Koch Industries

Koch Industries is a U.S. company headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. The mixed company operates in 50 countries, including in the production of petroleum, chemicals, energy, asphalt, natural gas, fertilizers, food and plastic. Koch Industries is the second largest after Cargill non-listed company in the United States (Forbes data from 2012).

History

In 1925, Fred C. Koch founded together with his classmate Lewis E. Winkler an engineering firm in Wichita (Kansas ) named Winkler- Koch Engineering Company. Two years later, both developed a more efficient thermal cracking process to obtain gasoline from crude oil, and thus threatened the competitive advantage of established oil companies, who then brought an action for patent infringement. Out of the company from shops in the United States was excluded and turned to other markets, such as the Soviet Union, where Winkler -Koch built 15 cracking units 1929-1932. During this time, Koch learned communism and the Stalinist regime know. In his 1960 published book, A Business Man Looks at Communism, he describes the Soviet Union as a "land hunger, poverty and terror."

In 1940, Fred Koch founded with new partners the Wood River Oil and Refining Company, which was renamed after his death in Koch Industries. The company expanded mainly by buying other companies and development rights.

Operations

For more company information published Koch Industries not only an approximate indication of the company's official sales of $ 100 billion exists. Important parts of the Group for Flint Hills Resources, which operates among other refineries in Alaska, Minnesota and Texas, and the paper manufacturer Georgia-Pacific LLC.

Koch Industries is majority owned by the brothers Koch ( each 42 percent ). President and CEO is Charles G. Koch and Vice - President is his brother David H. Koch. Chief Financial Officer Steve Feil Meier.

The business methods of Koch Industries fell between 1999 and 2003 in the focus of the judiciary, the company was convicted criminally five times during that period and had to pay $ 400 million in fines. Among other things, the company had stolen oil from a foreign land, environmental crimes obscured by data tampering, neglect safety precautions and pipelines serviced deficient. At a particularly high penalty the company in 1999 was sentenced after explosion at a pipeline two people were killed. At the political level, Koch Industries is committed to reduce such rules (see Section Political activities) and has spent over $ 50 million on lobbying in the U.S. capital since 2006. According to the company, Koch Industries now has good relations with the Environmental Protection Agency and adheres to existing laws. According to the previous control manager Ludmila Egorova - Farines should have flowed for contract awards outside the United States also numerous bribes.

Development and corporate acquisitions

The following is a partial list of acquisitions and related events:

Political Activities

The Koch brothers run the Koch Family Foundation, a political foundation. In her conservative and libertarian orientation they support the political think tank Cato Institute and Mercatus Center. David Koch was appointed as a vice-presidential candidate of Edward Clark for the Libertarian Party in the presidential elections in 1980. Ed Clark could only come in 4th place with 921 299 votes and 1.1 per cent share of the vote. Koch supports the organization Americans for Prosperity, a successor organization of citizens for a sound economy ( Citizens for a Sound Economy ). In April 2006, the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation with a donation over a million dollars supporting the preservation of the prairie in the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Chase County ( Kansas).

Koch Industries and the Koch brothers support the libertarian -conservative Tea Party movement financially and organizationally.

According to Greenpeace, the company between 1997 and 2008 also supported the work of groups that deny global warming or its causes with nearly 48 million U.S. dollars. Koch Industries funded a "network of denial " about the credibility of science to systematically discredit and prevent climate legislation.

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