Reynolds Metals Company history

In 1928, after buying back the stock he had sold to R.J. Reynolds to start United States Foil, R.S. Reynolds built the company's first aluminum foil plant and rolling mill in Louisville, and the Reynolds Metals Company was formed.

In fact, the company recorded annual sales of $13 million in 1930 and moved its corporate headquarters to New York City.

In 1935 Reynolds developed a method of printing on aluminum foil, employing the rotogravure process, which enabled the company to expand quickly into other aluminum foil packaging markets.

Reynolds joined the family business as a salesman out of college in 1937 and began trying to persuade the major St Louis breweries to affix aluminum labels to their beer bottles.

In 1946, the company leased, then purchased six government-owned production plants, and by doing so doubled its production capacity.

Reynolds Wrap, the company's well-known household aluminum foil, was introduced in 1947.

Reynolds expanded its holdings worldwide, and in 1953 the company organized Reynolds International, Inc. in an effort to consolidate and further expand foreign operations.

It began manufacturing 12-ounce aluminum cans for the Theodore Hamm Brewing Company of Minnesota in 1963, and four years later it introduced the first aluminum cans for Pepsi and Diet Pepsi.

Reynolds has been involved in an impressive recycling effort since 1968.

In 1970 the first all-aluminum automobile engine block was introduced.

All-aluminum car bumpers were in use in 1973.

In 1975 the company's assets in Guyana were nationalized and Reynolds was forced to settle for a $10 million payment for its Guyanese holdings.

In 1981, the company expanded its recycling capacity with two more facilities.

Reynolds fortunes were greatly improved by the discovery of gold at one of the company's bauxite properties in Australia in 1986.

In 1987, he received an award from the organization Keep America Beautiful for pioneering efforts in recycling.

In 1989 the company acquired an interest in the Fata European Group in Italy, a company with strong ties to and business experience in Eastern Bloc countries.

His wife, the former Margaret Harrison, died in 1992.

In 1993 Reynolds underwent a restructuring that included reducing alumina production and aluminum production by 21 percent, and sold its aluminum reclamation plant in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

Reynolds, who lost an eye playing polo during his junior year at Princeton, owned dozens of thoroughbred racehorses, including Tabasco Cat, who won the 1994 Preakness and Belmont Stakes, the final two legs of the Triple Crown.

Effective April 1, 1997, the company was organized into six global units, down from its former 20 operating units, that would focus on the most profitable aluminum markets around the world.

Reynolds was sold to Alcoa in 2000, five years after Mr.