Alcoa

Alcoa Inc.

Alcoa logo designed by Saul Bass in 1963
Type	Public
Traded as	: AA
Industry	Metals
Founded	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. (1888)
Founder	Charles Martin Hall
Headquarters	Lever House, Midtown Manhattan, New York City (Operational base in Pittsburgh)
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Klaus Kleinfeld (Chairman and CEO)
Products	Value-add products made of titanium, nickel and aluminum, as well as bauxite, alumina and primary aluminum
Revenue	$ 23.0 billion (FY 2013)
Operating income	$ 1.2 billion (FY 2013 Total Segment ATOI)
Net income	$ −2.3 billion (FY 2013)
Total assets	$ 35.7 billion (FY 2013)
Total equity	$ 16.5 billion (FY 2013)
Number of employees	60,000 (December 2013)
Website	alcoa.com

Alcoa Inc. (from Aluminum Company of America) is an American industrial corporation, it ranks as the world's third largest producer of aluminum, behind Rio Tinto Alcan and Rusal, with corporate headquarters in New York City. From its operational base in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States, Alcoa conducts operations in 31 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum, and alumina combined, through its active and growing participation in all major aspects of the industry: technology, mining, refining, smelting, fabricating, and recycling. Aluminum and alumina represent more than three-fourths of Alcoa’s revenue. Non-aluminum products include precision castings and aerospace and industrial fasteners. Alcoa’s products are used worldwide in aircraft, automobiles, commercial transportation, packaging, building and construction, oil and gas, defense, and industrial applications.

In May 2007 Alcoa made a US$27 billion hostile takeover bid for Alcan in an attempt to form the world's largest aluminum producer. The bid was withdrawn when Alcan announced a friendly takeover by Rio Tinto in July 2007.

Among Alcoa's other businesses are fastening systems, building products (Kawneer), and Howmet Castings. The sale of the packaging unit was announced on December 21, 2007, and closed in the first quarter of 2008.

In 1886, Charles Martin Hall, a graduate of Oberlin College, discovered the process of smelting aluminum, almost simultaneously with Paul Héroult in France. He realized that by passing an electric current through a bath of cryolite and aluminum oxide, the then semi-rare metal aluminum remained as a byproduct. This discovery, now called the Hall-Héroult process, is still the only process used to make aluminum (however, see also Bayer process).