The company was founded in 1854 in
Peru by
William Russell Grace at the age of 22. Grace left Ireland during the
Great Famine and traveled to South America with his family. He went first to Peru to work for the firm of
Bryce and Company as a
ship chandler to the merchantmen harvesting
guano, which was used as a
fertilizer and
gunpowder ingredient due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen. His brother,
Michael P. Grace, joined the business, and in 1865 the company name was changed to Grace Brothers & Co. The company established headquarters in New York City in 1865. In 1987, Grace built a can sealant plant in Minhang, China, near
Shanghai, becoming the first wholly foreign-owned, private company to do business in The
People's Republic of China. In July 2016, the company acquired a catalysts business from
BASF. In June 2021, the company acquired a unit from
Albemarle Corporation. In September 2021,
Standard Industries acquired the company.
Incorporation There are two accounts of the incorporation date of W. R. Grace & Co. According to
The New York Times, the company was incorporated as part of the estate and successor planning in 1895. The three brothers consolidated most of their holdings into a new private company, incorporated in
West Virginia, called W. R. Grace & Company. The consolidation involved W. R. Grace & Co. of New York, Grace Brothers & Co. of Lima, Peru, Grace & Co. of
Valparaíso, Chile, William R. Grace & Co. of London, and J. W. Grace & Co of San Francisco. According to its website, W. R. Grace & Co. was incorporated in Connecticut in 1899. The listed capital of $6 million did not include Grace Brothers & Co. Limited in London or its branches in San Francisco, Lima, and
Callao, Peru, nor Valparaíso, Santiago, and
Concepción, Chile.
Shipping for
Grace Shipping in 1916. For most of its history, Grace's main business was
cargo shipping, operating the
Grace Line. To move cargo from Peru to North America and Europe, including
guano and
sugar, and noticing the need for other goods to be traded, William Grace founded a shipping division. Grace Line began service in 1882, with
ports of call between Peru and New York. Regular steamship service was established in 1893, with a subsidiary called the New York & Pacific Steamship Co., that operated under the British flag. Ships built outside the United States before 1905 were banned from the US registry. US-flag service began in 1912 with the Atlantic and Pacific Steamship Company. The activities of both companies and the parent firm were consolidated into the Grace Steamship Company beginning in 1916. The firm originally specialized in traffic to the west coast of South America then later expanded into the Caribbean. In 1916, Grace acquired a controlling interest in the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company. In 1921, Pacific received five 535 ft. President class ships from the
United States Shipping Board for transpacific operation. In 1923, the US Shipping board decided to place the five ships up for bid and
Dollar Shipping Company won the bid. With no large ships for the transpacific operations, Grace sold the Pacific Mail, its registered name, and goodwill to Dollar. Now without a transpacific service, Grace did not need the six intercoastal freighters and sold them to the
American Hawaiian Line. At this time, Grace formed the Panama Mail Steamship Company, to operate the smaller ships that were formerly owned and used by the Pacific Mail in the Central American trade. These ships were not involved in the sale to Dollar. On the death of William R. Grace in 1904, he was succeeded by William L. Sauders as company president followed by
Joseph Peter Grace Sr. (1872–1950) who became president in 1907. In 1938 the Colombian Line merged with Grace Line bringing an end to the Colombian Line. During World War II, Grace Lines operated transport for the U.S.
War Shipping Administration, including the
SS Sea Marlin.
J. Peter Grace took over management of the company after his father suffered a
stroke in 1945. After the war, the Grace line operated 23 ships totaling 188,000 gross tons, and 14 more on
bareboat charters. In 1954 the company bought Davison Chemical Company (founded by William T. Davison as Davison, Kettlewell & Company in 1832), and the Dewey & Almy Chemical Company (founded in 1919 by Bradley Dewey and Charles Almy). In 1960, the Grace Line, inspired by the pioneering efforts of
Sea-Land Service,
Matson Navigation, and
Seatrain Lines, sought to begin containerizing its South American cargo operations by converting the conventional freighters
Santa Eliana and
Santa Leonor into fully cellular
container ships. The effort was stymied by the opposition of longshoremen in New York and Venezuela, and the ships were repeatedly laid up idle and were ultimately sold to the domestic container line Sea-Land Service in 1964. In 1963 Grace made a second attempt to containerize its South American trade when it ordered the four M-class combination passenger-cargo ships
Santa Magdalaena,
Santa Maria,
Santa Mariana, and
Santa Mercedes with partial cellular holds, but they were no more successful as mixing conventional break-bulk cargo and containers in the same ship negated the operating economies that full containerization promised. In 1970, Grace Line was sold to
Prudential Lines for $44.5 million, with the merged company renamed Prudential Grace Line. It was taken over by Delta Steamship Lines in 1978, thereby extinguishing the name Grace in ocean shipping. Subsequently, Delta Steamship Lines was acquired and consolidated by
Crowley Maritime in 1982.
Property nationalized In 1974, the
Peruvian government
nationalized properties in Peru owned by the company. Harold Logan, Grace's executive vice president, stated the company would join in governmental-level talks over compensation of expropriated American concerns. The loss of Grace's properties in Peru began in 1969 when 25,000 acres of sugarcane plantations were taken over in agrarian reform. The sugar lands were at
Paramonga, 110 miles north of
Lima, and at Cartavio, near
Trujillo, 200 miles farther up the coast. Grace retained small mining operations producing copper, tin, and silver, in southern Peru, about 100 miles north of
Juliaca. Jose E. Flores, head of W. R. Grace S.A. Peru, closed the mining operations for Grace in Latin America when the government of Peru nationalized the remaining interests.
Airline Boeing 727-23 In 1928, Grace and Pan American Airways jointly formed Pan American-Grace Airways known as Panagra, establishing the first air link between North and South America, which began operation in 1929. In 1967, Panagra merged with
Braniff International Airways.
Retail Prior to 1985, W. R. Grace operated a retail division. Among its brands were
Orchard Supply Hardware and
Home Centers West (sold to
Wickes Companies in 1986), Handy City home improvement stores,
Home Quarters Warehouse,
J. B. Robinson Jewelers, Sheplers Western Wear, and
Herman's World of Sporting Goods which it had acquired in 1970. These were sold to various buyers in 1985.
Food and beverage industry Food In the 1980s, W. R. Grace had owned the following restaurants: American Cafe,
Del Taco,
Coco's Bakery,
El Torito, Hungry Tiger and various restaurants it had purchased from
General Mills.
Beverage In 1966, the company bought a 53% controlling stake in
Miller Brewing for $36 million from Lorraine Mulberger, the granddaughter of
Frederick Miller, who sold the stake for religious reasons. The company sold the Miller stake in 1969 to
Philip Morris for $130 million, after first cancelling an agreed-upon sale to
PepsiCo for $120 million. This resulted in a lawsuit. ==Headquarters==