, harbor, 1923 Freeport Sulphur Company was founded July 12, 1912, by the eldest son of
Svante Magnus "E.M." Swenson,
banker Eric Pierson Swenson, with a group of investors, to develop
sulfur mining at
Bryan Mound salt dome, along the US
Gulf Coast.
Freeport, Texas was also established in Nov. 1912 to house workers, and serve as a port for Houston, rivaling Galveston and Corpus Christi. Freeport mined sulfur along the Gulf Coast using the
Frasch process, the patents for which had expired in 1908, a
disruptive innovation for the automated mining of previously inaccessible sulphur deposits at a cost lower than that of established mines, where manual labor gained the mineral under the most
appalling conditions. Previously,
Union Sulphur Company founder and patent-holder
Herman Frasch had enjoyed a monopoly on the process. The Bryan Mound salt dome just south of Freeport became
the second Frasch sulphur mine in the world in 1912.
Freeport Texas Company Enterprise to support Freeport Sulphur's business and the new town's
infrastructure led to the incorporation of a holding company on September 30, 1913, to join the newer assets with Freeport Sulphur and create a
vertically integrated mining company around, at first, a single sulphur mine. Officers of the new holding company,
Freeport Texas Company, were: • Eric. P. Swenson, President and Director (Freeport Sulphur founder, son of
Swante M. Swenson) • Edward E. Dickinson, vice-president and Director • F.M. Altz, Secretary • Swante M. Swenson, Treasurer (son of Eric P. Swenson) • Charles H. Findlay, Auditor (son of
Hugh Findlay and his third wife, Mary Ellen Smith) • Directors • Eric P. Swenson • Edward E. Dickinson • Richard H. Williams (son of
Richard H. Williams) •
Harry K. Knapp •
Samuel McRoberts • Charles P. Northrop •
Charles A. Stone •
Frank A. Vanderlip • Sidell Tilghman (son of General
Lloyd Tilghman) •
Eppa Hunton Jr. (son of late Virginia Senator, Brig. Gen.
Eppa Hunton) • Charles E. Herrmann On May 7, 1917, all 35,000 outstanding shares were exchanged for 500,000 new shares of no par value (at a rate of :1). The stock was listed on the NYSE since 1919. On September 1, 1951, the 99th consecutive quarterly dividend was paid. Effective September 21, 1951 the 800,000 outstanding common shares were split 3-for-1 and the authorized capital was increased from 850,000 to 3,000,000 shares. On March 2, 1959, the 129th consecutive quarterly dividend was paid and effective May 5, 1959 the 2,504,850 outstanding shares were once again split 3-for-1 and the authorized capital was increased from 3,000,000 to 10,000,000 shares. Freeport Sulphur was on the
Fortune 500 in 1955, 1956, 1957, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970. In 1919, minority stockholders
John R. Williams & Sons, First National Bank of Richmond, Virginia vice-president, W. M. Addison,
Benjamin P Alsopp,
E. L. Norton, and Samuel W. Travers solicited proxies to use at the April 5th annual stockholders' meeting, claiming, according to reports, that "management has refused them adequate information regarding the property. President E.P. Swenson denies that information has been thus withheld and states that the board, which represents the dominant interests, has no vacancies at the present time."
1928–1931 shareholder proxy fight In 1928, shareholder and scion of one of the founding investment firms, John Langbourne Williams & Sons,
Langbourne Meade Williams, Jr. launched a
proxy fight for control of the company. In 1929, he then sought help from his former supervisor at
Lee, Higginson & Co., J.T. Claiborne, who then enlisted clerk
John Hay Whitney – who had become one of the wealthiest men in America following the 1927 death of his father,
Payne Whitney. Williams eventually gained control of the company from founder Swenson, becoming its president in 1931, with Claiborne as a vice-president, and Whitney as chairman. Williams also served as chairman during 1958–1967.
1930s Williams led the company's diversification, beginning with the purchase of
manganese deposits in
Oriente Province, Cuba. The company announced on February 19, 1931, the acquisition of a controlling interest in the
Cuban American Manganese Corporation. Most of the metal was gained by concentration of low grade ore. The company benefited from (was subsidized by) zero import duty at a time when duties were high despite the United States reliance on imports for most of its supply of manganese. The deposit was depleted and the company dissolved in 1947. In 1932, Freeport Sulphur Company acquired the sulfur rights for Lake Grande Ecaille and vicinity in
Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, and escalated the development of sulfur deposits in the Grand Ecaille dome in 1933, still using the
Frasch Process developed by Dr.
Herman Frasch, who had, in 1895, enjoined the American Sulphur Company into a partnership, forming the
Union Sulphur Company, to initiate the first successful sulfur mining at Grand Ecaille, with which Freeport, like other competitors, would compete upon expiry of the Frasch patents in 1908. From its earliest inception, sulfur mining was the catalyst that developed
Port Sulphur, Louisiana. Effective January 1, 1937 the Freeport Texas Company changed its name to Freeport Sulphur Company (the old one was dissolved) and its character from a holding company to an operating company, likely as a response to the
Revenue Act of 1936 to avoid double taxation. On this occasion all active subsidiaries except the Cuban-American Manganese Corp were liquidated.
1950s Freeport announced on March 7, 1952, the development of 3 new sulphur mines at an estimated cost of $20 million, to be financed from accrued cash reserves, as part of the national defense industrial mobilization program (
Korea War). The effort grew into a $25 million program covering 4 new mines, one major (Garden Isle Bay) and 3 minor (Bay Ste. Elaine, Nash, Chacahoula) with a combined new capacity of 750,000 long tons per year, in addition to the existing Hoskins Mound (closed in 1955) and Grand Ecaille mines. The company produced
nickel during World War II and
potash in the 1950s. In 1956, the company formed the Freeport Oil Company. In 1959, Freeport
geologists confirmed the 1936 Dutch discovery of the rich Ertsberg copper and gold deposits, now known as the
Grasberg mine, in extremely rugged, remote country in the
Jayawijaya Mountains in what was then called the
Netherlands New Guinea.
1960s In 1960,
Fidel Castro implemented a 25%
ore tax, effectively nationalizing and seizing Freeport's nickel-mining operations in Cuba. Construction of an
open pit mine began in May 1970 and in mid-1973 the mine was declared fully operational. Officials at
Bechtel, the primary project contractor, called mine development at Ertsberg "the most difficult engineering project they had ever undertaken." The challenges included building a long access road (a project that required boring kilometer long
tunnels through two mountains) and constructing the world's longest single span
aerial tramway. The tramways were needed to move people, supplies and ore because a cliff separates the Ertsberg mine (at elevation) from the mill (at 10,000 feet). Moving copper concentrate from that mill to the shipping port required installation of a
slurry pipeline – then the world's longest. Mine construction and startup cost about US$200 million. The Ertsberg project was an engineering marvel, but the mine's early financial performance was disappointing. Depressed copper prices and high operating costs kept profits marginal during the 1970s. In 1981, McMoRan would merge with Freeport Minerals, formerly Freeport Sulphur, to form Freeport-McMoRan.
1970s In 1971, the company changed its name to Freeport Minerals Company, (not to be confused with Freeport Minerals Corporation, founded in 1834).
1980s On April 7, 1981, Freeport Minerals Company merged with the McMoRan Oil and Gas Company. In 1981, the company formed a 70/30 joint venture with an affiliate of
FMC Corporation to operate the
Jerritt Canyon gold mine near
Elko, Nevada. In 1985, the company headquarters moved to
New Orleans,
Louisiana. In 1989, the company sold about $1.5 billion in assets to finance development of the
Grasberg mine and the Main Pass offshore sulfur-oil-gas deposit off Louisiana.
1990s In July 1995, the company completed the
corporate spin-off, first announced in May 1994, of its entire interest in Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, which owned the Grasberg mine. In 1995, RTZ, a predecessor of
Rio Tinto Group, made a $450 million investment in the company. In 1997,
IMC Global, a large fertilizer producer, acquired Freeport-McMoRan Inc., the former parent company that now owned the sulfur and fertilizer businesses, in a $750 million transaction. Shareholders of Freeport-McMoRan received shares of IMC Global. In 1997, the Indonesian government asked Freeport-McMoRan to substantiate the Canadian mining company
Bre-X's claims of having found the largest gold mine ever discovered, in Borneo. Freeport announced that its prospective partner Bre-X did not have gold reserves at its Indonesian mine, as it had reported. Bre-X subsequently was exposed as a fraud and went bankrupt. In 1998, low commodity prices forced the company to suspend its dividend.
2000s In 2003, the company was subpoenaed as part of an investigation by anti-trust authorities in the United States, Canada, and Europe into
price fixing in the copper industry. On March 19, 2007, the company acquired
Phelps Dodge (for $25.9 Billion) and became the largest copper producer of any public company in the world. The corporate headquarters was moved from
New Orleans,
Louisiana to
Phoenix, Arizona.
2010s In 2012, the company announced agreements to acquire affiliated companies McMoRan Exploration Company and Plains Exploration & Production Company for a total enterprise value of over $20 billion. The transaction added significantly to the company's
petroleum assets. The transaction was criticized as a
conflict of interest due to the common ownership of the companies. In 2015, the company paid a $137.5 million settlement to resolve claims that executives and directors had conflicts of interest that resulted in the company overpaying in that transaction. In 2014, the company sold its assets in the
Eagle Ford shale to
Encana for $3.1 billion. In 2015, the company announced job cuts at its
Sierrita Mine in
Arizona due to low copper and
molybdenum prices. On December 28, 2015, the company announced that James R. Moffett would resign as chairman of the company and be replaced by
Gerald J. Ford. Moffett received $16.1 million in severance pay and cash retirement plans totaling more than $63 million. Moffett continued to consult for the company for annual fees of $1.5 million. In May 2016, the company sold a 13% interest in its Morenci Mine to
Sumitomo Group for $1 billion in cash. In 2016, Freeport sold its deepwater assets, including the Marlin TLP, and the Holstein and Horn Mountain spars, to
Anadarko Petroleum. In August 2017, the company agreed to give a 51% interest in the Grasberg mine to the
Government of Indonesia and build a smelter in exchange for a special permit to operate the mine until 2041. In 2018, the company ranked at number 176 on the
Fortune 500 list. During this year, Indonesian President
Joko Widodo also planned to take control of 51% of Freeport Indonesia's equity, effectively handing over Freeport control to the Indonesian government. The Indonesian government planned to settle payments of $3.85 billion during the takeover process and finalized the process on December 21, 2018. During 2018 Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold along with 90 additional
Fortune 500 companies "paid an effective federal tax rate of 0% or less" as a result of the
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. ==Operations as of 2019==