Company Overview

Ball Corporation makes metal and plastic beverage and food containers, as well as products for the defense and space industries. The company is most famous for something it no longer manufactures—those wonderful home canning jars, whose manufacturing was spun off to Altrista Corporation in 1993. The acquisition of Reynolds Metals Company in 1998 made Ball the largest supplier of metal beverage cans in North America and one of the largest in the world. Ball has three major business segments: North American packaging (which includes metal food and beverage and plastic packaging and accounted for nearly two/thirds of sales in 2005), international packaging, and aerospace and technologies. The company is streamlining operations even as it expands into new markets through acquisitions. Recent acquisitions include U.S. Can’s United States and Argentinean operations as well as three facilities for plastic bottle production. Subsidiary Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation, founded in 1957, manufactures aerospace and communications instruments such as antennas, sensors, satellite ground station-control software, and spacecraft guidance and control devices. Ball Aerospace employs some 3,100 people and generates roughly 10 percent of the parent company’s revenue. The U.S. government and defense contractors accounted for 87 percent of total segment sales in 2005.