Chicago Bridge & Iron Company

Chicago Bridge & Iron Company
Public
Traded as NYSE: CBI
Industry
Founded 1889
Founder Horace E. Horton
George Wheelock
William Wheelock
Headquarters The Hague, Netherlands [1]
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Michael L. Underwood
(Chairman of the Audit Committee)
L. Richard Flury
(Non Executive Chairman of the Board of Supervisory Directors
Philip K. Asherman
(President, CEO & Director)
Revenue Increase $ 12.93 billion (2012)[2]
Decrease $ -425.1 million (2015)[2]
Decrease $ -504.4 million (2015)[2]
Total assets Increase $ 9.202 billion (2015)[2]
Total equity Increase $ 2.164 billion (2015)[2]
Number of employees
 50,000 (May 2013)[3]
Website www.cbi.com
CB&I administrative headquarters
Chicago Bridge & Iron Works, 1912 catalog

Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, known commonly as CB&I, is a large American conglomerate engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company. CB&I specializes in projects for oil and gas companies. According to one of the founder's heirs, "The old joke is that Chicago Bridge & Iron isn't in Chicago, doesn't build bridges and doesn't use iron."[4]

CB&I currently employs approximately 40,000 people worldwide.

Corporate headquarters and leadership

The corporate headquarters are located in the Netherlands, with the administrative headquarters being located in the Woodlands, Texas.[5] Current corporate officers are:[6]

History

CB&I was founded in 1889 in Chicago, Illinois, USA, as Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, when Horace E. Horton, a bridge designer, agreed to merge business with George and William Wheelock of the Kansas City Bridge and Iron Company.

While initially involved in bridge design and construction, CB&I turned its focus to bulk liquid storage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, coinciding with the western expansion of railroads across the United States and the discovery of oil in the Southwest. CB&I quickly became known for design engineering and field construction of elevated water storage tanks, above-ground tanks for storage of petroleum and refined products, refinery process vessels and other steel plate structures.

CB&I supported the expansion of oil exploration outside the US, starting operations in South America in 1924, in Asia two years later and in the Middle East in 1939.

During World War II, CB&I was selected to build Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs). CB&I ranked 92nd among US corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.[7] LSTs carried troops and supplies to American and Allied troops fighting in Europe and the Pacific theater. CB&I was chosen because of their reputation and skills, particularly welding. Since the coastal shipyards were busy building large vessels for the war effort, such as aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers, there was no alternative but to use the inland waterways and shipyards for the production of smaller ships.

Over the course of the company's history, CB&I has developed many technologies and achieved a number of industry milestones. These include the first floating-roof tank for the oil industry (1923), the first spherical pressure vessel (1923), the first double-wall liquid natural gas (LNG) storage tank (1958), the first site-assembled thick wall steel nuclear reactor vessel (1966), the first marine LNG storage and distribution terminal in the US (1971), the world's largest steel water reservoir (1986), the world's largest vacuum distillation tower (1999) and the world's largest thermal energy storage tank (2009).

CB&I has been involved in a number of changes during the past two decades. It was acquired by Praxair in 1996; Praxair kept a chemical subsidiary and spun off CB&I as a Dutch-incorporated company the next year.[4] CB&I headquarters moved from Chicago to Houston, Texas in 2001 and then to the Hague, Netherlands when Texas enacted a franchise tax.

Since 2000, it has acquired a number of companies. Most recently in 2012, CB&I agreed to buy The Shaw Group for about US$3 billion,[8][9][10] completing the acquisition in February 2013.[11]

The company built a number of bridges and other works that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[12] These works include (with varying attribution):

CB&I today

In late 2000, CB&I embarked on a series of acquisitions that have expanded its services to encompass the entire hydrocarbon industry, from conceptual design through technology licensing, engineering and construction, to final commissioning and technical services. CB&I acquired Lummus Global from ABB on November 19, 2007, adding approximately 3,000 employees to the CB&I payroll.[13][14] CB&I announced the acquisition of The Shaw Group in 2012, which added pipe, steel and module fabrication solutions as well as Engineering & Construction capabilities in the power generation industry that included fossil and nuclear construction. The transaction was completed on February 13, 2013. In 2015, CB&I announced that they are selling their Nuclear Construction division to Westinghouse Electric Company, a subsidiary of Toshiba, for $229 million.[15]

CB&I's global business groups are:

Examples of recent major projects around the world include:

Controversies

CB&I was revealed as a subscriber to the UK's Consulting Association, exposed in 2009 for operating an illegal construction industry blacklist; CB&I was one of 14 companies issued with enforcement notices by the UK Information Commissioner's Office.[17] A CB&I employee, Ron Barron, later employed by Bechtel, consulted the blacklist more than 900 times in 2007 alone, a 2010 employment tribunal was told.[18]

References

  1. ↑ "CBI.com". Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Chicago Bridge Iron, Form 10-K, Annual Report" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Retrieved June 9, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Chicago Bridge Iron, Form 10-K, Annual Report, Filing Date Feb 28, 2013" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Retrieved Mar 24, 2013.
  4. 1 2 Chicago Bridge & Iron Set For Spinoff
  5. ↑ http://www.hokplanninggroup.com/projects/portfolio/3eebec2f-c1c7-5dad-157e-a7ab822ec6a1/Chicago_Bridge___Iron_U_S__Headquarters_PLNWeb.htm?sort=Alpha[]
  6. ↑ Executive Management Team, from cbi.com
  7. ↑ Peck, Merton J. & Scherer, Frederic M. The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis (1962) Harvard Business School p.619
  8. ↑ Jim Polson and Thomas Black (30 July 2012). "CB&I to Buy Shaw Group for $3 Billion to Add Nuclear Unit". Bloomberg News. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
  9. ↑ "Chicago Bridge & Iron, Form 8-K, Current Report, Filing Date Jul 30, 2012". secdatabase.com. Retrieved Mar 25, 2013.
  10. ↑ http://www.marketwatch.com/story/shaw-group-agrees-to-cbis-304b-takeover-bid-2012-07-30
  11. ↑ "CBI Completes SHAW Acquisition". Yahoo Finance. 14 February 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 National Park Service (2010-07-09). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  13. ↑ "Chicago Bridge & Iron, Form 8-K, Current Report, Filing Date Aug 30, 2007". secdatabase.com. Retrieved Mar 25, 2013.
  14. ↑ "Chicago Bridge & Iron, Form 8-K, Current Report, Filing Date Nov 21, 2007" (PDF). secdatabase.com. Retrieved Mar 25, 2013.
  15. ↑ Smith, Rebecca (2015-10-29). "Westinghouse Buys CB&I Division to Beef Up Its Nuclear Business". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2016-10-19.
  16. ↑ CB&I announces petrochemicals expansion project in the U.S.
  17. ↑ "Construction blacklist". ICO. ICO. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  18. ↑ Boffey, Daniel (2 December 2012). "Crossrail project dragged into blacklist scandal". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 May 2013.

External links

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