Continental Grain history

Legend has it that the business first took off during a Belgian drought in 1848 when Simon’s son, Michel Fribourg, made the dangerous journey to Bessarabia in the Ukraine carrying several trunks of gold to trade for wheat.

The Chicago branch of the company was founded on February 5, 1921, and was capitalized with $50,000.

To aid in this endeavor, Continental also opened a New York office in 1922.

1940: Fribourg family flees Belgium for United States

1944: Michel Fribourg becomes head of company.

By 1954, Continental’s sales had reached $200 million.

In 1966 the company bought a 53 percent interest in Allied Mills, Inc., of Chicago, an animal feed producer.

In 1970 Continental also entered the commodities brokerage field, establishing the ContiCommodity Services division.

In late 1971 Continental expanded its holdings further when it bought the Orowheat Baking Company, a specialty baker.

In early 1972, Continental scored another Russian coup when it sold nearly 6 million tons of American grain and soybeans to the Soviets, plus an undisclosed proportion of the foreign foodstuffs bought by the country after Soviet crops failed because of bad weather.

Maidenberg, H. J., “Harvest of Profits for Continental Grain,” New York Times, August 5, 1973.

Despite these investigations, in 1975 Continental made another large sale of commodities, worth $640 million, to the Soviet Union.

Paul Fribourg, son of Michel, had spent his entire career at Continental Grain after his graduation from Amherst College in 1976.

On December 22, 1977, however, Continental suffered a much larger difficulty with its New Orleans operations when a massive series of explosions shortly after 9:00 a.m. obliterated the company’s $80 million grain elevator in Westwego.

In December of 1978, Continental announced that it would invest $200 million to rebuild its New Orleans site, constructing a new $30 million, fire-safe elevator.

In the spring of 1980, however, the company found itself in an untenable position after the silver market collapsed, and Continental was forced to provide $81 million in additional funding for its subsidiary.

Despite these difficulties, Continental promoted ContiCommodity’s head to the newly created position of chief executive in March of 1981.

In the wake of its difficulties, ContiCommodity saw many of its top executives lured away to other firms in 1982, and the company sued a competitor over the raid.

In 1983 Continental toyed with the idea of selling the division, but then finally withdrew.

In April 1984, Continental did sell its Orowheat subsidiary, splitting the company into two parts, which were dispersed to the company’s management and to General Foods.

1988: Michel Fribourg steps down as CEO, Donald Staheli assumes the post.

In March 1990, the company announced that it would expand its infrastructure by purchasing 12 grain elevators, located throughout the Midwest.

1991: Company enters grain venture with Scoular.

“Continental Grain Lumbers through Market,” Bank Loan Report, September 14, 1992.

The company formed ContiInvestments in 1997, an investment unit focused on securities, real estate, and private equity.

In late 1998, Continental sought to sell its commodity marketing group to Cargill, Inc., the world's largest grain handler.

In July 1999, the DOJ approved a modified version of the sale in which certain grain facilities had to be divested, and the transaction was completed quickly.

The company reached sales of $10 billion in 2000.

ContiGroup owns 78 percent of the publicly traded finance company ContiFinancial (which was under bankruptcy in 2001), and operates an investment business, ContiInvestments.