ITT Inc.

• Date Founded: 1920
• Industry: Industrial machinery
• Corporate Headquarters: Stamford, Connecticut
• Type: Public

ITT, with headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut (their main offices were located in White Plains, New York, until 2022), moved from its beginnings as an international telecommunications firm through a period of growth as one of the great conglomerates of the twentieth century to a downsizing period that included two splits into three separate operating entities in less than two decades. In 2011, it began providing manufactured goods for the aerospace, transportation, and energy markets, among others.

ITT experienced a remarkable first century of existence. During this tumultuous period, it had a significant—and sometimes controversial—impact on the world at large. ITT played a central role in the growth of telephone service in Europe, has been charged with unduly cooperating with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi government in Germany, and of complicity in a coup in Chile, and grew to such a great size that it reached the top ten in Fortune magazine’s ranking of US corporations. By 2015, however, it had been the target of hostile takeover bids and had radically downsized twice. What remained was a company that was a fraction of its former size, dropping from a high of $18.5 billion at its peak to only about $2.66 billion in revenues and employing fewer than 10,000 employees, placing it 823rd in Fortune’s corporate ranks. By 2024, the company had fallen to 848th on the list. In the mid-2020s, ITT’s annual revenue reached around $3 billion, and its market cap reached $10 billion.

Over the years, ITT was led by visionary executives praised for their business acumen. They included brothers Sosthenes Behn and Hernand Behn, who founded ITT; Harold Sydney Geneen, who oversaw a second period of exponential growth; and Rand Araskog, who carried out the dismantling of Geneen’s conglomerate.

History

The Behns formed ITT—it was called International Telephone and Telegraph until the early 1980s—in 1920 as a holding company for telephone companies they owned in Puerto Rico and Cuba. Its full and abbreviated names were modeled on American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T), the US telephone giant. In 1924, the brothers expanded into Europe, gaining the right to operate the phone system in Spain. The next year, under pressure from the US government to abandon its overseas business, AT&T sold its European phone manufacturing business to ITT. The Behns soon became the chief telephone service provider in Britain, France, and Germany and expanded into Latin America.

This growth was funded by high debt, and the Great Depression threatened the company’s existence. Compounding the slowdown was the response of foreign governments to the crisis: They blocked the profits earned in their countries from returning to the United States. Survival of ITT was aided, however, by the fact that foreign operations were run by foreign nationals and that these operations had well-placed individuals on their boards who had the clout to keep the company alive. Sosthenes Behn also contacted foreign leaders, including Adolf Hitler, whom he met in 1933. (Hernand died that same year.)

The near ruin and the threat of nationalization of corporate operations in several countries convinced Behn to focus on domestic business after the war. He tried to engineer mergers with major corporations, but these efforts failed. Behn was forced to give up control of day-to-day operations in the 1950s, although he remained at the head of the board of directors.

Harold Geneen became head of ITT in 1959 and launched an aggressive acquisitions campaign. ITT bought 360 companies between 1959 and 1978, including name brands such as Avis, a car rental company; Continental Baking, which made bread and cakes; Burpee, which sold seeds to gardeners; the Sheraton hotel chain; and the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. Revenues soared to more than $15 billion, and the conglomerate became the fourth-largest employer in the United States. Geneen also dramatically cut costs, using the savings to fund some acquisitions.

When Rand Araskog took over as head of ITT in 1979, revenues had been climbing throughout the decade, but the debt was $4 billion. Araskog began selling off subsidiaries as aggressively as Geneen had acquired them and quickly shed one hundred of them, slashing corporate debt and earning praise.

In 1995, ITT split into three separate conglomerates: ITT Hartford (chiefly insurance), ITT (hotels and casinos), and ITT Industries (manufacturing). A few years later, the hotel and casino business was sold to Starwood Hotels and Resorts. Downsizing continued during the first decade of the new century, and in 2011, ITT Industries split itself into three entities. One focused on pumping and treating water, one worked in defense industries, and one—which carried the name ITT Corporation—produced a diverse group of industrial manufactured goods. Products included pumps, valves, brakes, and electronic connectors.

In 2016, the ITT Corporation underwent a rebranding effort and changed its name to ITT Inc. Then, in 2022, ITT Inc. relocated from its longtime headquarters in White Plains, New York, to Stamford, Connecticut.

Impact

ITT has been transformed more than once over the years. It also has had its share of notoriety. The company’s association with Hitler’s Nazi Germany tarnished its reputation, and the issue was not just its running of the telephone system. Through a subsidiary, ITT had a stake in Focke-Wulf, a maker of German military aircraft. (The company even received $5 million from the US government to settle claims that Allied bombing had damaged company assets during World War II.) Scandals occurred during Geneen’s tenure at the company’s helm as well. ITT reportedly tried to bribe Republican Party officials to award its 1972 nominating convention to San Diego. Other stories alleged illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon in hopes of having an antitrust investigation dropped. Books and news reports claimed that in 1973 ITT, fearing nationalization of its Chilean phone business, gave money to the effort, supported by the Central Intelligence Agency, to oust that nation’s socialist president, Salvador Allende. Before the 2010 breakup, ITT was forced to pay a $50 million fine for selling information about night-vision goggles to China. The US government found the sale violated the Arms Export Control Act. ITT also faced sharp criticism for the high compensation package it paid to Geneen—even for those years when the company’s stock value fell. ITT also tangled with antitrust regulators several times. A 1968 bid to buy American Broadcasting Corporation was vetoed by the US Justice Department. The company’s purchase of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company two years later was allowed only after ITT agreed to sell off some assets and limit future acquisitions for a period of time.

Bibliography

Araskog, Rand V. The ITT Wars: An Insider’s View of Hostile Takeovers. Beard, 1999.

"International Telephone and Telegraph Corporate History." International Directory of Company Histories. Vol. 11. St. James, 1995.

"ITT Inc - Company Profile and News." Bloomberg, www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/ITT:US. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.

"ITT Revenue 2010-2024." Macrotrends, www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/ITT/itt/revenue. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.

"ITT - 2022 Fortune 500." Fortune, fortune.com/company/itt/fortune500. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.

Loomis, Carol J., and Doris Burke. "The Dismantling of Harold Geneen’s ITT." Fortune, 19 May 2011, fortune.com/2011/05/19/the-dismantling-of-harold-geneens-itt. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.

"Our History." ITT, www.itt.com/about/history. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.

"Overview." ITT, www.itt.com/about/overview. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.

Roberts, Dan, and Brian Watson. Confessions of a Successful CIO: How the Best CIOs Tackle Their Toughest Business Challenges. Wiley, 2014.

Sampson, Anthony. The Sovereign State of ITT. Stein and Day, 1973.

Sobel, Robert. ITT: The Management of Opportunity. Beard, 2000.