KB Home: Building Your Dream House

KB Home started its operations in 1957 as Kaufman & Broad in Detroit, Michigan. The company is a home building business that has put up a total of 550,000 homes since its founding. Their dealings primarily revolve around first-time home buyers.

Since its inception, the company has helped several homeowners create their dream house at a reasonable cost with world class quality. They have taken pride in the meticulous process they take to build the house of your dreams that comes with a 10-year warranty. This warranty together with the high standards of inspection and checkpoints set the business apart from its competitions.

There are more than 25 in-house architects that help create what you have in mind. These professionals work hand in hand with their home designers who also work closely with the engineers to address the need for state of the art techniques and first class materials to start the building process. They also partner with top of the class brand names to provide you the materials you can choose from so you can take pride in whatever details you have inside or outside your new home.

It was Donald Kaufman and Eli Broad who founded the business and later on expanded their operations to Arizona in 1962. The following year they ventured in the Californian market and later on became the first U.S. homebuilder to expand its operations in France in the year 1967. Their partnership and strong management led to the company’s growth together with several acquisitions they made. Some of the names they purchased include Opnel Jenkins in 1995, Rayco Homes in 1996 and in 2003 they acquired Colony Homes. The business is also known for partnering with Ellen DeGeneres, Disney and Martha Stewart for their homebuilding promotions.

One of the firsts of the company was their being the first large builder in the United States to implement the National Housing Quality program’s Certified Trade Contractor. This certification was rolled out by KB Home in November 2003.

FairPoint Communications: Fair Business, Period

FairPoint Communications, Inc. is a communications services company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It operates communication services across 31 markets in 17 states, particularly in rural areas. Among FairPoint’s services are local and long distance phone service, television, Internet and broadband, and business communications solutions.

Initially established as MDJ Communications Inc., FairPoint was founded in 1991. It was formed as an Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier or ILEC, giving it certain rights and obligations pertaining to providing service to rural areas. In 2006, it was able to acquire Cass County Telephone Company, paving the way to integration of its operations into FairPoint Communications Missouri. The company also obtained Germantown Independent Telephone Company in Germantown, Ohio.

By 2007, FairPoint had around 330,000 access points or customers. Also, in that year, Verizon Communications announced its plans to sell the landline operations in Maine, New Hampshire, as well as in Vermont (Northern New England Spinco) to FairPoint for a price of $2.7 billion. However, on October 26, 2009, FairPoint filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. After about two years, the company emerged from bankruptcy in January 2011.

Community Health Systems: The Nation’s Leading Operator of Acute Care Hospitals

There are about 135 hospitals in 29 states that Community Health Systems operate. In total, they have more than 20,000 licensed beds making them one of the nation’s leading operators of acute care hospitals. The company keeps their headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee.

Based on number of acute care facilities, Community Health Systems is considered the largest non-urban provider of general hospital healthcare services in the country. It started divesting its interest in a facility in Ireland after they acquired Triad, Inc. It was in 1985 that the business was started by CEOs E. Thomas Chaney, Charles Miller and Richard Ragsdale. These three gentlemen led two healthcare institutions before coming together to form their own venture. In 1996, the business was purchased by private equity firm Forstmann Little & Company taking them out in public. In 2000 the business went public again through the New York Stock Exchange.

Community Health Systems has Trinity Medical Center as its largest hospital based on number of beds. The corporation is part of the Fortune 500 listing.

Carpenter Technology: The Leader in Steel Development and Manufacturing

Carpenter Technology Corporation’s operations are in the United States, Europe, Mexico and in Asia. The company’s most recent facility is in China. The business is focused on the development, production and manufacturing of powder metallurgy specialty alloys/metals and cast wrought.

Some of their products include stainless steel, ultra-high strength steels, titanium alloys and superalloys. Their product forms include hollow and multi-dimensional forged bar, cold finished bar, loose gas atomized metallic powders, billet, strip and plate, and wire and rod. It was James H. Carpenter who founded the business on June 1, 1889. The business started as Carpenter Steel Company with James’ vision of advancing the process of steel manufacturing. It was in 1896 that he got his first patent for improved air-hardened steel.

The Wright Brother’s heavier-than-air aeroplanes used Carpenter’s special steel. Today the products they produce are used in jet engine blades, landing gear, flap and slat track components, titanium alloy fasteners and electronics. They also produce and supply their steel to makers of motor cars who in turn create valves, axles, steering knuckles, connecting rods and other car parts.

The company’s knowledge and experience in wielding steel helps push scientific breakthroughs in industrial, medical and energy sectors. Some of the products they benchmarked include the Carpenter CTS family of 14 alloys for knife blade production, BioBlu 27 alloy for the jewelry industry, ACUBE 100 alloy for bushings and bearings and the ProMet alloy for diesel engine components.

Just like other businesses, Carpenter Technology also found growth in acquiring other companies. Through their acquisition of Dynamet Incorporated, the company’s titanium alloy production expanded. Houston-based Amega West Services, is also one of the companies the business acquired in 2011. The Carpenter now has various products marketed through different brand names: Micro-Melt powder alloys (artificial disks and implants), AerMet alloys (landing gear), Pyromet alloys (pylon and fuselage fasteners, engine components), BioDur alloys (fracture fixation) and Custom 465 stainless (flap and slat track).

The company is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange and is a component of the S&P 400 Index.

ASARCO: The Copper Magnate

Founded in 1899 as the American Smelting and Refining Company, ASARCO is a mining, smelting, and refining company that primarily focuses on the mining and processing of copper. Based in Tucson, Arizona, the company is a subsidiary of Grupo Mexico. It was established by Henry H. Rogers, Adolph and Leonard Lewisohn, William Rockefeller, and Anton Eilers.

ASARCO’s three largest open pit mines are the Mission, Silver Bell and the Ray Mines located in Arizona. These produce 350 up to 400 million pounds of copper annually. The company performs solvent extraction/electrowinning at the Ray and Silver Bell mines in Pima County and Pinal County in Arizona, and a smelter in Hayden, also in Arizona.

Before ASARCO’s smelting plant in El Paso, Texas was suspended in 1999, the company was already producing 1 billion pounds of anodes every year. Furthermore, refining at the mines itself and at a refinery in Amarillo, Texas, they produce about 375 million pounds of refined copper per year.

Nuance Communications: Diverse Products, Diverse Business

With headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts, Nuance Communications fulfills its work as a multinational computer software technology company offering imaging and speech applications. Nuance features a diverse product line but focus is currently placed on sever and embedded speech recognition products, automated telephone directory services, telephone call steering systems, optical character recognition software, desktop imaging software, and medical transcription software and systems. A portion of the company's efforts also goes into system and software development for government and military agencies.

As of 2008, Nuance has grown from its humble beginnings as Visioneer in 1992 through mergers, acquisitions, and organic company growth. More recent acquisitions include Transcend Services (April 2012), SafeCom (June 2012), Digitech Networks (September 2012), Quantim (September 2012), Accentus (November 2012), Copitrak (December 2012), VirtuOz (January 2013), Tweddle Connect (May 2013), Cognition Technologies Inc. (July 2013), and Varolii (October 2013). What sets the company apart from its competitors is the use of different methods towards "end-pointing", the process of defining where speech begins and ends.

Today, Nuance boasts of a rich heritage backed by innovative technology, pervasive solutions, and a strong financial background. Operating in over 70 countries all over the world, with regional offices in 39, Nuance approximately employs 12,000 individuals full-time. What's next for Nuance? Continued progress in the realms of reinventing relationships between technology and people.

At the heart of what Nuance does is the focus to develop the most natural and intuitive ways to use voice in taking command of information. The technology that the company has developed is considered to be at the forefront of speech software around the world, backed by Nuance's tireless aim to perfect a machine's ability to recognize and imitate the human voice. Some of the most popular products released by Nuance include the Dragon Premium, Dragon Professional, Dragon for Mac, Dragon Legal, Nina, eCopy ShareScan, Equitrac, OmniPage, Copitrak, PDF Converter, and Talks & Zooms.

Aleris International: Fell But Rose Again

Aleris International, Inc. was ranked by Forbes as one of the largest private companies in the United States in 2011. Developed in 2004, it is a producer of aluminum rolled and extruded products, as well as recycled aluminum. It also specializes in specification aluminum alloy manufacturing. Headquartered in Beachwood, Ohio, it has access to about 40 production facilities across the world. Aleris is the result of the merger between Commonwealth Industries, Inc. and IMCO Recycling Inc.

In February 2009, the company faced a lawsuit filed by the US Justice Department, which alleged that 15 of its plants had violated the Clean Air Act due to the emission of pollutants. In August of the same year, Aleris was able to settle the suit with the government, agreeing to pay a fine amounting to $46 million and spending $4.2 million more on new pollution control at its facilities.

On February 12, 2009, the company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy but in May 2010, it announced plans of exiting bankruptcy as a privately held company.

Emirates Telecommunications Corporation: Global Telecom Company from UAE

Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, more commonly known as Etisalat, is a telecommunications provider based in United Arab Emirates. It has operations in 18 countries across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. As of the year 2012, it is known as the 15th largest mobile network operator in the world. It was also named by Forbes Middles East as the most powerful company in UAE that same year. It has a total customer base of over 135 million.

Etisalat was established in 1976 as a joint-stock company between the British company Aeradio Limited and its local partners. The ownership structure changed in 1983 as the UAE government began to hold a 60% share in the company while the remaining 40% were traded publicly.

In 1991, the corporation was able to secure the right to offer telecommunications and wireless services in the country, as well as with other countries, through the issuance of UAE central government’s Federal Law No.1. it also gave Etisalat the right to issue licenses for importing, owning, manufacturing, operating, and/or using telecom equipment. Practically, this gave the firm both control and regulatory abilities, completing the monopoly of UAE’s telecom giant. Furthermore, to safeguard the nation’s economic development, the federal law made provisions to give way to the development of the telecommunication sector.

Etisalat’s growth and development was also marked by the increase of its exchange lines from 36,000 in 1976 to over 737,000 in 1998. Another significant milestone for the corporation was PTCL’s commencement of cellular operations in January 2001. It began operating out of Islamabad under the brand name Ufone. PTCL became part of Etisalat after its privatization in 2005.

Today, Etisalat takes the 140th spot in the Financial Times Top 500 Corporations in the world when it comes to market capitalization. It is also ranked as the 6th largest company by The Middle East magazine.