 | |
| Author | Christopher Leonard |
|---|---|
| Genre | nonfiction |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | 2019 |
| Pages | 704 |
| ISBN | 9781476775388 |
| Preceded by | The Meat Racket |
| Website | Publisher's web page for the book |
Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America is a 2019 book by Christopher Leonard about account of how Koch Industries became one of the biggest private companies in the world.
Leonard traces the history of Koch Industries from a regional pipeline company to a sprawling corporate entity with "a political-influence machine of rare scope". [1] The first part of is devoted to the history of Koch Industries, beginning with Charles Koch's assumption of leadership after the death of his father Fred in 1967. It traces the corporate history through the 70s and 80s as Koch grows the company and structures it in such a way that its profits rely mostly on volatility within the petroleum industry (meaning Koch makes money when oil prices go down as well as up). Also detailed are Koch's extensive union-busting activities, a battle for control of the company between Charles Koch and his brothers, and the story of Koch's first major setback with the disastrous 1996 purchase of Purina Mills (which Koch sold after 5 turbulent years) [2]
The second part focuses on Koch's diversification into the financial sector, as the company begins leveraging its extensive infrastructure and commodity holdings to take advantage of booming financial markets in the 1990s and 2000s. This section includes the first real comprehensive look at the astronomical profits Koch generated in the commodities markets, its purchase of Georgia-Pacific, and its participation in the events that created the 2000 California electricity crisis. [3]
The final part of the book examines how Koch Industries many legal entanglements with government regulators and Charles Koch's own libertarian philosophies fueled the Koch's decades-long efforts to discredit climate change by creating one of the largest influence operation in existence. [4]
Kochland was widely praised upon its release. In The New Yorker , Jane Mayer described the book as a “deeply and authoritatively reported" work that "marshals a huge amount of information and uses it to help solve two enduring mysteries: how the Kochs got so rich, and how they used that fortune to buy off American action on climate change”. [4] Bryan Burrough noted that "what's most impressive is its refreshing balance and evenhandedness. Leonard does not judge the Kochs; he explains them — their operations and acquisitions, successes and failures, trading strategies, business philosophies and family feuds'. [1] Kochland was awarded the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award in 2017 [5] and was a finalist for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award [6]
Koch Industries, Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate corporation based in Wichita, Kansas, and is the second-largest privately held company in the United States, after Cargill. Its subsidiaries are involved in the manufacturing, refining, and distribution of petroleum, chemicals, energy, fiber, intermediates and polymers, minerals, fertilizer, pulp and paper, chemical technology equipment, cloud computing, finance, raw materials trading, and investments. Koch owns Flint Hills Resources, Georgia-Pacific, Guardian Industries, Infor, Invista, KBX, Koch Ag & Energy Solutions, Koch Engineered Solutions, Koch Investments Group, Koch Minerals & Trading, and Molex. The firm employs 122,000 people in 60 countries, with about half of its business in the United States.
The Koch family foundations are a group of charitable foundations in the United States associated with the family of Fred C. Koch. The most prominent of these are the Charles Koch Foundation and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, created by Charles Koch and David Koch, two sons of Fred C. Koch who own the majority of Koch Industries, an oil, gas, paper, and chemical conglomerate which is the US's second-largest privately held company. Charles' and David's foundations have provided millions of dollars to a variety of organizations, including libertarian and conservative think tanks. Areas of funding include think tanks, political advocacy, climate change denial, higher education scholarships, cancer research, arts, and science.
David Hamilton Koch was an American businessman, political activist, philanthropist, and chemical engineer. In 1970, he joined the family business: Koch Industries, the second largest privately held company in the United States. He became president of the subsidiary Koch Engineering in 1979 and became a co-owner of Koch Industries in 1983. Koch served as an executive vice president of Koch Industries until he retired due to health issues in 2018.
McKinsey & Company is a worldwide strategy & management consulting firm founded in 1926 by James O. McKinsey that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and largest of the "Big Three" management consultancies (MBB). The firm mainly focuses on the finances and operations of their clients.
Jane Meredith Mayer is an American investigative journalist who has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1995. She has written for the publication about money in politics; government prosecution of whistleblowers; the United States Predator drone program; Donald Trump's ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz; and Trump's financial backer, Robert Mercer. In 2016, Mayer's book Dark Money—in which she investigated the history of the conservative fundraising Koch brothers—was published to critical acclaim.
Business action on climate change includes a range of activities relating to climate change, and to influencing political decisions on climate change-related regulation, such as the Kyoto Protocol. Major multinationals have played and to some extent continue to play a significant role in the politics of climate change, especially in the United States, through lobbying of government and funding of climate change deniers. Business also plays a key role in the mitigation of climate change, through decisions to invest in researching and implementing new energy technologies and energy efficiency measures.
The J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize is an annual $10,000 award given to a book that exemplifies, "literary grace, a commitment to serious research and social concern." The prize is given by the Nieman Foundation and by the Columbia University School of Journalism.
Fred Chase Koch was an American chemical engineer and entrepreneur who founded the oil refinery firm that later became Koch Industries, a privately held company which—under the principal ownership and leadership of Koch's sons Charles and David—would be listed by Forbes as the second-largest privately held company in the United States in 2015.
Blythe Masters is a British Private Equity executive and former financial services and fintech executive. She is a former executive at JPMorgan Chase, where she was widely credited for developing the credit default swap as a financial instrument. She is founding partner of FinTech private equity firm, Motive Partners, CEO of Motive Capital Corp, an Advisory Board Member of the US Chamber of Digital Commerce, a Board Member of GCM Grosvenor, Forge Global, CAIS Group, and Credit Suisse Group.
The Koch family is an American family engaged in business, best known for their political activities and their control of Koch Industries, the 2nd largest privately owned company in the United States. The family business was started by Fred C. Koch, who developed a new cracking method for the refinement of heavy crude oil into gasoline. Fred's four sons litigated against each other over their interests in the business during the 1980s and 1990s.
IIFL Finance Limited d/b/a IIFL and India Infoline Finance Limited, is an Indian diversified financial services company headquartered in Mumbai. The organisation was founded by Nirmal Jain. IIFL and its group companies are backed by Canadian investor Prem Watsa, private equity firm General Atlantic and CDC Group, the UK Government's private equity arm. IIFL is ranked among the top seven financial conglomerates in India and as the top independent financial services firm in India in terms of market capitalisation. Nirmal Jain is the chairman of the group, while R Venkataraman is the group managing director and co-promoter.
Charles G. and David H. Koch (1940–2019), sometimes referred to as the Koch brothers, have become famous for their financial and political influence in United States politics with a libertarian, more so, right-libertarian or American-style libertarian political stance. From around 2004 to 2019, with "foresight and perseverance", the brothers organized like-minded wealthy libertarian-oriented conservatives, spent hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money to build an "integrated" and "stealth" network of think tanks, foundations, "grassroots" movements, academic programs, advocacy and legal groups to "destroy the prevalent statist paradigm" reshape public opinion to favor minimal government. As of mid 2018, the media has been encouraged to refer to the "Koch network" rather than the "Koch brothers".
Charles de Ganahl Koch is an American billionaire businessman. As of November 2023, he was ranked as the 22nd richest man in the world on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated net worth of $60 billion. Koch has been co-owner, chairman, and chief executive officer of Koch Industries since 1967, while his late brother David Koch served as executive vice president. Charles and David each owned 42% of the conglomerate. The brothers inherited the business from their father, Fred C. Koch, then expanded the business. Koch Industries is the largest privately held company by revenue in the United States, according to Forbes.
Good Profit: How Creating Value for Others Built One of the World's Most Successful Companies is a 2015 book by Charles G. Koch. It was published in the United States by Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. It was published in the United Kingdom by Piatkus.
Canada's National Observer (CNO) is a news website that features daily news, analysis and opinion on energy, climate, politics, and social issues. By 2015, CNO had a Vancouver office and later opened offices in Ottawa and Toronto.
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right is a 2016 non-fiction book written by American investigative journalist Jane Mayer. The book focuses on a network of extremely wealthy conservative Republicans, foremost among them Charles and David Koch, who have together funded an array of organizations that work in tandem to influence academic institutions, think tanks, the courts, statehouses, Congress, and the American presidency for their own benefit. Mayer particularly discusses the Koch family and their political activities, along with Richard Mellon Scaife, John M. Olin, the Bradley brothers, as well as the DeVos and Coors families and their related foundations.
Charles Chase Koch, is an American businessman and the son of Charles Koch, the co-owner, CEO, and chairman of Koch Industries. Koch directs the venture capital company Koch Disruptive Technologies, and is a leading figure in Koch Industries and the family's philanthropic activities.
The Gerald Loeb Award is given annually for multiple categories of business reporting. The "Magazine" category is one of the two original categories awarded in 1958, with the last award given in 2014. The category included articles published the prior year in national and regional periodicals until 2008, when it was expanded to include magazine supplements to newspapers. Previously, newspaper magazine supplements were entered into an appropriate newspaper category. The "Magazine" and "Large Newspaper" categories were replaced by the "Feature" category in 2015.
The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business is a 2014 book by Christopher Leonard about the meat processing industry in the United States that focuses on Tyson Foods as the market leader. Widely reviewed on publication, the book gained additional attention during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Christopher Leonard is an American investigative journalist. He has written three books, The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business the New York Times best-selling Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America, and The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and Bloomberg Businessweek.