Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Metals Service Center |
Founded | 1921 |
Founders | Kirkman O’Neal |
Headquarters | Birmingham, Alabama, USA |
Key people | Craft O'Neal (chairman & CEO) Ruffner Page (president & COO) |
Products | Carbon, Alloy, Stainless Steel, and Aluminum |
Revenue | ![]() |
Number of employees | 4,000 (2023) |
Subsidiaries | O'Neal Steel TW Metals Lecco Steel United Performance Metals |
Website | onealind |
Footnotes /references [1] [2] |
O'Neal Industries, Inc. is a metals service center company headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. The company was founded in 1921 and is the nation's largest family-owned metal distributor. Today, O'Neal operates 90 facilities across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Asia, and supplies a wide range of aluminium, alloy, hot-rolled, cold-finished, and stainless steel products to job shops, OEM, heavy industry, and aerospace customers. [3] Forbes listed O'Neal Industries as the 171th largest private company in the United States in its 2024 list of America's Top Private Companies. [4]
O'Neal Industires traces its roots back to 1921 when Kirkman O'Neal founded Southern Steel Works as a steel fabricating company in Birmingham, Alabama. [5] The company was formed during the time when the steel industry dominated Birmingham's burgeoning economy. The company grew steadily over the next decade and in 1935 opened one of the south's first metal service center shops. [6] Southern Steel Works changed its name to O'Neal Steel in 1956 and continued to expand over the following decades by opening or acquiring other service centers around the country in places like Jackson, Dallas, and Pittsburgh. Although the metal service center business was intended to complement its steel fabrication business, the company eventually decided to focus its efforts on growing the service center business and closed the fabrication business in 1969. [7] The company significantly expanded in 1997 when it acquired Colorado-based Metalwest, which became the company's first stand-alone subsidiary. [6]
The company made a series of acquisitions in the early-to-mid 2000s, beginning with Aerodyne Alloys in 2004. Lecco Steel and TW Metals were acquired in 2005 followed by AIM International and Supply Dynamics in 2006. The acquisition of TW Metals was especially significant as it marked O'Neal's entry into the European and Asia markets. [8] The company continued to expand over the next several years through smaller acquisitions, and in 2008 it reorganized by creating O'Neal Industries as the parent company to oversee its stand-alone companies. [9] [10] Many of the service centers already operating under the O'Neal name were merged into the legacy O'Neal Steel business.
O'Neal Industries has a long history of supporting the communities in which it operates. In 2018, the company and its shareholders made a $30 million gift to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to support cancer research. The gift was the single largest gift in the university's history. The O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB is named in the company's honor. [11] [12]
Birmingham is a city in the north central region of Alabama, United States. Birmingham is the county seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2023 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 196,910 down 2% from the 2020 census, making it Alabama's second-most populous city after Huntsville. The broader Birmingham metropolitan area had a 2020 population of 1,115,289, and is the largest metropolitan area in Alabama as well as the 47th-most populous in the US. Birmingham serves as an important regional hub and is associated with the Deep South, Piedmont, and Appalachian regions of the nation.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is a public research university in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. Founded in 1969 and part of the University of Alabama System, UAB has grown to be the state's largest employer, with more than 24,200 faculty and staff and over 53,000 jobs at the university. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
Nucor Corporation is an American company based in Charlotte, North Carolina, that produces steel and related products. It is the largest steel producer in the United States and the largest recycler of scrap in North America. Nucor is the 16th-largest steel producer in the world. Along with Commercial Metals Company, it is one of two primary suppliers of rebar used to reinforce concrete in buildings, bridges, roads, and infrastructure in the U.S.
RaceTrac, Inc. is an American corporation that operates a chain of gasoline service stations across the Southern United States. In 2023, Forbes ranked RaceTrac as the 18th largest private company in the United States with a yearly revenue of $19.72 billion.
BBVA USA was a bank headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. It was a subsidiary of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria from 2007 until 2021, when it was acquired by PNC Financial Services. It operated mainly in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas. The bank was earlier named Central Bank and Trust Company, Central Bank, Central Bancshares of the South, and Compass Bancshares.
Regions Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company headquartered in the Regions Center in Birmingham, Alabama. The company provides retail and commercial banking, trust, stock brokerage, and mortgage services. Its banking subsidiary, Regions Bank, operates about 2,000 automated teller machines and 1,300 branches in 15 states in the Southern and Midwestern United States.
Genuine Parts Company (GPC) is an American company engaged in the distribution of automotive replacement parts, industrial replacement parts, office products and electrical/electronic materials. GPC serves numerous customers from more than 2,600 operations around the world, and has approximately 48,000 employees. It owns the NAPA Auto Parts brand.
McWane, Inc. is one of the world's largest manufacturers of iron water works and plumbing products and one of America's largest privately owned companies. The company manufactures a host of different products including ductile iron pipe and fittings, cast iron soil pipe and fittings, heavy duty couplings, utility poles, network switches, monitoring equipment and related products. McWane is also a manufacturer of pressurized cylinders for the storage of propane and other gases through its Manchester Tank and Equipment Company division, as well as fire protection systems and extinguishers through its Amerex subsidiary.
O'Neal Steel is a metals service center headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. As an O'Neal Industries affiliate, it was founded in 1921 and is one of the nation's largest family-owned metal distributors. Today, O'Neal Steel operates 24 facilities across the United States and supplies a wide range of aluminium, alloy, hot-rolled, cold-finished, and stainless steel products.
Carpenter Technology Corporation develops, manufactures, and distributes stainless steels and corrosion-resistant alloys. In fiscal year 2018, the company's revenues were derived from the aerospace and defense industry (55%), the industrial and consumer industry (17%), the medical industry (8%), the transportation industry (7%), the energy industry (7%), and the distribution industry (6%). The company's products are used in landing gear, shaft collars, safety wires, electricity generation products, intervertebral disc arthroplasty, and engine valves and weldings.
ProAssurance Corporation, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, is a property and casualty company that sells professional liability insurance to doctors. The company was founded in 1976 as Mutual Assurance and was later renamed to Medical Assurance in 1997. The name "ProAssurance" was created in 2001 when Medical Assurance merged with Professionals Group. The company is currently the fourth largest medical professional liability insurance writer and has over $6 billion in assets.
Aleris Corporation was an American aluminum rolled products producer, based in Beachwood, Ohio. The company had approximately 5,000 employees globally as of mid 2015.
Olympic Steel, Inc. is a metals service center based in Cleveland, Ohio. The company processes and distributes carbon, coated and stainless flat-rolled sheet, coil and plate steel, aluminium alloy, tin plate, and metal-intensive branded products primarily in the United States. Metals processing and value added services include tempering, stretch leveling, cutting-to-length, slitting, edging, shearing, blanking, burning, forming, shot blasting, laser punching, plate rolling, fabricating, machining, and welding. Its Chicago Tube & Iron subsidiary is a distributor of steel tubing, pipe, bar, valves & fittings, and fabricates pressure parts.
The state of Alabama has invested in aerospace, education, health care, banking, and various heavy industries, including automobile manufacturing, mineral extraction, steel production and fabrication. By 2006, crop and animal production in Alabama was valued at $1.5 billion. In contrast to the primarily agricultural economy of the previous century, this was only about one percent of the state's gross domestic product. The number of private farms has declined at a steady rate since the 1960s, as land has been sold to developers, timber companies, and large farming conglomerates.
Brasfield & Gorrie, LLC, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, is one of the United States' largest privately held construction firms, providing general contracting, design-build, and construction management services for a wide variety of markets. Founded in 1964, Brasfield & Gorrie has 12 offices and approximately 3,500 employees. Its 2022 revenues were $5 billion. Engineering News-Record ranks Brasfield & Gorrie 21st among the nation’s “Top 400 Contractors” for 2022. Modern Healthcare ranks the company No. 1 among healthcare general contractors in the nation.
Carlton Forge Works is an aerospace manufacturing company that produces seamless rolled rings. Carlton was founded in 1929 and was privately held. According to Manta and Business Week, the company has about 250-300 employees. The company was previously owned by Allan Carlton.
Reliance, Inc. (Reliance), headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, is the largest metals service center operator in North America. The company provides metals processing services and distributes a line of approximately 100,000 metal products, including aluminum, brass, alloy, copper, carbon steel, stainless steel, titanium, and specialty metal products to 125,000 customers such as fabricators and manufacturers.
Primetals Technologies Limited, is an engineering and plant construction company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with numerous locations worldwide. It serves clients in the metals industry, both the ferrous and the nonferrous metals sector. It was established as a joint venture between Siemens VAI Metals Technologies and Mitsubishi-Hitachi Metals Machinery in 2015. As of 2020, Primetals Technologies is a joint venture of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and partners.
Danny Garrett is an American politician who has represented District 44 in the Alabama House of Representatives since 2014. A member of the Republican Party, Garrett currently serves as the House majority whip. He represents the 44th House District in Jefferson County, which includes the cities of Trussville, Clay and portions of Pinson.