US Wire & Cable history

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell secured a patent for the telephone and placed a call within a few days.

After testing more than 3,000 designs, Thomas Edison filed the patent for his electric light bulb in 1879.

First in 1925 Safety Insulated Wire & Cable Co. of Bayonne, New Jersey, acquired two smaller companies to create Safety Cable Co.

After further acquiring two Chicago companies, Safety Cable in 1927 was then combined with Standard Underground Cable and several other companies in a deal executed by the banking firm of Kissel, Kinnicutt & Co. to form the General Cable Corporation.

Unfortunately, when the music stopped in 1929 General Cable was left holding a huge inventory of copper that it had bought at 24 cents a pound.

With the company on the verge of collapse in 1932 it was Palmer who found a new source of business in the Hoover Dam.

In 1936 the General Cable board named him the chief executive officer of the company.

In the meantime, while other companies shied away from military contracts, General Cable became France's sole supplier of wire until the country fell in 1940; likewise, it became Britain's first and most important source of wire.

When Palmer was told by the Pentagon to cut back on production in 1944 in anticipation of the end of the war, Palmer actually stepped up production and the military bought every inch that General Cable could turn out.

Then in May 1945, with the military advising against it, Palmer began to cut back.

Profits that stood at $3.4 million in 1950 reached $8.7 million by the end of the decade.

In 1955 it purchased the outstanding stock of General Insulated Wire Works.

At its peak in 1956, General Cable posted a $12 million profit.

In that same year, Penn Central talked about spinning off the Sprague Electrical Company that General Cable had acquired in 1976.

It sold its Power & Control operation to Pirelli Cable Corporation for $58 million in March 1978, then in May acquired Automation Industries for $106 million to gain a presence in engineering and technical services as well as environmental products.

David Rauch has been an executive of Flexon Industries, a division of United States Wire & Cable, since 1979.

By 1987 one of the businesses he controlled, Los Angeles-based Mission Insurance, was operating under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.

Since 1991, Shattuc Cord Specialties Inc. has met customer’s needs by manufacturing an immense array of custom braided products, and cable assemblies.

1992: Penn Central spins off wire and cable assets to reform General Cable with corporate headquarters in Kentucky.

General Cable was purchased for $270 million in cash and assumed debt in June 1994 by Wassall PLC, a British manufacturing holding company.

In order to concentrate on other areas, Wassall sold off 80 percent of its interest in General Cable through a public stock offering in May 1997.

1999: General Cable acquires energy cable business of BICC Plc for $440 million.