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Concept
Imperial Chemical Industries
Summary
Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was a British chemical company. It was, for much of its history, the largest manufacturer in Britain.
It was formed by the merger of four leading British chemical companies in 1926.
Its headquarters were at Millbank in London. ICI was a constituent of the FT 30 and later the FTSE 100 indices.
ICI made general chemicals, plastics, paints, pharmaceuticals and speciality products, including food ingredients, speciality polymers, electronic materials, fragrances and flavourings.
In 2008, it was acquired by AkzoNobel,
which immediately sold parts of ICI to Henkel and integrated ICI's remaining operations within its existing organisation.
The company was founded in December 1926 from the merger of four companies: Brunner Mond, Nobel Explosives, the United Alkali Company, and British Dyestuffs Corporation. It established its head office at Millbank in London in 1928.
Competing with DuPont and IG Farben, the new company produced chemicals, explosives, fertilisers, insecticides, dyestuffs, non-ferrous metals, and paints.
In its first year turnover was £27 million.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the company played a key role in the development of new chemical products, including the dyestuff phthalocyanine (1929), the acrylic plastic Perspex (1932), Dulux paints (1932, co-developed with DuPont), polyethylene (1937), and polyethylene terephthalate fibre known as Terylene (1941).
In 1940, ICI started British Nylon Spinners as a joint venture with Courtaulds.
ICI also owned the Sunbeam motorcycle business, which had come with Nobel Industries, and continued to build motorcycles until 1937.
During the Second World War, ICI was involved with the United Kingdom's nuclear weapons programme codenamed Tube Alloys.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the company established its pharmaceutical business and developed a number of key products, including Paludrine (1940s, an anti-malarial drug), halothane (1951, an inhalational anaesthetic agent), propofol (1977, an intravenous anaesthetic agent), Inderal (1965, a beta-blocker), tamoxifen (1978, a frequently used drug for breast cancer),
and PEEK (1979, a high performance thermoplastic).
Official source
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