Minerals Technologies Inc. (MTI) became a publicly traded company on October 23, 1992 through an initial public offering from Pfizer Inc, the pharmaceutical company. In 1992, MTI had sales of $394 million and income of $25 million. At year’s end 2003, these figures had more than doubled—sales of $813.7 million and income of $63.2 million.
The Company has two reportable segments: Specialty Minerals and Refractories. The Specialty Minerals segment produces and sells the synthetic mineral product PCC and the processed mineral product quicklime ("lime"), and mines, processes and sells other natural mineral products, primarily limestone and talc. This segment's products are used principally in the paper, building materials, paint and coatings, glass, ceramic, polymer, food and pharmaceutical industries. The Refractories segment produces and markets monolithic and shaped refractory materials and specialty products, services and application equipment used primarily by the steel, non-ferrous metal, minerals processing and glass industries.
Much of MTI’s success is attributable to the development of the “satellite” plant concept for PCC. In the mid-1980s, MTI established a new business model when it began to construct PCC manufacturing plants on site at paper mills. This innovation, over time, helped revolutionize the way printing and writing paper was made in North America--from acid-based to alkaline-based paper. In 1992, MTI owned and operated 29 commercial PCC plants in North America. At the end of 2005, the Company had 55 satellite plants operating or under construction in 17 countries. MTI has two ground calcium carbonate production (GCC) facilities and one talc production facility in the United States.
The Refractories segment of MTI’s business, which is managed by Minteq International Inc., has operations in about 40 countries. The Company’s monolithic refractory materials are applied to the interiors of steel-making vessels to protect the operating vessel. When MTI went public, the Refractories segment was primarily a commodities business with relatively low profitability. Over the years, MTI focused on transforming the business by offering specialty refractory products and application systems. Minteq also produces metallurgical wire that is used to improve the quality of steel.
By 1999, MTI had worldwide sales of $637.5 million, and earnings per share had grown at an annual rate of about 15 percent since 1992. The Company also was the first to build and operate a PCC plant in China—one of the largest satellite PCC plants ever built.
In Mid-2000, the worldwide economy went into a recession and the Company’s growth rate slowed. Between 2000 and 2007, Minerals Technologies’ revenues continued to grow at about 7 percent a year, hitting the $1 billion mark in 2006, but net income remained relatively flat around the $50 million mark. During that period, MTI invested about $500 million in a number of projects including Synsil®, a product intended to improve the efficiency of glassmaking, a refractory facility in China, merchant facilities in Europe to make coating-grade PCC, and other projects that yielded limited profit improvement.
In 2007, Joseph C. Muscari, a member of MTI’s Board of Directors and Chief Financial Officer of Alcoa Inc., accepted the position of Chairman and CEO of Minerals Technologies. In his first year, Mr. Muscari focused on improving the company’s safety performance, expense control, capital allocation and increasing Return on Capital. He also targeted four key areas of focus: profitable growth, product innovation, Operational Excellence and customers.
In October of 2007, after an extensive strategic review, the Company realigned its operations to improve profitability and increase shareholder value by taking a pre-tax charge of $157 million. The realignment, which included exiting some businesses and product lines—including Synsil®—focused on the company's core strengths of filler PCC and crystal engineering, mine to market capabilities, and product, equipment and service solutions in refractories.
In the first three quarters of 2008, Minerals Technologies posted the best earnings performance in its history and a marked improvement in its safety record. In the fourth Quarter of 2008, however, the worldwide economy—and MTI’s end markets of paper, steel, construction and the automotive industries—took a dramatic downturn as the world went into the deepest recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s. In the second quarter of 2009, the company took another restructuring charge, to position it for improved growth when the economy recovers.
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