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Johnson Matthey Plc (lse: JMAT) is a global speciality chemicals company and a world leader in sustainable technologies, headquartered in the UK.

The company was founded in 1817 when Percival Norton Johnson established his business as a gold assayer in London. Since then the company has built expertise in precious metals, catalysis, materials science and sustainable technologies across a broad range of industries.

Johnson Matthey is listed on the London Stock Exchange and has been a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index since 2002. Today, the company has market capitalisation of over £6 billion with 12,000 employees operating in more than 30 countries.

Origins
Johnson Matthey traces its origins to 1817 when Percival Norton Johnson set up business as a gold assayer in London. Having been apprenticed to Johnson in 1838, George Matthey became a partner in the business in 1851 which was renamed Johnson & Matthey. In 1852 the company was appointed as official assayers and refiners to the Bank of England.

In 1860 Percival Norton Johnson retired and in 1891 Johnson Matthey & Company was formed as a limited company. Advances were made in platinum fabrication and a practical method developed for the melting of platinum, which operated well into the 20th century. As a result of these advances Johnson Matthey became a specialist in the manufacture of the platinum boilers used in the manufacture and concentration of sulphuric acid. These early developments formed the foundation for the industrial applications of platinum, which remain an interest of the company today. Following the discovery in 1925 of vast platinum mineral deposits in the Rustenburg district of Transvaal, South Africa, Johnson Matthey devised a process for extracting and refining platinum group metals (pgms). In 1928 the company patented the only workable process for extraction and refining of pgms from Rustenburg ores, marking the start of Johnson Matthey’s activities in pgm refining and recycling.

After World War II
After the Second World War the company enjoyed a sustained period of growth. Previously the company had established interests in the United States and Canada and afterwards a network of subsidiary companies and agencies was set up spanning the world. A new £1,000,000 refinery was built at Royston, Hertfordshire in 1957 to bring together all the final stages of the company's platinum refining operations.

Group reorganisation
The reorganisation of the Johnson Matthey group in 1965–67 resulted in the setting up of several operating companies in the UK to carry out specialist manufacturing and financial activities. These included Johnson Matthey Bankers Limited which, following severe problems with commercial lending activities, was sold to the Bank of England in 1984 for a nominal sum.

Research on autocatalysts to control the pollution from car exhausts led to the opening in Royston in 1974 of the world's first production plant for their manufacture. Around this time, the company gained increased recognition for its technology and won a number of Queen’s Awards, the Kirkpatrick Chemical Engineering Achievement Award as well as two MacRobert engineering awards for its work on the development of catalyst systems to control emissions from vehicles.

Move to speciality chemicals and sustainable technologies
The continuing success of the company’s autocatalyst business led it to open a number of new manufacturing facilities in South Africa, Mexico, Malaysia, India and China throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

In the 2000s the company sold its Electronic Materials Division and Ceramics Division and made a number of acquisitions as it focused on its core competences in sustainably beneficial technologies. Acquisitions included Meconic Plc and Pharm-Eco Laboratories in 2001 to strengthen pharmaceutical materials manufacturing capability and ICI Synetix in 2002 for its chemical catalysts capabilities.

In 2006 Johnson Matthey acquired Davy Process Technology for its chemical process technology licensing and strong connections to the oil, gas, petrochemical, polymer and pharmaceutical industries. This was followed by the acquisition of Intercat in 2010, which specialises in technologies for the petroleum refining industry. In 2013 the company acquired Formox, a provider of catalysts and licenses for the manufacture of formaldehyde.

Fuel cells and batteries
Johnson Matthey has a long history in the development of technologies for fuel cells and supplied William Grove with the platinum catalyst used in the first demonstration of the technology in 1839. Since 2000 Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells has been developing platinum containing fuel cell components and in 2003 the business opened the world’s first dedicated manufacturing facility for membrane electrode assemblies in Swindon, UK.

In October 2012 Johnson Matthey wholly acquired Axeon, a designer and manufacturer of lithium-ion battery systems for electric vehicles. This has been followed by acquisitions of battery materials assets from A123 Systems and Clariant in October 2014, giving the company a strong position in advanced battery materials.

Current business activities
Today Johnson Matthey defines itself as ‘a global speciality chemicals company and a leader in sustainable technologies’. The company focuses on products that have a beneficial impact on the environment, human health and wellbeing.

Products and activities
Johnson Matthey's principal activities are:
 * Manufacturing autocatalysts, heavy duty diesel catalysts and pollution control systems to prevent harmful emissions entering the atmosphere
 * Supplying catalysts and technologies for optimising efficiency and conserving natural resource use in chemical processes
 * Producing fine chemicals, chemical catalysts and active pharmaceutical ingredients that are used in products that benefit our health
 * Recycling, refining and fabrication of precious metals
 * Developing technologies and materials for high performance battery applications, such as powering zero emission vehicles
 * Providing catalysts and components for fuel cells, a clean, green source of electricity.

Business divisions
Johnson Matthey operates in a wide variety of markets and its businesses are organised into five global divisions: Emission Control Technologies, Process Technologies, Precious Metal Products, Fine Chemicals, and New Businesses.

Emission Control Technologies
Emission Control Technologies manufactures catalysts for light and heavy duty vehicles and stationary exhaust emission control and is a supplier of catalytic systems, including Continuously Regenerating Trap (CRT) systems for controlling heavy duty diesel vehicle pollution, which the company commercialised in 1995 and for which it won a MacRobert Award for in 2000. Today, around one third of all cars worldwide are fitted with a Johnson Matthey catalyst.

Process Technologies
Process Technologies supplies catalysts, licenses technologies and delivers other services to the petrochemical, syngas, oil refining and gas processing industries.

Precious Metal Products
Precious Metal Products manages, distributes, refines and recycles precious metals and fabricates products using precious metals and related materials. Johnson Matthey offers seven metal separation of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and ruthenium. Products include advanced coatings for glass manufacture, catalysts for the production of nitric acid and medical device components.

Fine Chemicals
Fine Chemicals supplies active pharmaceutical ingredients and catalysis and chiral technologies to the pharmaceutical, fine chemical and agrochemical industries. It is also a globally integrated supplier of research chemicals under the Alfa Aesar brand name.

New Businesses
New Businesses targets new opportunities in areas adjacent to the company’s current businesses and which align with its core technology competencies. This division includes Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells and Johnson Matthey Battery Technologies.

Research and development
Johnson Matthey places great importance in research and development (R&D) to its past, present and future success and has continuously increased its investment in this area in recent years. 12% of Johnson Matthey staff work in R&D. As well as business level R&D the company also operates five global technology centres. The company maintains R&D investment at approximately 5% of annual sales (excluding the value of precious metals).

Sustainability
Sustainability is an integral part of Johnson Matthey’s growth strategy and a key driver for its competiveness. In 2013/14 87% of Johnson Matthey’s sales came from products providing sustainability benefits.

The company was one of the first FTSE 100 companies to produce an integrated annual report and won the Best Annual Report in the FTSE 100 in the ICSA Hermes Transparency in Governance Awards in 2012, which recognised how sustainability issues were ‘described in a way that clearly links them to business strategy and performance, rather than leaving them in a silo or on the sidelines.’

Sustainability 2017 programme
Johnson Matthey has a formal framework, Sustainability 2017, comprising five elements of sustainability – social, environment, health and safety, governance, financial – and six targets that were set when the programme launched in 2007 and that the company aims to achieve by 2017, the 200th anniversary of its foundation.

Sustainability targets
In 2007 Johnson Matthey set itself six targets to achieve by 2017.
 * At least double earnings per share (achieved in 2013/14)
 * Halve carbon intensity
 * Achieve zero waste to landfill
 * Halve key resources per unit of output
 * Achieve zero greater than three day accidents
 * Achieve zero occupational illness cases

Environmental performance
Much of Johnson Matthey’s product portfolio has a beneficial impact on the environment, health and wellbeing. The company’s catalysts have abated many millions of tonnes of emissions from vehicular and stationary sources. In addition, as a direct result of Johnson Matthey’s nitrous oxide abatement catalysts more than 64 million tonnes CO$2$ equivalent of N$2$O has been prevented from the atmosphere.

The Sustainability 2017 programme aims to halve the company’s carbon intensity from a 2007 baseline of 294 tonnes CO$2$ equivalent / £ million sales to 147 tonnes. In 2013/14 Johnson Matthey reported a reduction in carbon intensity to 149 tonnes CO$2$ equivalent / £ million sales.

In December 2008 Johnson Matthey Inc, the company’s US subsidiary, was charged for a felony violation of the US Clean Water Act at its Salt Lake City precious metals refining facility. The violation related to the selective screening of wastewater samples for compliance analysis. Johnson Matthey Inc was ordered to pay a fine of $2.25 million and contributed $750,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Following the charge Johnson Matthey Inc entered a three year compliance agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency.