IMC Global

IMC Global, Inc.

Traded as	NYSE:IGL
Industry	Agriculture, Fertilizer
Fate	Merged with part of Cargill, Inc.
Successor	The Mosaic Company
Founded	New York City (June 14, 1909 (1909-06-14))
Defunct	2004 (2004)
Headquarters	Lake Forest, Illinois, United States
Revenue	$ 2.2 billion (FY 2003)
Number of employees	5017 (2003)

IMC Global (also known as International Minerals and Chemical Corporation) was a mining and production company. It used to be listed on the S&P MidCap 400. It was founded in 1909 as International Agricultural Corporation. In 2004, IMC Global merged with Cargill, Inc.'s crop nutrition division to form The Mosaic Company, a crop nutrition company.

IMC Global was incorporated as International Agricultural Corporation on June 14, 1909 by Walderman Schmidten in the state of New York. A native German, Schmidten moved to secure entire capital in mines from his home country; he was successful in doing so with the Kaliwerke Sollstedt Gewerkschaft. Phosphate and potash production facilities were acquired in Tennessee and Florida. Capital stock of the International Agricultural Corporation was originally fixed at $15 million in July 1909, but increased to $36 million by April 1911. As World War I broke out, demand for fertilizer declined while that for sulfuric acid skyrocketed. International Agricultural Corporation was the largest owner and distributor of phosphate in the United States by the 1920s.

International Agricultural Corporation changed its name to International Minerals and Chemical Corporation in late 1941, shortly before merging with United Potash and Chemical Corporation. Potash operations of IMC were greatly expanded due to the merger. Competition from other German mines disappeared in World War II, as all Germany imports were suspended during the war. This provided a record demand in potash for the years during and after the war from IMC and similar companies. IMC later expanded production operations to other parts of the country, including California. For the next 30 years, IMC would continue its expansion by acquiring companies like E.J. Lavino and Company, Great Lakes Container Corporation, and Chemical Leaman Tank Lines. By 1975, IMC had procured operations in thirty-five states, Canada, and fifteen other countries.

In 1986 IMC acquired Mallinckrodt, a leading chemical company. Over the next eight years IMC changed its name to Mallinckrodt and spun off its original businesses to a new publicly traded company known, by 1994, as IMC. The remainder of this history relates to the new IMC, which had different shareholders and management from the former IMC but basically the same staff and businesses.

During the first quarter of 1996, IMC acquired Chicago-based fertilizer producer and distributor Vigoro Corp. for a $1.16 billion stock exchange. At this point, IMC Corporation was renamed to IMC Global and the potash operations became IMC Kalium.