Hanson plc is a British based international building materials company, headquartered in London. It is traded on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Before a series of demergers in the 1990s Hanson was a conglomerate with a diverse range of subsidiaries, and one of the very largest British companies. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a country in western Europe, and member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the G8, the European Union, and NATO. Usually known simply as the United Kingdom, the UK, or (inaccurately) as Great Britain or Britain, the UK has four constituent... Greater London and the Regions of England. ... The Source by Greyworld, in the new LSE building The London Stock Exchange (abbreviated LSE) is a stock exchange market located in London. ... The Financial Times Stock Exchange Index of 100 Leading Shares, or FTSE 100 Index (pronounced footsie), is a share index of the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. ... Conglomerate is: A large company; see conglomerate (company). ...

Hanson was built up by James Hanson, later Lord Hanson and Gordon White, later Lord White, who set up Hanson Trust in 1964. Their policy was to purchase underperforming assets and turn them around. Hanson and White were willing to make any measures necessary to reform a business, including mass redundancies, and therefore attracted some opposition and accusations that they were "asset strippers", but they also had a successful record as long term owners, who developed highly successful businesses. In the 1970s and 1980s Hanson plc purchased assets ranging from chemical factories in the United States to electricity suppliers in the United Kingdom to gold mines in Australia. It produced cigarettes and batteries, timber and toys, golf clubs and Jacuzzis, cod liver oil capsules and cranes. It's most significant single purchase was probably its takeover of Imperial Tobacco in 1986. An attempt in 1991 to purchase ICI, which had long been seen by many in Britain as the nation's leading company, but which had by then already entered into a decline which has continued since, was highly controversial and ended in failure. James Edward Hanson, Baron Hanson (January 20, 1922 – November 1, 2004) was a British conservative industrialist who built his businesses through the process of leveraged buyouts. ... Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is the sixth-largest country in the world, the only country to occupy an entire continent, and the largest in the region of Australasia/Oceania. ... Imperial Tobacco PLC is the largest cigarette manufacturer in the UK, second largest in Germany and fourth worldwide, following its purchase of Reemtsma Zigarettenfabriken, adding brands such as Davidoff, Peter Stuyvesant and West to its line-up. ... ICI can refer to: Imperial Chemical Industries PLC. The ICI programming language. ...

By the mid 1990s conglomerates were no longer popular with the investment community. Some of the manufacturing businesses were spun off as U.S. Industries in 1995. In 1996 Hanson decided end its time as a diversified conglomerate breaking itself up into four separate listed companies. Imperial Tobacco became independent again, the energy businesses were listed as The Energy Group and the chemicals business, which was mainly in the U.S, became Millennium Chemicals. The other businesses stayed Hanson plc, which was now mainly a building materials business. Lord Hanson stepped down as chairman in December 1997. Conglomerate is: A large company; see conglomerate (company). ... Millennium Chemicals Inc is a U.S. based chemical company. ...

After Lord Hanson's departure the remaining non building materials businesses were sold off, and additional building materials businesses were purchased. These included Pioneer International of Australia and several U.S. companies.

Hanson two largest markets are the United Kingdom and the United States, and it is also active in many other countries. It is the world's leading producer of aggregates (particles of rock, gravel and sand), and a major producer of bricks and concrete pipes. In the year ended 31 December 2004 Hanson made a profit after tax of £193.6 million on turnover of £3.464 billion. The United States of America — also referred to as the United States, the U.S.A., the U.S., America, the States, or (archaically) Columbia—is a federal republic of 50 states located primarily in central North America (with the exception of two states: Alaska and Hawaii). ...

External links

• Official site (http://www.hansonplc.com/index.asp)
• Yahoo! profile (http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=HNS.L)