Abb Company Belongs to Which Country
Stockholm`s Enskilda Bank played an important role in ASEA`s financial recovery. It was only after the bank agreed to guarantee his salary that J. Sigfrid Edstrom, the former director of the Gothenburg tram company, agreed in 1903 to become president of ASEA. Under Edstrom`s leadership, the company began to make a considerable profit from 1907. In addition, he expanded the company`s markets in Europe: between 1910 and 1914, subsidiaries were created in Great Britain, Spain, Denmark, Finland and Russia. In 1998, ABB acquired the automation unit of Alfa Laval, based in Sweden, which at the time was one of Europe`s leading suppliers of process control systems and automation equipment. [18] In 1970, Brown Boveri began a complete reorganization. The company`s subsidiaries were divided into five groups: German, French, Swiss, «medium-sized» (seven production sites in Europe and Latin America) and Brown Boveri International (the remaining sites). Each of these groups was then divided into five product areas: power generation, electronics, power distribution, traction equipment and industrial equipment.
In the early 1980s, sales of Brown Boveri stagnated and the company`s profits declined. In 1983, Brown Boveri`s German subsidiary in Mannheim recovered, accounting for almost half of the turnover of the parent company as a whole. Despite an increase in order intake, the company`s cost structure has kept its profits low. In 1985, the subsidiary`s performance improved as a result of cost-cutting measures, but price declines on the international market and unfavourable exchange rate fluctuations more than offset these gains. In 1986, the parent company acquired a significant block of shares in the Mannheim subsidiary, bringing its total stake to 75%. This year, Brown Boveri`s turnover amounted to SEK 58 billion, while its profit was SEK 900 million; The company employed 97,000 people. Given the recession that hit the Western European and North American markets in the early 1990s and the continued maturation of these markets, ABB decided that its future lay in the emerging markets of Eastern Europe and Asia, where growth opportunities were abundant and where it could build manufacturing operations at a lower cost. Although the company had virtually no business in Eastern Europe at the beginning of the decade, ABB had gained a considerable presence in the region through a series of acquisitions and joint ventures in East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1992, employing 20,000 people in 30 companies.
By the end of 1995, ABB had a network of 60 companies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, making it the largest manufacturing plant of any Western company in the region. Activities in Poland and the Czech Republic continued to lead, but significant activities were also established in Russia (3,000 employees), Romania (2,000 employees) and Ukraine (1,500 employees). In 1989, Asea Ltd merged with the company with effect from 1 January 1989 and the company changed its name to Asea Brown Boveri Ltd. Charles E. L. with effect from 13 October 1989. Brown and Walter Boveri founded Brown, Boveri & Cie in Baden, Switzerland. Soon after, Brown, Boveri was the first company to transmit high-voltage electricity. A few months after the Asian financial crisis of July 1997, ABB announced its intention to accelerate its expansion in Asia. The company also took steps to improve the productivity and profitability of its Western operations by collecting $850 million in restructuring fees as it moved more resources to emerging markets and reduced some facilities in countries where costs were higher. The post-war years brought Sweden a deep recession that lasted from 1920 to 1923. But Edstrom`s prudent spending policy allowed the company to survive.
By the late 1920s, ASEA was once again on track for profitability and growth. In 1926 the company supplied the electric locomotives and conversion equipment for the first electric trains on the Stockholm-Gothenburg line, and in 1932 ASEA built the world`s largest naturally cooled three-phase transformer. The largest stake in the company is held by the Swedish investment company Investor AB, which is controlled by the Wallenberg family and holds 12.9%. [4] Activist investor Cevian also holds a significant stake in the company. [59] In June 1996, ABB was mandated by the Malaysian government to lead the construction of a $5 billion hydroelectric power plant and transmission network at Bakun on the Balui River, but this project ran into problems the following year. Due to the Asian economic crisis, which hit Malaysia particularly hard, the Malaysian government was forced to announce an indefinite postponement of the project in September 1997. Despite this setback and the ongoing uncertainty surrounding Asian economies, ABB has not withdrawn from its expansion in the region. In October 1997, the company announced another major restructuring, in which it planned to relocate thousands of jobs from Europe and the United States to Asia and cut 10,000 jobs over an 18-month period. This was in addition to a 3,600 job cuts announced in ADtranz a few days earlier. ABB executives bet that the Asian economic crisis would be relatively short-lived, arguing that while they might lose business in the region in the short term, they could offset some of those losses by taking advantage of the weakening of countries` currencies, further reducing manufacturing costs. To cover the cost of the reorganization, ABB incurred costs of $850 million in the fourth quarter of 1997. In December 2009, the company received an order worth Rs 506 billion from Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd to provide power solutions for a planned metro network in Bangalore.