Koch Industries

Koch Industries is a business enterprise in the United States founded in 1940 by Fred C. Koch. The firm is involved in a variety of industries, including refining, chemicals and biofuels, forest and consumer products, fertilizers, polymers and fibers, process and pollution control equipment and technologies, electronics, information systems, commodity trading, minerals, energy, glass, ranching, and investments.

The firm's founder, Fred Koch, grew up in Texas and trained as an engineer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1940, Koch and his partners joined to create the Wood River Oil and Refining Company, now known as Koch Industries. Six years later, the firm acquired the Rock Island refinery and crude oil gathering system near Duncan, Oklahoma. Wood River was later renamed the Rock Island Oil & Refining Company. Fred's son, Charles, joined the company in 1961 after spending some time at the management consulting firm Arthur D. Little.

Charles Koch took over the company after his father's death in 1967 and grew it to the second-largest privately held company in North America and a global conglomerate with annual revenues of more than $60 billion.

Koch Industries was primarily an engineering firm with part interest in the Pine Bend Refinery in Minnesota, a crude oil-gathering system in Oklahoma, and some cattle ranches. In 1968, Charles Koch approached Union Oil of California about buying their interest in Great Northern Oil Company and its Pine Bend Refinery. Discussions ended when Union asked for too large a premium.

In 1970, Charles's brother, David, joined the family business. David later became president of Koch Engineering in 1979.

In April 2014, Koch Industries and the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs agreed to acquire printing ink producer Flint Group for around $3 billion. The company employs more than 120,000 people worldwide in more than fifty countries.