History
Founded in 1923 Ethyl Corp was formed by General Motors and Standard Oil of New Jersey (ESSO). General Motors had the "use patent" for TEL as an antiknock, based on the work of Thomas Midgley, Jr., and ESSO had the patent for the manufacture of TEL. Since the patents affected the marketing of TEL, General Motors and ESSO formed Ethyl Corp; each parent company had a 50% stake in the new corporation. Since neither company had chemical plant experience, they hired Dupont to operate the manufacturing facilities. After patents ran out, Dupont started manufacture of TEL on their own and Ethyl started running its own operations.
In 1962, Albemarle Paper Manufacturing Company, in Richmond, borrowed $200 million and purchased Ethyl Corporation (Delaware), a corporation 13 times its size. Albemarle then changed its name to Ethyl Corporation. It is believed that General Motors thought to divest itself of "Ethyl Corporation" owing to concern about liabilities of TEL. The 1962 transaction was the largest leveraged buyout until that time.
The Ethyl corporation expanding and diversifying during the 1970s and 1980s in response to the gradual decline of the market for TEL as the automotive industry shifted to unleaded gasoline. In the late 1980s Ethyl began to spin off a number of divisions. The aluminum, plastics, and energy units became Tredegar Corporation in 1989. In 1993, it spun off its life insurance company, First Colony Life, and then in 1994, the specialty chemicals business was spun off as an independent, publicly traded company named Albemarle Corporation.
In 2004, Ethyl Corporation changed its name to NewMarket Corporation (NYSE: NEU), the parent company of Afton Chemical Corporation, manufacturer of lubricant and fuel additives, and Ethyl Corporation, a manufacturer and distributor of certain fuel additives, including tetraethyllead, which is no longer allowed in fuel for on-highway vehicles, but is still used in aviation gasoline and some racing gasolines, for which there is no alternative to TEL which provides its advantages.
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