Building (or rebuilding) things is a lucrative business to be in, especially in an era when lots of things are being blown up. Construction is a mega-industry with players raking in money for huge projects, from Bechtel's Big Dig to Kellogg Brown & Root's military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are the small, mob-connected firms building at ground zero in New York, and even the bin Laden family, who largely built modern Saudia Arabia and Dubai. The companies who build dams, roads, schools, hospitals and military installations are a major economic and political force.
Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction was the first ship building company in Korea, established in 1937 at Youngdo, Pusan as "Chosun Heavy Industry Co., Ltd.", according to their website. The company builds everything from hospitals to apartment buildings through its construction segment and patrol boats to oil tankers through its shipbuilding segment.
URS Corporation has used a series of acquisitions—most recently Washington Group International—to propel itself to the top tier of international engineering firms, joining the likes of Bechtel and Fluor. The company is also a major contractor to the U.S. federal government (the source of 41% of revenues in 2007) in the areas of systems engineering, technical assistance, operations and maintenance. Much of the federal work flows through URS’s EG&G Division.
One of the largest private economic conglomerates in Brazil, the Votorantim Group has large positions in cement and concrete, mining and metals (aluminum, zinc, nickel and steel), as well as paper and pulp production. Described by the Wall Street Journal as "a tropical style General Electric," Votorantim also produces concentrated orange juice and specialty chemicals, and is involved in a number of electric generation projects (often to service its own industrial operations). Its financial arm is Banco Votorantim.
The Gerdau Group is the world´s 14th largest steelmaker and the largest producer of long steel in the Americas. It has 272 industrial and commercial facilities, five joint ventures and two associated companies. Gerdau operates in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the United States, Canada, Spain and India. Currently, Gerdau has an installed capacity of 23.2 million metric tons of steel per year and supply steel for civil construction, industry and agriculture.
Tenaris [TS: NYSE, Buenos Aires, Mexico and TEN: MTA Italy] is a company that is a global manufacturer and supplier of seamless and welded steel pipe products and provider of pipe handling, stocking and distribution services to the oil and gas, energy and mechanical industries. It is also a leading regional supplier of welded steel pipes for gas pipelines in South America.
ABB (formerly Asea Brown Boveri) is a Zürich, Switzerland-based multinational, one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the world, with operations in 100 countries.
Caterpillar Inc. is the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, and industrial gas turbines. Famous for their products featuring caterpillar tracks and a distinctive yellow paint scheme, Caterpillar produces a wide range of heavy equipment, mainly engineering and demolition vehicles, including the Caterpillar D9 bulldozer. Among other controversies Caterpillar has been accused of human rights abuses in the Israeli Palestinian conflict by selling demolition equipment to the Israeli Defense Force.
StatoilHydro is the leading integrated energy company of Norway and the largest off shore oil and gas corporation in the world. It has operations in nearly 40 countries worldwide and was the result of a recent merger between Statoil and the oil and gas division of Norsk Hydro. StatoilHydro has been cited on a number of cases regarding environmental issues and corruption.
