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Engelhard Corporation was an American Fortune 500 company headquartered in Iselin, New Jersey, United States. It is credited with developing the first production catalytic converter. In 2006, the German economy chemical manufacturer BASF bought Engelhard for US$5 billion.
Sales in MCP took off soon afterwards, mostly from Philipp Brothers' fast-growing ore trading. In 1964 it had sales of $US447 million, and by 1966 sales reached $US709 million. Even though Engelhard Industries did only about 40 percent of that figure, it was able, in September 1967, to work out a merger of the two companies that left the Engelhard family controlling about 40 percent of the new company. The new entity, which was called Engelhard Minerals & Chemicals Corporation (EMCC), was structured into three divisions: Minerals & Chemicals, which processed non-metallic minerals; Engelhard Industries, which refined and fabricated precious metals; and Philipp Brothers. Nearly one-half of the company's 1967 net income of $28 million was generated by the Philipp trading division, with the Engelhard metal processing contributing 34 percent and minerals and chemicals about 19 percent.
In the early 1960s, Engelhard developed a series of premium paint finishes for General Motors, marketed as Firemist paints using discs of calcium, sodium and borosilicate to produce truer colours, more intense shine, and better transparency and reflection than traditional metallics. The borosilicate was engineered to deliver more chroma, color purity, brightness, transparency and reflectivity. The finishes actually contained no aluminium or other metal particles and were thus not technically “metallic,” though often described as such. Firemist would later be used for finishes on it's guitars by the Fender corporation.
Philipp's trading continued to enjoy phenomenal growth as the world turned to spot traders to move scarce natural resources around the globe. By 1972, EMCC's sales hit $US2 billion, about 80 percent of it supplied by Philipp, and in 1974 revenue reached $5 billion. By 1981, Philipp Brothers earned 89 percent of the total corporation's $US26.6 billion in revenues and 88 percent of its $US532.7 million in profits. Management in the slow growing minerals-and-chemicals division, along with those in precious metals, felt overshadowed by their trading counterparts. This led to the spinoff of Philipp Brothers (later called Phibro), and renaming what was left the Engelhard Corporation.
On May 30, 2006, Engelhard was taken over by BASF after the board agreed for the takeover of BASF. BASF paid $US39 per share. The transaction totaled $5 billion. On August 1, 2006, BASF began to rename Engelhard worldwide. This started in the US with BASF Catalysts LLC. On April 1, 2010, BASF Catalysts LLC became part of BASF Corporation.
Engelhard received a 2004 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for "the design of safer chemicals", specifically the company's Rightfit organic pigments. Engelhard Rightfit Organic Pigments: Environmental Impact, Performance, and Value, 2004 Designing Greener Chemicals Award, EPA Green chemistry takes root, by Elizabeth Weise, USA Today
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst ranked Engelhard as the 32nd-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, just behind Danaher (a professional instrumentation, industrial technologies and tools & components company). Political Economy Research Institute Toxic 100 , accessed August 13, 2007 The study found Engelhard's most toxic pollution comprised cobalt (500 lb/year), nickel (2069 lb/year), chromium (1000 lb/year), and manganese (500 lb/year) compounds, based on Toxics Release Inventory data.
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