ABB Group
Line
- Ulrich Spiesshofer CEO
- Hubertus von Grünberg, Chairman of the Board
The ABB Ltd. is a company in the power and automation technology with headquarters in Zurich, in 1988 from the merger of the Swedish Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget ( ASEA ) and the Swiss Brown, Boveri & Cie. ( BBC ) was formed. The Group operates worldwide and currently employs a total of around 145,000 employees in 100 countries. The ABB Ltd shares are listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange SIX Swiss Exchange.
- 2.1 1990s
- 2.2 2000s 2.2.1 Nuclear power plant equipment for North Korea
- 4.1 Switzerland
- 4.2 Germany
Business
Asea Brown Boveri operates as a Group for Energy and Automation Technology in various fields of business.
Power Products
Power Products are the key components for power transmission and distribution. The division includes the production network of ABB transformers, switchgear, circuit breakers, cables and other accessories. It also offers all the services in order to ensure the performance and durability of the products. The Division is divided into three divisions.
Power Systems
The Power Systems Division supplies utilities with a wide range of turnkey systems and services for power transmission, power distribution and for power plants. Substations and automation systems for substations are the main fields of this division. Other products include flexible alternating current transmission systems (FACTS ), high -voltage direct current systems ( HVDC) and network management systems. In power generation, Power Systems Division, the instrumentation, control and electrification of power plants offers. The Division is divided into four divisions. Currently, the company involved in a project of 12 large dams in Malaysia, creating a rain forest area and its residents Penan indigenous people are displaced.
Industrial Automation and Drives
This division provides products, solutions and services to enhance industrial productivity and energy efficiency. With their motors, generators, drives, programmable logic controllers ( PLC) and its power electronics and robotics, the Division of energy, drive and control technologies ready for many automation applications. The product leadership in the area of wind generators and a growing offering solar complement the industrial focus, based on common technologies, sales channels and operations platforms.
Low Voltage Products and Systems
The Low Voltage Products division manufactures low-voltage circuit breakers, switchgear, control equipment, installation art as well as housing and cable systems to protect people, installations and electronic equipment from electrical overload. In addition, the Division produces KNX systems for the integration and automation of electrical systems, ventilation systems, and security and data transmission networks in buildings.
Process Automation
The focus of this Division is to provide products and solutions for instrumentation, automation and optimization of industrial processes. The customer industries served include oil and gas industry, the energy sector, the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, pulp and paper, metals and minerals industry and the shipbuilding and turbocharger industry. Main customer benefits include improved plant productivity and higher energy savings.
History
The ABB was formed in 1988 from the merger of the Swedish Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget ( ASEA ) and the Swiss Brown, Boveri & Cie. ( BBC ) for Asea Brown Boveri (ABB). This merger of ABB was the world number three in electrical engineering, was regarded as a milestone in economic history. The main products of the group, power plants, especially gas turbine, steam turbine and combined cycle power plants, locomotives, turbochargers and electrical switchgear.
1990s
The then CEO, Percy Barnevik bought in the next few years in a big way even more companies. In February 1996, he was elected at the General Meeting to the Board, and practiced the same time the position of CEO of ABB. One of the acquired companies, the American Combustion Engineering (CE) saw himself confronted in the nineties in the U.S. with huge compensation claims from asbestos victims. What the ABB brought as a legal successor in 2002 to the brink of collapse, as they or even by the subsequent costs ( compensation, scheduling delays, contract buybacks, repair costs, etc.) of the solid on the market separately, but not completely fully developed or tested latest gas turbine types GT24. GT26 was financial burden and were more demands of customers into the house. The negotiated with the U.S. plaintiffs comparison in the CE case was approved by the competent U.S. court on April 1, 2006. Barnevik occurred in November 2001 from the Board and received a severance payment in the amount of 148 million Swiss francs, which is still considered to be the largest settlement ever.
CEO of the Group after Barnevik was the end of 1996 the Swede Göran Lindahl, whose management was mostly marked by disinvestment. The traffic engineering subsidiaries were merged with those of Daimler -Benz on 1 January 1996 at the joint venture ABB Daimler - Benz Transportation ( Adtranz ). For fiscal year 1998, the exit from the joint venture was agreed and sold the 50 percent stake September 30, 1998, Daimler -Benz.
Analog has been merged bundled in the ABB Power Generation power plant division on 30 June 1999 with those of Alstom. The ABB Power Generation Ltd was initially renamed as a joint venture in ABB Alstom Power and a short time later in Alstom ( Switzerland ). In April 2000, the portion Nuclear Systems at the British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL ) was sold, the entire division was abandoned with the sale of the 50 percent stake in Alstom in May 2000, on the one hand, the additional financial burdens on the GT24/26 orders as well as the post-development and design debugging to be able to pass on the two types of gas turbines. The sale proceeds of the division was strongly inter alia, needed for the Combustion Engineering problems. Although the sale of the power plant division ensured the survival of the ABB, but also had an impact on the other areas of the company is negative, many of whom were suppliers to the power plant division.
Was confirmed in this designed for short term corporate policy Lindahl of financiers such as Martin Ebner and Jacob Wallenberg, who - were elected in March 1999 in the framework of the General Assembly to the Board - as Lindahl himself also.
To enlarge the automation division for 2.2 billion U.S. dollars, Elsag Bailey Process Automation NV in January 1999 purchased and integrated into the Group, including the traditional company Hartmann & Braun. With the march towards newly prescribed Lindahl was the end of 2000 from the management of the company and also joined - one year before Barnevik - from the Board.
2000s
In 2000, the ABB celebrated, although only twelve years -existent in this form, based on the history of the former BBC, its 100th anniversary. In Germany this was merged with the incipient campaign " tour Futur ", a future -oriented transformation process of the ABB. New Germany boss was the Swede Bengt Pihl . The stated goal of management was to be number 1 in comparison to Siemens in all competing businesses. Consistently divisions of the "old technology " like power plants and wastewater treatment technology and the turbine business has been reduced.
From 1 January 2001, the computer science oriented Jörgen Centerman CEO, who wanted to continue the transformation process of the ABB consistently and it had the intention that ABB should be a priority of the new information technologies and services. One measure in this regard was the total integration of previously working for CSC Ploenzke computer and PC service. These were modeled after the SBS first (communication & information systems ) into the internal business unit " HIS ", but spun off later after the general decline of the IT market after 2001 and again until finally sold completely.
Due to the overall strategy Centerman had failed shortly thereafter vacate his chair. The shares lost during this period at times up to 70 percent of their value. As an emergency measure, the entire group was restructured in management and the previous managers of each business largely disempowered. Instead, seven so-called business area manager were employed, who flew on a daily basis from Switzerland to discuss and monitor the local management.
From 5 September 2002 to 31 December 2004, the Group initiated Jürgen Dormann as CEO and was on 1 January 2005 by Fred Kindle, by then CEO of Sulzer AG, detached. Dormann, which was launched in 1998 was elected to the Board, from 2002 until his resignation to the General Assembly in 2007 out also the same president. Under his leadership, several no longer regarded as core business units were sold, including the beginning of 2004, the division ABB Building Switzerland, subsequently emerged ETAVIS group from the. Was re- elected in the subsequent AGM of the Board of physicists Hubertus von Grünberg, who was also once elected to office of the Chairman.
In August 2007, agreement was reached with the Dutch Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (CB & I ) to a sale of the ABB Lummus Global. This continued in fiscal year 2006 by approximately $ 988 million dollars and employed approximately 2,400 people. After approval by the authorities and the CB & I shareholders amounted to a value of 950 million U.S. dollars transaction was completed on 19 November 2007. As part of the divestment of the ABB has discovered questionable payments that were aligned by Lummus Global, and these reported - any penalties, be liable for the ABB, this could not yet be quantified.
February 13, 2008 Fred Kindle laid off from his position as CEO and left the company; were given " irreconcilable differences over the management of the company " as a reason. An interim Group management was transferred to the CFO Michel Demaré. In mid-July, the Board was aware that Joseph Hogan was appointed on 1 September 2008 as the new CEO of ABB; prior to joining Hogan was CEO of GE Healthcare, the Medizinaltechniksparte of General Electric. In 2013, it was announced that Joe Hogan resigns for personal reasons. In June 2013, the Board Ulrich Spiesshofer, former Executive Committee member for the Division Industry Automation and Drives, unanimously appointed as the new CEO.
Nuclear power plant equipment for North Korea
In 2000, Donald Rumsfeld was on the board of ABB ( before he was from 2001 to 2006 Minister of Defense of the United States of America under the presidency of George W. Bush). The ABB signed this year a contract for the supply of equipment and services for two North Korean reactors at the nuclear power plant Kumho. The latter were delivered under an agreement with the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization ( KEDO), a consortium was established in 1995 by the governments of the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union.
Company data
The turnover of the Group as a whole amounted in fiscal year 2011 to around 38 billion U.S. dollars ( about 31.6 billion the previous year ), the consolidated net profit to 4.7 billion U.S. dollars (previous year 3.8 billion ).
Largest single shareholder of ABB has approximately 7.6 percent of the share capital and voting rights of Swedish Investor AB. More 4.5 percent of the share capital and voting rights held by Fidelity ( FMR Corporation). The remaining share capital is distributed to an estimated 290,000 shareholders, neither of which the threshold reporting requirements of three percent (as at 16 January 2008).
Group structure
The ABB Group consists of more than 330 consolidated subsidiaries worldwide.
Switzerland
In Switzerland, ABB employs about 6,800 people. Among the important Swiss subsidiaries include ABB Switzerland AG and ABB Asea Brown Boveri Ltd..
Germany
With a turnover of around 3.4 billion euros in 2011 and around 10,000 employees Germany is one of the world's most important sites within the ABB Group. In Germany, ABB has, inter alia, the following subsidiaries:
- ABB AG, based in Mannheim
- ABB Automation GmbH
- ABB Automation Products GmbH
- ABB land GmbH
- ABB Logistics Center Europe in Menden (Sauerland)
- ABB Power Systems
- ABB Stotz- Kontakt GmbH
- ABB Stotz-Kontakt / Striebel & John mbH
- ABB Turbo Systems AG
- Pucaro Electrical insulating GmbH
- Striebel & John GmbH & Co. KG
Management
CEOs:
Chairman of the Executive Board: The Executive Directorate is led by Hubertus von Grünberg since May 2007.
Important former Executive Board members:
- Donald Rumsfeld (1990-2001)
Chairman of the Board