ITT Corporation Research Articles

In Memory of Charles Kao Kuen

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Professor Charles Kao Kuen, the father of optical fiber, passed away on September 23, 2018, in Hong Kong, after battling Alzheimer's disease for years. He was 84. Known for his groundbreaking achievements involving the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication, Kao won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009, the Japan Prize in 1996, the Faraday Medal in 1989, and the Alexander Graham Bell Medal in 1985. Born in 1933 in Shanghai, his family left Shanghai when he was fourteen for Hong Kong in 1948. He studied at St. Joseph's College, a Catholic high school, for five years. He graduated in 1957 from Woolwich Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich) in London with a bachelor of science in electrical engineering. He received his PhD in electrical engineering at the University College, London in 1965. Kao worked in the private sector at the ITT Corporation. In 1987 Kao became the vice-chancellor (equivalent to the president) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong for nine years.

A year of change and progression

A year on from Xylem Inc's spin-off from ITT Corporation, Mike Kuchenbrod, president of Xylem's Water Solutions business and Ron Port, vice president and director of Xylem's Treatment business unit, talk to World Pumps about the progress that the pure-play water technology company has made during 2012.

New water company makes a big splash

The splitting off by ITT Corporation of some of its most well known brands to form a company dedicated to the water and wastewater industry, did take some people by surprise. However, the move has proved to be a shrewd one and hold great promise for the future as Mike Kuchenbrod, explained to World Pumps .

ITT spins off water company

Water movement, treatment and testing specialist, ITT Corporation, recently underwent a reorganisation. The company has appointed new executives to global positions as a result, and here they talk to Keith Loria about their roles in this transition to a new standalone pumps and water equipment firm.

2010 Stockholm Junior Water Prize Generates Two Award‐Winning Projects

This article announces that ITT Corporation, Black & Veatch, and Water For People are supporting two award‐winning student water projects that received national titles in the 2010 competition by improving, refining, and helping implement the projects. The two teams are from Ghana and the Netherlands and will ultimately be able to implement their projects, both of which provide new insights into ensuring access to safe drinking water in the developing world. The year‐long collaboration among both teams and the three sponsoring organizations will continue until summer 2011 when they will present their findings at a special seminar session during World Water Week 2011 in Stockholm.

Pesok davno minuvshikh dnei shlyot v budushchee golosa lyudei

First of all I would like to express my gratitude to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and its Nobel Committee for Physics for awarding me the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics. It is not often that the award is given for work in applied science. The practical nature of that work, and the time that has since elapsed, means that much has been done over the years, by many people, and the collective result has had a significant impact on society. Therefore this lecture will be about both the research leading up to the key discoveries, and some of the succeeding developments since. In the 43 years since the publication of my paper with Hockham on glass fiber cables in 1966 [1], the world of telephony has changed vastly. The skepticism of the early years has gradually been subdued by the steady advance of the optical fiber revolution. In the 1970s, while I was working on the pre-production stage research on optical fibers at the ITT Corporation in Roanoke, Virginia, U.S.A., I received two letters: one contained a threatening message accusing me of releasing an evil genie from its bottle; the other, from a farmer in China, asked for a means to allow him to pass a message to his distant wife to bring his lunch. Both letter writers saw a future that has since become history.

Water For People Promoting Environmental Stewardship in Guatemala

This article discusses Water For People's support of watershed management in Guatemala, and provides elements of an interview with Water For People – Guatemala's country coordinator, Edgar Fajardo. Sustainability from watershed management is Fajardo's ultimate goal, with specific objectives including the following: conservation of water and soil; appropriate development of natural resources; and poverty reduction. Fajardo sees watershed management as an enhancement of the community empowerment model long used by Water For People, and its success depends on a long‐term commitment. The article explains how interconnected the communities of each watershed are, and thus, watershed management affects whole regions of Guatemala. Because of water scarcity, there is a need to develop new water sources in Guatemala such as a rainwater catchment project in a mountain village in the region of Nebaj. Fajardo points out that watershed management is inherently political; and, the article describes how, as an organization, Water For People works with local governments to increase their capacity for the water regulation and infrastructure support that are their responsibility. The article includes an inset that discusses the partnership between Water For People and ITT Corporation to address the global sanitation crisis.

The Hilton-ITT Wars

This case provides a vehicle for discussing analytical approaches to understanding bidding strategies in a hostile tender offer setting. In 1997, Hilton Hotels Corporation offered to acquire ITT Corporation in an unsolicited tender offer. ITT resisted in several ways. At the date of the case (July 17, 1997), ITT announces a restructuring of the firm aimed at delivering about $70 a share to its shareholders. The task for the student is to understand why Hilton's takeover attempt has failed thus far, and what the possible responses might be at this stage. The case contains a completed valuation analysis of ITT (prepared by the casewriter), which suggests that ITT is worth, at most, $89 a share to Hilton. In preparing a possibly higher bid for the firm, the student must weigh the probability of another bidder's entering the fray and that competitor's bid price. The instructor can use this setting to compare the target shareholders' outlook with the classic “prisoner's dilemma” and to discuss the expected value of not tendering—both concepts are important in devising a bidding response.

LESSONS FROM A MIDDLE MARKET LBO: THE CASE OF O.M. SCOTT

In 1986 The O.M. Scott & Sons Company, the largest producer of lawn care products in the U.S., was sold by the ITT Corporation in a divisional leveraged buyout. The company was founded in Marysville, Ohio in 1870 by Orlando McLean Scott to sell farm crop seed. In 1900, the company began to sell weedfree lawn seed through the mail. In the 1920s, the company introduced the first home lawn fertilizer, the first lawn spreader, and the first patented bluegrass seed. Today, Scott is the acknowledged leader in the “do‐it‐yourself” lawn care market, with sales of over $300 million and over 1500 employees.Scott remained closely held until 1971, when it was purchased by ITT. The company then became a part of the consumer products division of the huge conglomerate, and operated as a wholly‐owned subsidiary for 14 years. In 1984, prompted by a decline in financial performance and rumors of takeover and liquidation, ITT began a series of divestitures. Over the next two years, total divestitures exceeded $2 billion and, after years of substandard performance, ITT's stock price significantly outperformed the market.On November 26, 1986, in the midst of this divestiture activity, ITT announced that the managers of Scott, along with Clayton & Dubilier (C & D), a private firm specializing in leveraged buyouts, had agreed to purchase the stock of Scott and another ITT subsidiary, the W. Atlee Burpee Company. The deal closed on December 30.Clayton & Dubilier raised roughly $211 million to finance the purchase of the two companies. Of that $211 million, almost $191 milion, or 91% of the total, was debt: bank loans, subordinated notes, and subordinated debentures. The $20 million of new equity was distributed as follows: roughly 62% of the shares were held by a C & D partnership, 21% by Scott's new subordinated debtholders, and 17.5% by Scott management and employees.After this radical change in financial structure and concentration of equity ownership, Scott's operating performance improved dramatically. Between the end of December 1986 and the end of September 1988, sales were up 25% and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) increased by 56%. As shown in Table 1, this increase in operating earnings was not achieved by cutting back on marketing and distribution or R & D. In fact, spending on marketing and distribution increased by 21% and R & D spending went up by 7%. Capital spending also increased by 23%.