Cargill

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Cargill, Incorporated is a privately held, multinational corporation, and is based in the state of Minnesota in the United States. It was founded in 1865, and has grown into one of the world's largest privately held corporations (in terms of revenue). Were it a publicly held company, it would rank in the top 20 companies in the Fortune 500. Cargill's business activities include purchasing, processing, and distributing grain and other agricultural commodities, and the manufacture and sale of livestock feed and ingredients for processed foods and pharmaceuticals. It also operates a large financial services arm, which manages financial risks in the commodity markets for the company. It has recently split out a portion of its financial operations into a hedge fund called Black River Asset Management, with about $10 billion of assets and liabilities.

Facts about the size of Cargill's business:

As of 2005, it is the largest privately-owned company in the United States [1].
It earned revenues in fiscal year 2005 of $71.1 billion USD.Template:Ref
Its 2005 fiscal year net earnings reached $2.1 billion USD.Template:Ref
It is responsible for 25 percent of all United States grain exports.
It supplies approximately 22 percent of the United States domestic meat market.
It employs over 139,000 people at 1,100 locations in 60 countries.
The company exports more product from Argentina than any other company.
It is the largest poultry producer in Thailand.
All of the eggs used in McDonald's restaurants in the United States pass through Cargill's plants.
Its central position in the world's food production system means that it helps to feed billions of consumers.

Despite its size, the corporation is still a family owned business; descendants of the founders (from the Cargill and MacMillan families) own about 85% of the company. This means that most of its growth has been due to reinvestment of the company's own revenues, rather than public financing.

Warren Staley is the chief executive officer of Cargill. Like many senior executives, he has been with the company for over 30 years. He is the seventh CEO in its 165 year history, and the third who was not a member of the Cargill-MacMillan family.

Cargill's long-term business strategy is to shift its business from trading and processing large volumes of agricultural commodities, to higher margin activities. One of them is the research and development of advanced processing techniques, particularly at its plant in Eddyville, Iowa. For example, in a joint project with Hoffman-LaRoche, it has developed a process for converting a waste by-product of grain processing into vitamin E. It also produces fuel-grade ethanol, citric acid, and phytosterol esters from grain. The company intends to work as consultants for its customers to create new ingredients and new food processing methods.

Cargill is an active proponent of free trade policies. It lobbied for China's membership in WTO, as well as for increased trade with Cuba and Brazil. Cargill's position is based on its strong support of neo-liberal economic principles. First, lesser trade barriers in countries where Cargill does business will lower prices on Cargill's products, and likely increase their volume of business. Second, the decreases in the cost of food in developing countries theoretically result indirectly in higher income per capita. Cargill benefits from increases in consumer income, because better-paid consumers become inclined to eat a diet higher in wheat, protein, vegetable oil, and processed foods. This improves opportunities for Cargill to sell its products. Cargill's economists have reasoned that this is true of the lower income countries in particular. As a developing country grows from $1,000 to $6,000 in mean income per capita, Cargill expects the greatest profit growth from its businesses in that country.

In 2003, the company received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index (CEI) released by the Human Rights Campaign.

In 2006 it was one of several companies criticised in a report by Greenpeace for its alleged role in encouraging deforstation in the Amazon region, where it has numerous soya plantations. see http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,,1747904,00.html

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