Alcoa Securities Corporation history

By 1893, however, Hall's process allowed Pittsburgh Reduction to undercut its competitors with aluminum that had been produced at a lower price.

1901: The company forms its own cookware subsidiary, Aluminum Cooking Utensil Company.

Arthur Vining Davis, a partner who had joined Pittsburgh Reduction only months after its founding, acted as president during this time, and the Mellons formally ceded power to him in 1910.

Alcoa also benefited from rising demand from the automobile industry; by 1915, 65 percent of all new aluminum went into automotive parts.

In 1928 it divested all of its foreign operations except its Dutch Guyana bauxite mines, spinning them off as Aluminum Limited, based in Montreal and headed by Edward Davis, A.V. Davis's brother.

Demand for aluminum did not recover until 1936.

1945: An appeals court ruling finds Alcoa guilty of antitrust violations, calling for a breakup of the company's monopolistic hold on the aluminum market.

In 1950 a district court decree carved up the United States aluminum market between the three: Alcoa would get 50.9 percent of production capacity, Reynolds 30.9 percent, and Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation, as Permanente Metals was renamed, 18.2 percent.

He was succeeded by Wilson, and Frank Magee became president and CEO. Alcoa came out of the brief recession of 1957-58 by realizing that it would have to internationalize and diversify in order to ensure its future.

In 1959 it acquired Rome Cable and Wire Company.

When John Harper became president and CEO in 1963, Alcoa found its profit margins squeezed by increased competition, high overhead, and a generally low market price for aluminum.

W.H. Krome George succeeded John Harper as chairman and CEO in 1975, and Alcoa began to show new signs of life.

By the time George retired in 1983, he had started the company on the path once again to developing new high-strength alloys for use in the aerospace business.

Aware of his board's discontent, Parry took an early retirement in 1987.

In 1990 it formed a joint venture with Japanese manufacturer Kobe Steel, Ltd. to make sheet metal for aluminum cans and parts for automakers for the Asian market.

Toward this end, O'Neill spent $150 million in 1995 to upgrade Alcoa's computer technology system to a customized, state-of-the-art network.

But in 1997 the price of aluminum remained depressed, and demand, particularly in the United States, continued to falter.

The biggest move, however, came in 1999, when Alcoa secured a $4.8 billion deal to take over the Reynolds Metals Company, shortly after the consolidation of three of its biggest rivals, Alcan Aluminum of Canada, Pechiney of France, and Alusuisse Lonza Group of Switzerland.