Cooper Industries NYSE: CBE is an American company based on Houston, Texas. It produces transformers, tools and electrical equipment in general. It employs 29,000 staff around the world and had revenues in 2007 for $5.9 billion dollars. It is one of the oldest large companies in United States having been founded in 1833. In 2001 they weathered a takeover bid from Danaher Corporation which delayed the reincorporation plan.
In 2005 Kirk S. Hachigian replaced H. John Riley Jr as CEO.
History
Incorporated in Ohio as The C. & G. Cooper Company in 1895, it obtained a new charter in Ohio in 1919 that lasted until reincorporation in Bermuda for tax reasons took effect in 2002. In that time the company changed enormously.
Originally the company had been a foundry powered by a horse, but they bought their first steam engine in 1842 and were soon making engines themselves. A leading producer of Corliss steam engines in the 19th century, they switched in the early 20th century to making compressors, and became Cooper-Bessemer Corporation in a 1929 merger, before continuing diversification led to the Cooper Industries name being adopted in 1965.
In 1967 the company entered the hand tool business by acquiring Lufkin Rule, a maker of measuring instruments, and subsequently added a large number of other hand tool businesses. In the 1970s they entered aircraft maintenance, but subsequently sold off Cooper Airmotive. In 1979 they bought Gardner-Denver Company, their largest acquisition up to that point, extending their range of products serving the energy industry, which had been a key market since they started making compressors and a catalyst for their move of corporate headquarters to Houston in 1967.
The acquisitions of Crouse-Hinds Compa ...