A new stone age: Durham native Ward Nye has led Martin Marietta's rebound from a spurned expansion bid to more than double in size and profit over the last five years.

• Author: Barnes, Clifton
• Position: TOP 75 PUBLIC COMPANIES - Cover story

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Less than six months after Ward Nye became CEO of Martin Marietta Materials Inc. in 2010, the company entered friendly merger talks with its biggest rival, Vulcan Materials Co. When discussions broke down about who would lead the combined company and where it would be headquartered, things got interesting. In 2012, after Nye launched a $5 billion hostile bid for Birmingham, Ala.-based Vulcan, a Delaware court blocked the plan after finding that it was based on confidential information disclosed in the initial negotiations.

Nye's trial by fire came to naught: Vulcan Materials and Martin Marietta remain independent companies, the No. 1 and No. 2 producers of crushed stone in the country. But the headline-grabbing experience--still being discussed in law publications and by merger advisers--raised Martin Marietta's profile without slowing its momentum. The Raleigh-based company in 2014 acquired Texas Industries Inc. in a $3 billion deal, the largest in its history. Its revenue, profit and market value have each doubled since 2010, aided by a rebounding economy and industry consolidation.

The company's shares traded in mid-July at record levels, about $200, on hopes that its coffers will overflow with some of the hundreds of billions in expected government spending on road construction over the next decade. Martin Marietta moved up three spots to No. 10 on our list of North Carolina's top 75 public companies (page 61).

Comeback kid

This is the comeback of Martin Marietta--and Ward Nye--not only after the failed bid for Vulcan but also the preceding recession. Sales plunged 40% between 2007 and 2009 as governments tightened road spending and other types of construction came to a halt. Martin Marietta's stock price fell from more than $160 in June 2007 to about $61 four years later, though it never cut its dividend. With both companies at a low ebb, Nye saw an opportunity to create an industry powerhouse.

"No regrets," Nye says. "We don't view the Vulcan proposal as a failure. While the deal didn't get done, Martin Marietta became a better, stronger and more focused company. It galvanized our team."

The company used the post-recession lull to its advantage, buying up competitors in fast-growing states that have bounced back fastest in the economic recovery and are now making up for lost time building roads, houses and offices. All of these projects need the crushed stone, sand and gravel known as...