Koch, Inc.

The company was co-founded by Fred C. Koch, an engineer trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1927 he developed an innovative refining process.⁠[1]

In 1940 Fred C. Koch co-founded Wood River Oil and Refining Company; in 1943 he acquired Spring Creek Ranch in the Kansas Flint Hills; in 1946 he acquired Rock Island Oil & Refining Co. in Oklahoma; and in 1948 Wood River built a products pipeline to Rockford, Illinois. Ranches in Montana and Texas were added in 1951 and 1953.⁠[1]

In 1959 Rock Island Oil & Refining Co. changed its name to Rock Island. In 1961 Charles G. KochCharles KochCharles Koch is chairman and co-chief executive officer of Koch, the privately held company headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, which he has led since 1967, and he founded the philanthropic community Stand Together.Open the full entry joined Koch Engineering from the consulting firm Arthur D. Little.⁠[1]

In 1961 Fred Koch asked Charles to come back and run the family businesses, Rock Island Oil & Refining Company and the smaller Koch Engineering Company, saying his health was failing and he might have to sell, and promised him full authority over Koch Engineering and eventually Rock Island. Charles Koch became president of Rock Island in 1966.⁠[2]

After Fred C. Koch died in 1967, Charles G. Koch became chairman and CEO. The company was then renamed Koch Industries: Charles Koch’s personal website timeline records that the board renamed the company in Fred Koch’s honor in 1968, while the history summary Koch Industries filed with the SEC in 2005 lists the renaming under 1967.⁠[1][2]

Under Charles Koch the company grew from about 300 employees in the mid-1960s to more than 130,000 worldwide.⁠[2]

In 1969 the company acquired a majority interest in a Minnesota refinery owned by Great Northern Oil Co.; in 1970 it built a natural gas liquids plant in Medford, Oklahoma; and in 1971 David H. Koch joined Koch Industries.⁠[1]

It went on to acquire a real estate portfolio from Chrysler in 1979 and a refinery in Corpus Christi from Sun Oil in 1981, bought The C. Reiss Coal Company, a 100-year-old Great Lakes company, in 1986, began building the Texas Pipeline from Corpus Christi to the San Antonio, Austin and Dallas–Fort Worth areas in 1988, and purchased the assets of John Zink Company of Tulsa in 1989.⁠[1]

The Texas Pipeline was completed in May 1990. In 1992 the company acquired United Gas Pipeline, later renamed Gateway and then Gulf South Pipeline Company, and a municipal leasing portfolio from Chrysler Public Finance; it acquired Elf Asphalt in 1993 and the Kerr-McGee refinery in Corpus Christi in 1995.⁠[1]

In 1997 it acquired the Delhi Group and Glitsch, a maker of mass transfer and mist elimination equipment. In 1998 it formed KoSa after acquiring 50 percent of Hoechst’s polyester division, acquired Purina Mills, Inc. and a Rotterdam splitter from Goldman SachsGoldman SachsGoldman Sachs is an American financial services group headquartered in New York whose businesses include investment banking, securities trading, asset management, and wealth management. It traces its origins to the commercial paper business Marcus Goldman founded in 1869; it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999 under the ticker GS and became a bank holding company in 2008. David Solomon serves as chairman and chief executive officer.Open the full entry, and formed Koch Ventures, a venture capital firm with $150 million invested.⁠[1]

In 2001 the company took full ownership of KoSa and formed EntergyEntergyEntergy Corporation is an American integrated energy company headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, engaged mainly in power production and delivering electricity to about 3.1 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.Open the full entry-Koch LP with Entergy Corp. (sold in 2004). In 2002 Flint Hills Resources, LP, Koch Pipeline Company, L.P. and Koch Chemical Technology Group, LLC became stand-alone companies.⁠[1]

In 2002 and 2003 the company increased its interest in Colonial Pipeline to 28.1 percent, becoming its largest shareholder. In 2003 Koch Nitrogen Company acquired fertilizer assets from bankrupt Farmland Industries, and the company invested in a lubricant base oils plant in Louisiana.⁠[1]

In 2004 the company acquired an Alaska refinery and a 3 percent interest in the Trans Alaska Pipeline System from Williams Co., a chemical intermediates business from BPBPBP (BP p.l.c.) is a British energy company headquartered in London; it began as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, founded in 1909, merged with Amoco in 1998 and experienced the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010. As of October 2026 its chief executive is Meg O’Neill.Open the full entry, fiber, intermediates and polymers businesses from DuPont, and fluff, market and filter pulp assets from Georgia-Pacific Corp.; that year Gulf South Pipeline was sold as part of the Entergy-Koch LP divestiture. In 2005 it sold most of its U.S. and Mexico asphalt businesses to SemGroup and its natural gas liquids assets to Oneok.⁠[1]

Charles Koch’s personal website timeline lists the 2004 acquisition of INVISTA as the first in a series of major acquisitions he oversaw.⁠[2]

In December 2005 Koch Industries completed its $21 billion acquisition of Georgia-Pacific Corp. by merging its subsidiary Koch Forest Products, Inc. into Georgia-Pacific; shares not tendered in the tender offer were converted into the right to receive $48 per share in cash. Georgia-Pacific made tissue, packaging, paper, building products and related chemicals, with consumer brands including Quilted Northern, Angel Soft, Brawny and Dixie; it had about 55,000 employees and 2004 sales of roughly $20 billion.⁠[3]

After the deal Georgia-Pacific was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and kept its Atlanta headquarters as a privately held Koch subsidiary; Joseph W. Moeller became its president and CEO, and A.D. “Pete” Correll remained chairman.⁠[3]

The company history Koch filed with the SEC in 2005 stated that Koch Industries had annual revenues of more than $60 billion and nearly 30,000 employees in about 50 countries and was based in Wichita, Kansas, with Charles Koch as chairman and CEO, David Koch as executive vice president and Joe Moeller as president and chief operating officer. It added that shareholders had historically reinvested as much as 90 percent of earnings in the parent company.⁠[1]

In December 2013 Koch Industries completed its $7.2 billion acquisition of Molex, a 75-year-old maker of electronic, electrical and fiber optic interconnection systems with 45 manufacturing locations in 17 countries and more than 36,000 employees. Koch Industries then had annual revenues of about $115 billion, and its companies had invested about $60 billion in acquisitions and other capital expenditures since 2003.⁠[4]

Koch Industries first invested in Guardian Industries, a glassmaker based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, in 2012. In November 2016 Koch announced it would buy the remaining 55.5% of Guardian’s shares for cash, with closing expected in the first quarter of 2017; because both companies were private, the financial terms were not released.⁠[5]

On April 6, 2020 Koch Industries announced it had completed the acquisition of the remaining stake in Infor, the business cloud software company, held by Golden Gate Capital. Koch had invested in Infor since 2017 and was also a major customer using its software for enterprise resource planning, human resources, supply chain and other functions. Infor became a standalone Koch subsidiary run by its existing management team from New York City; it then had more than 68,000 customers and about 17,000 employees.⁠[6]

Infor CEO Kevin Samuelson said: “Joining Koch Industries is an exciting new chapter in Infor’s history.”⁠[6]

On March 2, 2023 Koch Industries announced that Dave Robertson would join Charles Koch as co-chief executive officer and was elected vice chairman of the board, with Charles Koch continuing as chairman. Jim Hannan succeeded Robertson as president and chief operating officer, chief financial officer Richard Dinkel was elected to the board and named executive vice president, and Chase Koch was named executive vice president while remaining CEO of Koch Disruptive Technologies.⁠[7]

Charles Koch said in the announcement: “My role and responsibilities will continue as they have been.”⁠[7]

On June 6, 2024 the company announced, on behalf of its board and shareholders, changes to its name and corporate structure: Koch, Inc. would become the new top-level holding company, and its subsidiary Koch Companies, LLC, a new financially rated entity, would hold Koch Industries and the subsidiaries historically owned by Koch Industries; the changes were expected to take effect in the third quarter of 2024. The company said: “We are no longer only an industrial company, but also a company involved in technology of all kinds.”⁠[8]

The Koch website lists its companies as Flint Hills Resources, Georgia-Pacific, Guardian Industries, i360, Infor, INVISTA, KBX Logistics, Koch Ag & Energy Solutions, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Koch Engineered Solutions, Koch Investment Companies, Koch Minerals & Trading, Molex, Phillips Medisize and Rushmore Labs, with businesses ranging from paper goods to software.⁠[9]

The company describes itself as one of the world’s largest privately held companies, with about 130,000 employees in more than 50 countries, nearly half of them in the United States, and about 2,900 at its Wichita headquarters; its annual revenue fluctuates with commodity prices and has exceeded $125 billion. About 90% of earnings are reinvested, including more than $190 billion in growth and improvements since 2003. Its companies, which about 25 years earlier operated largely in energy, have since diversified into consumer products, technology, communications, healthcare and real estate.⁠[10]

The company’s leadership page lists Charles Koch as chairman and co-CEO, Dave Robertson as vice chairman and co-CEO, Jim Hannan as president and chief operating officer, Chase Koch as executive vice president of origination and partnerships, and Richard Dinkel as executive vice president and chief financial officer.⁠[11]

Koch, Inc.: Official website: https://www.kochinc.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kochinc/ (opens in a new window).⁠[12]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/@kochincglobal (opens in a new window).⁠[12]