Ineos

INEOS

Type	Private limited company
Industry	Chemicals
Founded	1998
Founder	Jim Ratcliffe
Headquarters	London, UK (Head office) Lyndhurst, Hampshire, United Kingdom (Registered office)
Key people	Jim Ratcliffe (CEO and chairman), Andy Currie (director), John Reece (finance director), Jim Dawson (non-executive director)
Products	Chemical substances, petrochemicals, plastics
Revenue	US$40 billion (2015)
Number of employees	17,000
Website	www.ineos.com

INEOS is a privately owned multinational chemicals company headquartered in London, UK, and with registered offices in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, UK and Rolle, Switzerland. It is in the top ten chemicals manufacturing companies as measured by sales revenue.Jim Ratcliffe is the founder, Chairman and 60 percent shareholder. Ineos is organised into around 20 standalone business units, each with its own board.

Ineos is an acronym of INspec Ethylene OxideSpecialities, a name derived from their first acquisition in 1998 It also stems from one Latin and two Greek words that founder Jim Ratcliffe and his two sons found when searching for a company name. "Ineo" is Latin for a new beginning, "Eos" is the Greek goddess of dawn and "neos" means something new and innovative. As a result, the name Ineos represents the "dawn of something new and innovative"

Inspec had been formed by Ratcliffe, previously a director of US private equity group Advent International, and John Hollowood in 1992 to undertake a management buy-in of British Petroleum's (BP) chemicals arm. In 1995 Inspec bought BP's ethylene oxide and glycol business for £78 million. Ineos was subsequently established as a company in 1998 by Inspec director Ratcliffe to buy-out Inspec's ethylene oxide facility in Antwerp, Belgium. The £84 million buy-out was funded by Scottish investment house Murray Johnstone (£10 million), Ineos management (£1.5 million), and investment bank BT Alex Brown (£72.5 million raised through junk bonds.)