Inco
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Inco Limited | |
 |
|
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Founded | (1902) |
| Headquarters | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Key people | Scott Hand, Chairman & CEO, Peter Jones, President & COO, Robert Davies CFO, Peter Goudie, EVP - Marketing, Sandra Scott, executive director - Investor Relations, Simon Fish, EVP - General Counsel & Secretary, Bruce Drysdale, VP - Government & Public Affairs, Bill Napier, VP - Environment & Health |
| Industry | Mining |
| Products | Nickel, copper, cobalt, PGMs |
| Revenue |  $4.5 billion USD (2005) |
| Employees | 11,700 (2005) |
| Slogan | Building the world's leading nickel company. |
| Website | www.inco.com/ |
Inco Limited is a Canadian mining and metals company, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. It is the world's second largest producer of nickel, and the third largest mining company outside South Africa and Russia of platinum-group metals. A charter member of the newly expanded 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average (October 1, 1928), Inco was replaced by Boeing in 1987.
The International Nickel Company was founded in New Jersey, USA, in 1902 through the merger of Canadian Copper, the Orford Copper Company, the Société Minière Caledonienne, Joseph Wharton's American Nickel Works in Camden, NJ, and others. Control was transferred to the International Nickel Company of Canada, Ltd., upon its founding in 1916. The International Nickel Company of Canada, Ltd., first began using the trade name Inco in 1919.
Inco began with the Canadian Copper Company following the discovery of copper deposits in Sudbury, Ontario. Initially, ore was shipped for smelting to a plant in Constable Hook, New Jersey owned by the Orford Copper Company. Processing soon revealed that the ore was also rich in nickel and exploration tests revealed an enormous potential. In 1902 the International Nickel was created as a joint venture between Canadian Copper, Orford Copper, and American Nickel Works. In 1916, the International Nickel Company of Canada was incorporated as the operating company in Copper Cliff near Sudbury, and in 1918 the company built a new refinery in Port Colborne, Ontario.
In 1929 the corporation underwent a major expansion by absorbing the British owned Mond Nickel Co. Head office was established in Toronto, Ontario. During World War II, Inco's Frood Mine produced 40% of the nickel used in artillery by the Allies. In 1972 the Inco Superstack was built in Sudbury. In 1976, the company’s name was officially changed to Inco Limited.
In order to generate cash Inco sold its manufacturing sites of nickel alloys to Special Metals Corporation in 1998. Special Metals Corporation however filed Chapter 11 in March 2002. Besides nickel, Inco produces copper, cobalt, platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, gold, and silver.
On October 11, 2005, Inco announced a friendly takeover bid to buy out the operations of longtime rival Falconbridge for $12 billion. If approved, the deal would have made Inco the world's largest producer of nickel. Xstrata (who already owns ~20% of Falconbridge shares) subsequently submitted a hostile takeover bid for Falconbridge, resulting in what would best be described as a bidding war between Inco and Xstrata. The Xstrata bid was successful, but not before Falconbridge employed a poison pill to delay the acquisition, raising its share price from $28 to $62.50 in the meantime.
Teck Cominco submitted a hostile takeover bid to purchase Inco on May 8, 2006 for $16 billion if it agreed to abandon its takeover of Falconbridge. On June 26 of the same year, Phelps Dodge submitted a friendly takeover bid to purchase a combined Inco and Falconbridge for around $40 billion; that offer was also withdrawn because of the failure of the Inco-Falconbridge merger.
On August 14, 2006 Brazilian mining company CVRD extended an all-cash offer to buy Inco. That offer received approval from the Canadian government's investment review agency on October 19, and was accepted by Inco shareholders on October 23. CVRD has stated that the company plans to maintain CVRD Inco as a separate nickel mining division; its current nickel mining projects in Brazil, including at Onca Puma and Vermelho, will also be transferred to Inco's management. Inco was delisted from the TSX on January 5, 2007 and NYSE on November 16, 2006.
In 2006 Inco was removed from the FTSE4GOOD index for failing to met their human rights criteria.[1]
Currently, Inco has operations in twenty countries around the world including the Goro Nickel project area in New Caledonia and the Voisey's Bay nickel-copper-cobalt deposits in Labrador. It also has six operating mines in Greater Sudbury including Creighton Mine which is the deepest underground excavation in Canada.
