 | |
| JCB | |
| Company type | Private limited company |
| Industry | Heavy equipment Agricultural machinery |
| Founded | October 23, 1945; 80 years ago (1945-10-23) |
| Founder | Joseph Cyril Bamford |
| Headquarters | Rocester,Staffordshire, |
Key people | Anthony Bamford (Chairman) Graeme Macdonald (Chief Executive) |
| Products | Backhoes Excavators Dumpster Forklift trucks Loaders Telescopic handlers Tractors Diesel engines Diesel generators Axles andGearboxes |
| Revenue | £5.3 billion (2023)[1][2] |
| £838 million (2023) | |
Number of employees | c. 10,000 (2023)[1][3] |
| Website | www |
J.C. Bamford Excavators Limited, commonly known asJCB, is a Britishmultinational manufacturer of equipment forconstruction,agriculture,waste handling, anddemolition. It was founded in 1945 and is based inRocester,Staffordshire, England.[4]
The word "JCB" is also often usedcolloquially as ageneric description for mechanical diggers andexcavators, and the word appears in theOxford English Dictionary, although it is still held as a trademark.[5]
Joseph Cyril Bamford Excavators Ltd. was founded byJoseph Cyril Bamford in October 1945 inUttoxeter, Staffordshire, England. He rented a lock-up garage 3.7 by 4.6 m (12 by 15 ft). In it, using a welding set which he bought second-hand for £1 fromEnglish Electric, he made his first vehicle, a tipping trailer from war-surplus materials. The trailer's sides and floor were made from steel sheet that had been part ofair raid shelters. On the same day as his son Anthony was born, he sold the trailer at a nearby market for £45 (plus a part-exchanged farmcart) and at once made another trailer.[citation needed] At one time he made vehicles in Eckersley's coal yard in Uttoxeter. The first trailer and the welding set have been preserved.
In 1948, six people were working for the company, and it made the firsthydraulic tipping trailer in Europe. In 1950, it moved to an old cheese factory inRocester, still employing six. A year later, Bamford began painting his products yellow. In 1953, he developed JCB's first backhoe loader, and the JCB logo appeared for the first time. It was designed by Derby Media and advertising designer Leslie Smith. In 1957, the firm launched the "hydra-digga", incorporating the excavator and the major loader as a single all-purpose tool useful for the agricultural and construction industries.[6]
By 1964, JCB had sold over 3,000 3C backhoe loaders. The next year, the first 360-degree excavator was introduced, the JCB 7.[7]
In 1975,Anthony Bamford, Bamford's son, was made Chairman of the company.
In 1978, theLoadall machine was introduced. The next year, the firm started its operation inIndia. In 1991, the firm entered a joint venture withSumitomo of Japan to produce excavators, which ended in 1998.[8] Two years later, a JCB factory was completed inPooler nearSavannah,Georgia, in the US, and in 2012 a factory was opened inBrazil.[9]
In 2005, JCB bought a company, purchasing the German equipment firmVibromax. In the same year, it opened a new factory inPudong, China.[10] Planning of a new £40M JCB Heavy Products site began following the launch of anarchitectural design competition in 2007 managed byRIBA Competitions,[11] and by the next year, the firm began to move from its old site on Pinfold Street in Uttoxeter to the new site beside the A50; the Pinfold Street site was demolished in 2009. During that year, JCB announced plans to make India its largest manufacturing hub. Its factory atBallabgarh in Haryana was to become the world's largestbackhoe loader manufacturing facility.[12] Although JCB shed 2,000 jobs during theGreat Recession, in 2010 it rehired up to 200 new workers.[13]
In 2013, JCB set up its fourth manufacturing facility in India.[14] In 2014, it was reported that three out of every four pieces of construction equipment sold in India was a JCB, and that its Indian operations accounted for 17.5% of its total revenue.[15] JCB-based memes have also become prevalent in India.[16]
JCB began manufacturing 20-30 tonne excavators inSolnechnogorsky District in Russia in 2017.[17] Due totrade sanctions imposed following the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, JCB suspended its operations in Russia in March 2022.[18]
Many of the vehicles produced by JCB are variants of thebackhoe loader, includingtracked or wheeled variants, mini and large version and other variations, such asforklift vehicles andtelescopic handlers for moving materials to the upper floors of a building site. The company also produces wheeled loading shovels and articulated dump trucks.
ItsJCB Fastrac range of tractors, which entered production in 1990, can drive at speeds of up to 75 km/h (40 mph) on roads and was shown on the BBC television programmeTomorrow's World, and years later asJeremy Clarkson's tractor of choice inTop Gear. The firm makes a range of military vehicles, including theJCB HMEE. It licenses a range of rugged feature phones and smartphones designed for construction sites. The design and marketing contract was awarded to Data Select in 2010, which then lost the exclusive rights in 2013.[19]
JCB power systems make ahydrogen combustion engine which aims to be cost effective by reusing parts from the company'sDieselmax engines.[20]
JCB Insurance Services is a fully owned subsidiary of JCB that provides insurance for customers with funding from another fully owned subsidiary, JCB Finance.[21][22]
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In April 2006, JCB announced that they were developing adiesel-poweredland speed record vehicle known as the 'JCB Dieselmax'. The car is powered by two modified JCB 444 diesel power plants using a two-stageturbocharger to generate 750 bhp (560 kW), one engine driving the front wheels and the other the rear wheels.
On 22 August 2006, the Dieselmax, driven byAndy Green, broke the diesel engine land speed record, attaining a speed of 328.767 mph (529.099 km/h). The following day, the record was again broken, this time with a speed of 350.092 mph (563.418 km/h).
In December 2000, JCB was fined €39.6M by theEuropean Commission for violatingEuropean Unionantitrust law.[23] The fine related to restrictions on sales outside allotted territories, purchases between authorised distributors, bonuses and fees which restricted out of territory sales, and occasional joint fixing of resale prices and discounts across different territories.[24] JCB appealed the decision, with theEuropean Court of First Instance upholding portions of the appeal and reducing the original fine by 25%. JCB appealed to theEuropean Court of Justice but this final appeal was rejected in 2006,[25] with the court slightly increasing the reduced fine by €864,000.[26]
In 2017, a Reuters study of JCB group accounts found that between 2001 and 2013, the JCB group paid £577M to JCB Research, an unlimited company that does not have to file public accounts and which has only two shares, both owned by Anthony Bamford. JCB Research has been described as an obscure company, allegedly worth £27,000, but which donated £2M to theConservative Party in the run up to the 2010 election, making it the largest donor. Ownership of the company which has never filed accounts is disputed by the Bamford brothers. According to a Guardian report, much of the Bamford money was held in shares in offshore trusts.[27] JCB Service, the main JCB holding company, is owned by a Dutch parent company, ‘Transmissions and engineering Netherlands BV’, which is ultimately controlled by “Bamford family interests”.[28][29] According to Ethical Consumer, JCB has six subsidiaries in jurisdictions considered to betax havens, inSingapore, theNetherlands,Hong Kong,Delaware andSwitzerland.[30]
On 12 February 2020, theUnited Nations published adatabase of all business enterprises involved in certain specified activities related to theIsraeli settlements in theOccupied Palestinian Territories, includingEast Jerusalem, and in the occupiedGolan Heights.[31][32] JCB has been listed on the database in light of its involvement in activities related to "the supply of equipment and materials facilitating the construction and the expansion of settlements and thewall, and associated infrastructures".[33][31][32] Theinternational community considers Israeli settlements built onland occupied by Israel to bein violation of international law.[34][35][36]
In October 2020, the British government decided to investigate a complaint that JCB’s sale of equipment to Israel did not comply with the human rights guidelines set by theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The UK National Contact Point (NCP), part of the UK’s Department of International Trade, agreed to review a complaint against JCB submitted by a charity, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights. JCB said it had no “legal ownership” of its machinery once sold to Comasco, its sole distributor of JCB equipment in Israel.[37]
In 2020, JCB received a £600M loan in emergency financial aid from the UK government, during the coronavirus pandemic, despite its ultimate ownership being in the Netherlands and having reported a record £447M profit the previous year. Its chief executive Graeme Macdonald said: “Although not a public company, we are eligible for CCF because of our contribution to the UK economy. We don’t expect to utilise it in the short-term but it gives us an insurance policy if there is further disruption from or second spike or other impact around the world.”[38][39]
JCB is a significant donor to the UKConservative Party. Between 2007 and 2017, JCB and related Bamford entities donated £8.1m in cash or kind to the party.[40] Between 2019 and 2021 JCB donated a further £2.5m.[41]
In 2016, Anthony Bamford donated £100,000 toVote Leave, the official pro-Brexit group,[42] and wrote to JCB's 6,500 staff explaining why he supported the UK leaving the EU.[43]
In October 2016, it was reported that JCB had left theCBI businesslobby group in the summer of the same year due to the organisation's anti-Brexit stance.[42] In May 2021, Anthony Bamford rejected an invitation to rejoin CBI, after previously having called it a "waste of time" that "didn’t represent my business or private companies".[44][45]
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