and Waterloo, Cambridg ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Texas Honing was purchased by PCC in October 2012, followed by the $2.9 billion acquisition of Titanium Metals in November 2012. On August 10, 2015, the boards of directors of

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 Nitrogen dioxide is a chemical compound with the formula . It is one of several nitrogen oxides. is an intermediate in the industrial synthesis of nitric acid, millions of tons of which are produced each year for use primarily in the productio ...

and

hydrochloric acid Hydrochloric acid, also known as muriatic acid, is an aqueous solution of hydrogen chloride. It is a colorless solution with a distinctive pungent smell. It is classified as a strong acid Acid strength is the tendency of an acid, symbol ...

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 The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medical ...

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 The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed ...

as PCP, the company was part of the

S&P 400 The S&P MidCap 400 Index, more commonly known as the S&P 400, is a stock market index from S&P Dow Jones Indices. The index serves as a gauge for the U.S. mid-cap equities sector and is the most widely followed mid-cap index. To be included in ...

. In 2007, Precision was moved to the

S&P 500 The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. As of ...

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

industry including many jet engine components. PCC also makes medical

prostheses In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...

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 ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 18 ...

'', 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 Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

, and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

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 var ...

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 A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directio ...

engines, airframes, medical implants, armament,

unmanned aerial vehicles An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...

, 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 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, water jet, and hybrid propulsion, the term typicall ...

. 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 Wyman-Gordon is a company that designs and manufactures complex metal components. Founded in 1883 as a manufacturer of crankshafts for looms, it has a long history of making forged metal components, particularly for the aerospace industry. Wyman-G ...

, 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.

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