Caterpillar Inc.
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Caterpillar Inc.
Caterpillar Inc. logo
Type Public
Traded as NYSE: CAT
Dow Jones Industrial Average Component
S&P 500 Component
Industry Heavy equipment
Engines
Financial services
Predecessors C. L. Best Tractor Company
Holt Manufacturing Company
Founded California, United States (April 15, 1925)
Headquarters Peoria, Illinois, United States
Area served Worldwide
Key people Douglas R. Oberhelman (Chairman and CEO)
Products
Products List[show]
Services
Services List[show]
Revenue Increase US$ 65.87 billion (2012)[1]
Operating income Increase US$ 8.57 billion (2012)[1]
Net income Increase US$ 5.68 billion (2012)[1]
Total assets Increase US$ 89.35 billion (2012)[1]
Total equity Increase US$ 17.53 billion (2012)[1]
Employees 125,341 (Dec 2012)[1]
Subsidiaries
Subsidiary List[show]
Website www.caterpillar.com
Footnotes / references
[2][3][4][5]
Caterpillar Inc., is an American corporation which designs, manufactures, markets and sells machinery and engines and sells financial products and insurance to customers via a worldwide dealer network.[2][3] Caterpillar is the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives.[1] With more than US$89 billion in assets, Caterpillar was ranked number one in its industry and number 44 overall in the 2009 Fortune 500.[6]
Caterpillar stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.[7] Caterpillar Inc. traces its origins to the 1925 merger of the Holt Manufacturing Company and the C. L. Best Tractor Company, creating a new entity, the California based Caterpillar Tractor Company.[8] In 1986, the company re-organized itself as a Delaware corporation under the current name, Caterpillar Inc. Caterpillar's headquarters are located in Peoria, Illinois, United States.[1]
Caterpillar machinery is recognizable by its trademark "Caterpillar Yellow" livery and the "CAT" logo.[9]
Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Origins
1.2 Move to Peoria
1.3 Use in World War I
1.4 Post-war challenges
1.5 Caterpillar company formed (1925)
1.6 Expansion in developing markets
1.7 Acquisitions
1.8 Divestitures
2 Business lines
2.1 Machinery
2.2 On-road trucks
2.3 Engines
2.4 Caterpillar Defense Products
2.5 Caterpillar Electronics
2.6 Agriculture products
2.7 Financial products and brand licensing
3 Operations
3.1 Manufacturing
3.2 Distribution
4 Management
4.1 Current board of directors
5 Workforce and labor relations
5.1 Labor practices
6 Environmental record
6.1 Environmental stewardship
6.2 Clean Air Act violation
7 Advocacy, philanthropy and awards
8 See also
9 References
10 Further reading
11 External links
History[edit]
Main article: Holt Manufacturing Company
Benjamin Holt, one of the founding fathers of Holt Manufacturing Company.
Two Holt 45 gas crawler tractors team up to pull a long wagon train in the Mojave Desert during construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1909.
Origins[edit]
The steam tractors of the 1890s and early 1900s were extremely heavy, sometimes weighing 1,000 pounds (450 kg) per horsepower, and often sank into the rich, soft earth of the San Joaquin Valley Delta farmland surrounding Stockton, California. Benjamin Holt attempted to fix the problem by increasing the size and width of the wheels up to 7.5 feet (2.3 m) tall and 6 feet (1.8 m) wide, producing a tractor 46 feet (14 m) wide. But this also made the tractors increasingly complex, expensive and difficult to maintain.
Another solution considered was to lay a temporary plank road ahead of the steam tractor, but this was time-consuming, expensive, and interfered with earthmoving. Holt thought of wrapping the planks around the wheels. He replaced the wheels on a 40 horsepower (30 kW) Holt steamer, No. 77, with a set of wooden tracks bolted to chains. On Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1904, he successfully tested the updated machine plowing the soggy delta land of Roberts Island.[10]
Company photographer Charles Clements was reported to have observed that the tractor crawled like a caterpillar,[2] and Holt seized on the metaphor. "Caterpillar it is. That's the name for it!"[10] Some sources, though, attribute this name to British soldiers in July 1907. Two years later Holt sold his first steam-powered tractor crawlers for US$5,500, about US$128,000 today. Each side featured a track frame measured 30 inches (760 mm) high by 42 inches (1,100 mm) wide and were 9 feet (2.7 m) long. The tracks were 3 inches (76 mm) by 4 inches (100 mm) redwood slats.[10]
Holt received the first patent for a practical continuous track for use with a tractor on December 7, 1907 for his improved "Traction Engine" ("improvement in vehicles, and especially of the traction engine class; and included endless traveling platform supports upon which the engine is carried").[11]
Move to Peoria[edit]
A postcard showing the Caterpillar Tractor Co. plant in Peoria, period 1930–1945.
On February 2, 1910,[12] Holt opened up a plant in East Peoria, Illinois, led by his nephew Pliny Holt. There Pliny met farm implement dealer Murray Baker who knew of an empty factory that had been recently built to manufacture farm implements and steam traction engines. Baker, who later became the first executive vice president of what became Caterpillar Tractor Company, wrote to Holt headquarters in Stockton and described the plant of the bankrupt Colean Manufacturing Co. of East Peoria, Illinois. On October 25, 1909, Pliny Holt purchased the factory,[13] and immediately began operations with 12 employees.[14] Holt incorporated it as the Holt Caterpillar Company, although he did not trademark the name Caterpillar until August 2, 1910.[12]
The addition of a plant in the Midwest, despite the hefty capital needed to retool the plant, proved so profitable that only two years later the company employed 625 people and was exporting tractors to Argentina, Canada, and Mexico.[15] Tractors were built in both Stockton and East Peoria.[16][17]
Use in World War I[edit]
Holt's track-type tractors played a support role in World War I. Even before the U.S. formally entered WWI, Holt had shipped 1,200 tractors to England, France and Russia for agricultural purposes. These governments, however, sent the tractors directly to the battlefront where the military put them to work hauling artillery and supplies.[18] When World War I broke out, the British War Office ordered a Holt tractor and put it through trials at Aldershot. The War Office was suitably impressed and chose it as a gun-tractor.[19] Over the next four years, the Holt tractor became a major artillery tractor, mainly used to haul medium guns like the 6-inch howitzer, the 60-pounder, and later the 9.2-inch howitzer.[20]
Holt tractors were also the inspiration for the development of the British tank, which profoundly altered ground warfare tactics.[10][21] Major Ernest Swinton, sent to France as an army war correspondent, very soon saw the potential of a track-laying tractor.[22]:116 Although the British later chose an English firm to build its first tanks, the Holt tractor became "one of the most important military vehicles of all time."[20]
A Caterpillar D2, introduced in 1938, at the Serpentine Vintage Tractor Museum, Serpentine, Western Australia.
Post-war challenges[edit]
Holt tractors had become well known during World War I. Military contracts formed the major part of the company's production. When the war ended, Holt's planned expansion to meet the military's needs was abruptly terminated. The heavy-duty tractors needed by the military were unsuitable for farmers. The company's situation worsened when artillery tractors were returned from Europe, depressing prices for new equipment and Holt's unsold inventory of military tractors. The company struggled with the transition from wartime boom to peacetime bust. To keep the company afloat, they borrowed heavily.
C. L. Best Gas Tractor Company, formed by Clarence Leo Best in 1910 and Holt's primary competitor, had during the war received government support enabling it to supply farmers with the smaller agricultural tractors they needed.[23][24] As a result, Best had gained a considerable market advantage over Holt by war's end. Best also assumed considerable debt to allow it to continue expansion, especially production of its new Best Model 60 "Tracklayer".
Both companies were adversely impacted by the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy, which contributed to a nationwide depression, further inhibiting sales. On December 5, 1920, 71-year-old Benjamin Holt died after a month-long illness.[24][25]
Caterpillar company formed (1925)[edit]
A Caterpillar D9L bulldozer with elevated sprocket design.
The banks who held the company's large debt forced the Holt board of directors to accept their candidate, Thomas A. Baxter, to succeed Benjamin Holt. Baxter initially cut the large tractors from the company's product line and introduced smaller models focused on the agricultural market. When the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 funded a US$1 billion federal highway building program, Baxter began re-focusing the company towards building road construction equipment.[13]:66 Both companies also faced fierce competition from the Fordson company.
Between 1907 and 1918, Best and Holt had spent about US$1.5 million in legal fees fighting each other in a number of contractual, trademark and patent infringement lawsuits.[26] Harry H. Fair of the bond brokerage house of Pierce, Fair & Company of San Francisco had helped to finance C. L. Best's debt and Holt shareholders approached him about their company's financial difficulty. Fair recommended that the two companies should merge. In April and May 1925, the financially stronger C. L. Best merged with the market leader Holt Caterpillar to form the Caterpillar Tractor Co.[27]
The new company was headquartered in San Leandro until 1930, when under the terms of th
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