Ammo Is Its Best-Known Product, But Bleach Is The Profit Center (Investor's Business Daily)

Thursday July 17, 5:55 pm ET Olin has been going great guns with its ammunition business. But a little-known product called caustic soda is really driving the firm's growth these days. Winchester ammunition is the better known of Olin's (NYSE:OLN - News ) products. But its chlor alkali business makes up 72% of sales and 87% of profit. Its year-ago acquisition of Pioneer Cos. made it much more of a pure play in chlor alkali. That deal lifted Olin from the fourth-largest producer of chlor alkali in North America to third. It's now the largest producer of industrial bleach. Chlor alkali consists of chlorine and caustic soda, which are the end products made from the process of basically running electricity through salt water. Combined, they are used to make industrial bleach. Chlorine on its own is used as a raw material for... [read full story]