Corporate reduction (1969-2010)
The company became Olin Corporation in 1969 and subsequently began selling-off many of its acquired businesses. Since then, Olin Corporation has been shrinking (except for a brief expansion in the early 1980s).[20]
Olin was the first U.S. corporation to be prosecuted for violations of the arms embargo, and in 1978 was convicted for selling Winchester rifles to private dealers in South Africa.[21] When charged, the Winchester Division affirmed in a legal brief that:
"... the Winchester employees principally responsible for dealing with the State Department on export license matters over the years developed the belief that the Department was "winking" at the representation [by the company] that arms sent to South Africa were said to be destined for other countries."
- brief filed in U.S. District Court, New Haven, Conn. (20 March 1978).[22]
After ongoing declines in its business at Winchester, on December 12, 1980, Olin made the decision to sell Winchester firearms to the firm's employees under the name US Repeating Arms Company.[23] Olin, however, kept the Winchester brand name and licensed it to US Repeating Arms Company.[24] Olin sold its European Winchester ammunition business, and also licensed the Winchester brand name, to GIAT (of Versailles, France). Olin transferred its ball propellant manufacturing plant to General Dynamics subsidiary St. Marks Powder in 1998.[25] Olin spun off its specialty chemicals business on February 8, 1999, as Arch Chemicals, Inc. Olin afterwards focused more on its ammunition, brass and chlor-alkali businesses.[26]
The ammunition business was strengthened by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. After 2004, the Olin Corporation moved some manufacturing of its Winchester products from East Alton to Oxford, Mississippi,[27] which started with the rimfire cartridge (.22LR) production, then its load and pack operations.[28] After Olin moved production of its Winchester rimfire ammunition production to Mississippi in 2004, in 2006, Olin announced that it had entered into a new license agreement with Browning Arms Company to market Winchester brand rifles and shotguns. The new Winchester company was named U.S. Repeating Arms as a licensee of Olin Corporation, which still owned Winchester ammunition.[29] In May 2007, Olin agreed to buy Pioneer Co. Inc., a chlor-alkali products maker, for $414 million. Olin announced the sale of its brass division in October 2007 to Global Brass and Copper, an affiliate of KPS Capital Partners, for $400 million. The sale included all of Olin's worldwide metals operations, including the A.J. Oster metals service centers.[30] It sold a plant in East Alton in 2007, and moved production of centerfire ammunition to Oxford, Mississippi in 2010 from East Alton.
The McIntosh chlorine plant began using asbestos, a potent carcinogen, in 1978. The chemical was not safely contained, and employees regularly breathed it in and were not given protective equipment. The company was aware of the hazard and told workers that they could stay safe by preventing the material from becoming airborne. OSHA gave the company advance notice of its inspections, for which they regularly cleaned up the asbestos.[5] The 2007 merger between Pioneer and Olin created the third-largest chlorine producer in the United States. In 2010, an equipment failure at the McIntosh plant released caustic soda into the atmosphere,[4] and the plant frequently releases chlorine into the atmosphere.[5] Residents have complained that they were not adequately informed of the leaks.[5]
