The story
Founded by John Dwan in 1902, in Two Harbors.1
Five businessmen founded the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company as a mining venture in Two Harbors, Minnesota, making their first sale on June 13, 1902. The goal was to mine corundum, a crystalline form of aluminium oxide, which failed because the mine's mineral holdings were anorthosite, a feldspar which had no commercial value. Co-founder John Dwan solicited funds in exchange for stock and Edgar Ober and Lucius Ordway took over the company in 1905. The company moved to Duluth and began researching and producing sandpaper products. William L. McKnight, later a key executive, joined the company in 1907, and A. G. Bush joined in 1909. 3M finally became financially stable in 1916 and was able to pay dividends.
The company moved to Saint Paul in 1910, where it remained for 52 years before outgrowing the campus and moving to its current headquarters at 3M Center in Maplewood, Minnesota, in 1962.
In 1947, 3M began producing perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), an industrial surfactant and chemical feedstock, by electrochemical fluorination. In 1951, DuPont purchased PFOA from then-Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company for use in the manufacturing of teflon, a product that brought DuPont a billion-dollar-a-year profit by the 1990s. DuPont referred to PFOA as C8. The original formula for Scotchgard, a water repellent applied to fabrics, was discovered accidentally in 1952 by 3M chemists Patsy Sherman and Samuel Smith. Sales began in 1956, and in 1973 the two chemists received a patent for the formula.
In the late 1950s, 3M produced the first asthma inhaler, but the company did not enter the pharmaceutical industry until the mid-1960s with the acquisition of Riker Laboratories, moving it from California to Minnesota. 3M retained the Riker Laboratories name for the subsidiary until at least 1985. In the mid-1990s, 3M Pharmaceuticals, as the division came to be called, produced the first CFC-free asthma inhaler in response to adoption of the Montreal Protocol by the United States. In the 1980s and 1990s, the company spent fifteen years developing a topical cream delivery technology which led in 1997 to health authority approval and marketing of a symptomatic treatment for genital warts, Aldara. 3M divested its pharmaceutical unit through three deals in 2006, netting more than US$2 billion. At the time, 3M Pharmaceuticals comprised about 20% of 3M's healthcare business and employed just over a thousand people.
By the 1970s, 3M developed a theatrical blood formula based on red colorfast microbeads suspended in a carrier liquid. This stage blood was sold as Nextel Simulated Blood and was used during the production of the 1978 film Dawn of the Dead. It has since been discontinued.
In the late 1970s, 3M Mincom was involved in some of the first digital audio recordings to see commercial release when a prototype machine was brought to the Sound 80 studios in Minneapolis. In 1979 3M introduced a digital audio recording system called "3M Digital Audio Mastering System".
3M launched "Press 'n Peel", a sticky bookmark page holder in stores in four cities in 1977, but the results were disappointing. A year later 3M instead issued free samples of the product as a sticky note directly to consumers in Boise, Idaho, with 95% of those who tried them indicating they would buy it. The product was introduced as "Post-Its" in 1979, and was sold across the United States from April 6, 1980. The following year they were launched in Canada and Europe.
In 1980, the company acquired Comtal, a manufacturer of digital image processors.
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In 1996, the company's data storage and imaging divisions were spun off as Imation Corporation. In doing so, 3M shed 20% of its sales, employees and product lines at a cost of only 5% of its profits and immediately looked much improved in the estimation of Wall Street analysts. These businesses, with annual sales of over $2 billion, had generated handsome profits for 3M which funded the research and development of many new product lines, but these were largely in "sunset" industries: printing products, photographic film, and removable storage media. Imation shortly sold its imaging and photographic film businesses largely to Kodak in order to concentrate on storage. Imation was purchased by a hedge fund in 2016 and ceased to exist as an independent business. Its successor is now called Glassbridge Enterprises, an American holding company.
21st century
On April 8, 2002, 3M's 100th anniversary, the company changed its legal name to "3M Company". On September 8, 2008, 3M announced an agreement to acquire Meguiar's, a car-care products company that was family-owned for over a century. In August 2010, 3M acquired Cogent Systems for $943 million, and on October 13, 2010, 3M completed acquisition of Arizant Inc. In December 2011, 3M completed the acquisition of the Winterthur Technology Group, a bonded abrasives company.
In 2011, 3M created CloudLibrary as part of its library systems unit as a competitor to OverDrive, Inc.; in 2015 3M sold the North American part of that unit to Bibliotheca Group GmbH, a company founded in 2011 that was funded by One Equity Partners Capital Advisors, a division of JP Morgan Chase.
As of 2012, 3M was one of the 30 companies included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, added on August 9, 1976, and was 97 on the 2011 Fortune 500 list. On January 3, 2012, it was announced that the Office and Consumer Products Division of Avery Dennison was being bought by 3M for $550 million. The transaction was canceled by 3M in September 2012 amid antitrust concerns.
In May 2013, 3M sold Scientific Anglers and Ross Reels to Orvis. Ross Reels had been acquired by 3M in 2010.
In March 2017, 3M purchased Johnson Controls International Plc's safety gear business, Scott Safety, for $2 billion.
In 2017, 3M had net sales for the year of $31.657 billion, up from $30.109 billion the year before. In 2018, it was reported that the company would pay $850 million to end the Minnesota water pollution case concerning perfluorochemicals.
On May 25, 2018, Michael F. Roman was appointed CEO by the board of directors. On December 19, 2018, 3M announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the technology business of M*Modal, for a total enterprise value of $1.0 billion.
In October 2019, 3M purchased Acelity and its KCI subsidiaries for $6.7 billion, including assumption of debt and other adjustments.
On May 1, 2020, 3M divested substantially all of its drug delivery business to an affiliate of Altaris Capital Partners, LLC. for approximately $650 million, including a 17% interest in the new operating company, Kindeva Drug Delivery.
In December 2021, 3M announced that it would merge its food-safety business with food testing and animal healthcare products maker Neogen. The deal, with an enterprise value of about $5.3 billion, closed in September 2022.
In July 2022, the company announced it would spin off its healthcare assets to form a new, independent firm, likely completing the transaction in 2023. 3M will retain an ownership stake of 19.9% in the new, publicly traded health care company and gradually divest the holdings. The company will be known as Solventum Corporation.
In December 2022, the company announced plans to stop producing and using so-called forever chemicals (per and polyfluoroalkyl), which have been commonly used in items such as food packaging, cellphones, nonstick pans, firefighting foams, and clothing. These chemicals are well known for their water-resistant and nonstick properties, but they are also dangerous pollutants that are linked to serious health problems, including ulcerative colitis and cancer. The move comes as governments in the Netherlands and the United States consider actions against 3M.
In March 2024, 3M announced the appointment of William "Bill" Brown as chief executive officer to take effect on May 1, 2024. Michael Roman would remain in the role of executive chairman. Brown, 61, is the former chairman of the board and chief executive officer of L3Harris Technologies.
From Wikipedia’s article on 3M, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8