Johnson Matthey

Welcome to our website. It is generaly simplier version of wikipedia. You will find there selected articles. Enjoy!

Johnson Matthey plc (LSE: JMAT) is a major British chemical company and conglomerate, with its headquarters near Holborn in central London. Its stock is traded on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

1 History
2 Current operations
3 References
4 External links

History

Johnson Matthey traces its origins to 1817, when Percival Norton Johnson set up business as a gold assayer in London. In 1851 George Matthey joined the business and its name was changed to Johnson & Matthey. The following year the firm was appointed Official Assayer & Refiner to the Bank of England. The company had branches in the cities of Birmingham and Sheffield to supply the Jewelry and Silverware & Cutlery trade with raw materials ancillary supplies, such as Silver solder and flux which they manufactured.

In the 1960s, Johnson Matthey formed a subsidiary, Johnson Matthey Bankers, which took its seat in the London Gold Fixing. In the early 1980s the bank expanded its activities outside the bullion business and started making high-risk loans: the quality of some of these loans turned out to be worse than expected, such as the £21 million lent to Abdul Shamji of Gomba Holdings (the then owner of Puddle Dock and the Mermaid Theatre in London) and the size of them exceeded the capital of the bank. Shamji was sentenced to 15 months in prison for lying about his assets during a subsequent High Court inquiry into the banks collapse. To prevent a wider banking crisis, the Bank of England organised a rescue package in the evening of 30 September 1984, purchasing JMB for £1.

In 2008 Johnson Matthey acquired Argillon, a business specialising in catalysts for €214 million.

In December 2008 JMI was sentenced to a $3 million criminal fine for a felony violation of the United States Clean Water Act, after admitting to violating the Clean Water Act at its Salt Lake City precious metals refining facility.

Current operations

The company's head office is located in Hatton Garden, central London. The principal operating facility in the UK is located at Royston in Hertfordshire, with other facilities in Edinburgh, Brimsdown in Enfield, north London and Clitheroe in Lancashire as well as a large facility in Germiston, South Africa. The company's UK Technology Centre is based at Sonning Common in Oxfordshire. In the US its principal site is located at West Deptford, New Jersey.

The company now has three divisions:

Environmental Technologies manufactures catalysts and catalytic converters for the automobile sector, automobile emissions controls and fuel cells.
Precious Metals refines and distributes platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, gold and silver. Johnson Matthey is the world leader in platinum distribution and the sole marketing agent for Anglo Platinum, the world’s largest producer of platinum. It also produces colour technology products for the glass and ceramics industries.
Fine Chemicals & Catalysts manufactures fine chemicals, electrochemical products and pharmaceutical ingredients, including chemicals for Research and Development under the Alfa Aesar brand.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Annual Report 2009
^ Welcome to Johnson Matthey
^ ^a ^b ^c Johnson Matthey History
^ The Truth about Lloyds
^ Captain Moonlight: Offstage drama at the Mermaid The Independent, 12 December 1993
^ When was the last nationalisation? BBC News, February 2008
^ Johnson Matthey to buy Argillon for €214 million
^ Utah gold and silver refinery sentenced for Clean Water Act violation
^ Johnson Matthey Divisions