AVX history

In June 1973, AVX became the parent company when assets of Aerovox were sold.

In April 1979 AVX formed a subsidiary with Japanese partners to enter the Japanese market.

In 1983 the company recorded sales of $160.9 million and net income of $8.7 million.

Business remained strong through most of 1984, when AVX produced $235 million in revenues and net income topped $15 million, but by the end of the year semiconductor sales began to slump.

The company was incorporated in the year 1989 and was promoted jointly by Polychem Ltd AVX Corporation of United StatesA. and Gujarat Industrial Investment Corporation Limited (GIIC).

After a $267 million stock purchase, AVX has operated as part of Kyocera Corp. since January 18, 1990.

Kyocera, on the other hand, generated less than 2 percent of its $2.5 billion of annual sales in Europe and was eager to expand its presence in the market before 1992, when internal trade barriers in the European Community would be curtailed.

Butler retired as CEO in 1993 but remained on the board of directors.

Sales reached $795.6 million in fiscal 1994 and approached $1 billion ($988.9 million) a year later.

For most of 1995 capacitor manufacturers could not keep up with demand, but as had been the case 20 years earlier, appearances proved deceptive.

Revenues in fiscal 1998 reached $1.27 billion and net income improved to $137.8 million.

The expectation was that demand would return to normal over the next year and a half, but even as AVX was finishing up the final quarter of a highly successful year, demand began to slow down dramatically in early 2001.

AVX also recorded some $60 million in restructuring and special charges, which led to a net loss of $7.2 million in fiscal 2002.

In fiscal 2003 sales continued to slip, to $1.13 billion, as the company lost an additional $12.4 million.

Revenues improved slightly to $1.14 billion in fiscal 2004, but because of a number of restructuring charges the company took during the year, AVX posted a loss of $109.4 million for the year.

During the investigation of the extent of contamination, it was discovered in 2006 that groundwater contamination had migrated to other properties around the facility.

In April 2009 the company decided to close a number of its smaller worldwide factories including its flagship manufacturing plant in Paignton, UK following the credit crunch in an effort to reduce costs and remain financially viable for shareholders.

In 2010, remediation of the site was separated into the following operable units in order to expedite the cleanup of off-property groundwater and surface water contamination:

A Proposed Plan for the cleanup of OU-2 was completed in 2011.

The Record of Decision approving the Proposed Plan was completed in 2012.

Note: A final Remedial Design will be developed prior to implementation of any alternative. Based on information collected during previous investigations, a Feasibility Study for Operable Unit 1 (Arcadis, 2019) was conducted to identify, develop, and evaluate options and remedial alternatives to address the contamination at the Site.

DHEC will accept comments on the Proposed Plan for OU-1 through May 15, 2021.