Caterpillar Inc.

What does Caterpillar own?
Caterpillar owns the Cat brand along with Progress Rail, Solar Turbines, Perkins Engines, SEM, FG Wilson, Cat Financial, Cat Reman, and Cat Digital. Most operate inside its four reportable segments: Construction Industries, Resource Industries, Power and Energy, and Financial Products.

Is Caterpillar publicly traded?
Yes. Caterpillar trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CAT. It is a component of both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500, and it has paid a dividend every year since 1933.

Who founded Caterpillar?
Caterpillar was formed in 1925 by the merger of two California companies: Holt Manufacturing Company, founded by Benjamin Holt, and the C. L. Best Tractor Co., founded by Clarence Leo Best. Both men built early track-type tractors, and Holt's company registered the Caterpillar name as a trademark in 1910.

Where is Caterpillar headquartered?
Caterpillar is headquartered in Irving, Texas, in the Dallas metropolitan area. It moved there in 2022 from Deerfield, Illinois. For most of its history, from 1925 to 2018, its headquarters was in Peoria, Illinois.

How many brands does Caterpillar own?
Caterpillar's portfolio is concentrated rather than broad. Its master Cat brand covers most products, supported by a small set of specialist names including Progress Rail, Solar Turbines, Perkins, SEM, and FG Wilson, plus Cat-branded financial, remanufacturing, rental, and digital services.

Who owns Caterpillar?
Caterpillar is owned by public shareholders with no controlling owner. The largest holders are institutional index fund managers such as Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street. The company's roughly 160 dealers are independently owned businesses, not corporate subsidiaries.

How did Caterpillar perform in 2025?
Caterpillar reported record sales and revenues of $67.6 billion for FY2025, its centennial year, up 4 percent from $64.8 billion in 2024. Profit per share was $18.81, with adjusted profit per share of $19.06, and the company returned $7.9 billion to shareholders.

Caterpillar traces its roots to two California rivals who independently solved the same problem: farm and construction machines that sank into soft soil. Benjamin Holt of Stockton built a steam-powered track-type tractor in 1904, replacing wheels with continuous tracks. An observer watching the machine crawl reportedly likened it to a caterpillar, and Holt registered the name as a trademark in 1910. Across the state in San Leandro, C. L. Best built competing track tractors with a reputation for better engineering.

During World War I, Holt tractors towed Allied artillery, a contribution that drained capital and left Holt financially strained. In 1925 the Holt Manufacturing Company and the C. L. Best Tractor Co. merged to form Caterpillar Tractor Co., headquartered in Peoria, Illinois, where it would remain for the next 92 years. The merged company committed to diesel power early, putting its first diesel tractor into production in 1931, the same year it switched its paint scheme to what became the signature Caterpillar yellow.

World War II transformed the company. Caterpillar machines built airfields, roads, and bases for the U.S. military, including the Navy's Seabees construction battalions, and postwar reconstruction plus the Interstate Highway System drove decades of demand. Caterpillar planted its first overseas operation in the United Kingdom in 1950 and steadily built manufacturing and dealer footprints across Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

The early 1980s nearly broke the company. A global recession, a surging dollar, and aggressive price competition from Japan's Komatsu produced consecutive annual losses and a bitter seven-month UAW strike in 1982 and 1983. Caterpillar responded with a sweeping factory modernization program and pushed into new lines including diesel engines and power systems. In 1986 the company renamed itself Caterpillar Inc. to reflect that broader scope. Another long UAW confrontation ran through the first half of the 1990s before a 1998 contract settled the dispute.

Acquisition-led expansion defined the next era. Caterpillar bought British engine maker Perkins Engines in 1998 for approximately $1.3 billion, deepening its power systems business. It acquired Progress Rail Services in 2006, gaining the Electro-Motive locomotive line and a rail services network, and Solar Turbines, acquired from International Harvester in 1981, anchored industrial gas turbines. The largest deal came in 2011, when Caterpillar bought mining equipment maker Bucyrus International for approximately $7.6 billion, absorbing a full line of electric rope shovels, draglines, and underground mining machinery.

The company moved its headquarters from Peoria to Deerfield, Illinois, in 2018, citing the need to be closer to a major airport and global customers, then relocated again to Irving, Texas, in 2022, joining a cluster of Fortune 500 headquarters in the Dallas area.

Joseph E. Creed became chief executive officer on May 1, 2025, succeeding Jim Umpleby, and later added the chairman role. The same year marked the company's centennial, celebrated with a Centennial World Tour that visited 139 locations across 24 countries and drew more than 108,000 employees and guests. Caterpillar also pledged $100 million over five years to workforce skills programs. FY2025 closed with record sales and revenues of $67.6 billion, a record backlog, and continued heavy investment in autonomy, electrification, and connected equipment. In 2025 the company renamed its Energy and Transportation segment to Power and Energy and announced its Rail division would move into Resource Industries effective January 1, 2026.

Caterpillar is a fixture on the Fortune 500 and the Forbes Global 2000, and has appeared on Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies list in the industrial category. Its centennial in 2025 drew coverage as a milestone of American industrial longevity. The company has also been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for North America and the world in multiple years.

Caterpillar's largest legal episode was a decade-long dispute with the IRS over profits attributed to a Swiss parts subsidiary, CSARL. The IRS alleged the arrangement improperly shifted income offshore and sought more than $2 billion in taxes and penalties. Caterpillar settled in September 2022, agreeing to pay approximately $740 million without admitting wrongdoing and covering tax years 2007 through 2016.

Trade policy has been a recurring friction point. Tariffs enacted in 2025 created a cost headwind the company estimated in the range of roughly $1.3 billion to $1.8 billion for the year, contributing to the drop in operating margin. Caterpillar has historically lobbied for free trade and against steel tariffs, arguing they raise input costs on American-made machines.

The company also faces longstanding criticism over the use of Cat bulldozers by the Israeli military in the occupied Palestinian territories, a campaign raised repeatedly by activists and referenced in UN human rights discussions. Caterpillar's response has consistently been that it does not control how customers use standard products sold through its dealer channel. Labor relations have stabilized since the UAW conflicts of the 1980s and 1990s; the company reached a new multi-year agreement with the union in 2023 without a strike.