Tyco was founded in 1960 by Arthur J. Rosenberg as a research and materials firm. After Dennis Kozlowski became CEO in 1992, it bought roughly 3,000 companies over a decade, including electronics maker AMP and Raychem in 1999 and security company ADT in 1997, a reverse takeover that moved Tyco’s incorporation to Bermuda. By the end of fiscal 2000 Tyco reported a $141 billion book value alongside more than $80 billion in long-term debt. Its Tyco Global Network of undersea fiber optic cable ran into the dot-com crash and lost over $3 billion, forcing write-downs in 2002.

Kozlowski resigned in mid-2002 amid an SEC civil fraud investigation, and he and CFO Mark Swartz were accused of taking over $150 million from the company, arguing at trial that the board had authorized the payments. The 2004 trial ended in a mistrial after juror Ruth Jordan allegedly made an OK sign and received threats. In 2005 both men were convicted and sentenced to 8 1/3 to 25 years in New York state prison. New CEO Edward Breen, who took over in July 2002, replaced the board and mandated ethics training, Tyco paid $2.92 billion in 2007 to settle a shareholder class action, and in 2010 a judge applied the faithless servant doctrine to void about $500 million of Kozlowski’s 1997 to 2002 compensation. He was paroled in 2014.

• One expense from the era was a $15,000 umbrella stand.
• Tyco paid a $1.1 million Clean Air Act penalty over trichloroethylene at a New Jersey facility.
• Managers at a Connecticut plant were criminally convicted for routing wastewater around filters, sending copper and lead into the sewer.
• Tyco ranked 41st on the Toxic 100 list.
• In 2007 Tyco was split into three separate independent companies.