Caterpillar Inc. (often shortened to CAT) is an American Fortune 100 corporation that designs, develops, engineers, manufactures, markets, and sells generator sets, machinery, engines, financial products, and insurance to customers via a worldwide dealer network. It is the world’s largest construction equipment manufacturer. In 2018, Caterpillar was ranked number 65 on the Fortune 500 list and number 238 on the Global Fortune 500 list. Caterpillar stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Caterpillar Inc. traces its origins to the 1925 merger of the Holt Manufacturing Company and the C. L. Best Tractor Company, creating a new entity, California-based Caterpillar Tractor Company. In 1986, the company reorganised itself as a Delaware corporation under the current name, Caterpillar Inc. Its headquarters are located in Deerfield, Illinois; it announced in January 2017 that over the course of that year, it would relocate its headquarters from Peoria, Illinois, to Deerfield, Illinois, scrapping plans from 2015 of building an $800 million new headquarters complex in downtown Peoria.