Berendsen Textile Service (formerly Sophus Berendsen, Berendsen plc and The Davis Service Group Plc) is a provider of textile maintenance services with headquarters in Søborg, Denmark. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of French company Elis.

History

Sophus Berendsen

The company traces its history back to 1854 when Sophus Berendsen established as wholesaler of iron and glass for the construction industry in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. Prior to his death in 1898 it had grown to the largest company of its kind in Denmark. It was after his death continued by his widow and after her death just two years later by his son Albert Berendsen.

Godfrey Davis and Finnish-Danish merger

Godfrey Davis was founded in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

in 1920 as car rental company. It was first listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

in 1959. In 1987 it acquired Sunlight Services, a leading laundry business founded in 1900. In 1991 it sold most of its car dealerships (having already sold the car rental business) and the name was changed to ''Davis Service Group''. In 1996 it acquired Spring Grove Services, another leading laundry business. In 2002 it bought Sophus Berendsen, a leading Danish laundry business for £426 million. Then in 2007 it bought the textile service business of Germany's Permaclean. On 31 July 2009 the company appointed

Peter Ventress Peter John Ventress (born 3 December 1960)Ventress, Peter John, (born 3 Dec. 1960), Chairman, Galliford Try plc, since 2016." WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO is a British businessman who has been non-executive chairman of Galliford Try since 2016. He beca ...

chief executive officer of Davis Service Group. The business was renamed as Berendsen plc with effect from 4 January 2011. In August 2015 the company appointed James Drummond Chief Executive Officer.

Takeover by Elis

On 18 May 2017 it was reported that the French laundry services group

Elis Elis or Ilia ( el, Ηλεία, ''Ileia'') is a historic region in the western part of the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece. It is administered as a regional unit of the modern region of Western Greece. Its capital is Pyrgos. Until 2011 it was ...

had proposed a

hostile takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to ...

of Berendsen. This occurred after Berendsen's board repeatedly rejected cash and share offers from Elis, claiming the offers undervalued the company. On 7 June 2017 Elis reached a preliminary agreement to acquire Berendsen in a deal valuing Berendsen at about £2.20bn. The transaction was completed in September 2017.

Controversies

In December 2017 Berendsen Cleanroom Services was fined £1.2 million by the

Competition and Markets Authority The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the competition regulator in United Kingdom. It is a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-com ...

(CMA) for breaking competition laws, after it was found "colluding" with rival company Micronclean Limited in a market-sharing agreement. Micronclean was also fined.

Operations

The Berendsen Group is divided into four business lines: * Hospitality * Healthcare * Workwear * Facility (mats, washroom and cleanroom)

Key people

References

External links

Corporate website
Defunct companies based in London Business services companies established in 1920 Service companies of the United Kingdom Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange Danish companies established in 1854 1920 establishments in England 2002 mergers and acquisitions 2017 mergers and acquisitions {{UK-service-company-stub