wallpaper
Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" (so t ...
brand owned by CWV Ltd.
Developed from a family-owned wallpaper company founded in the 1970s, during the 1980s Coloroll Group became a dominant publicly listed
home furnishing
Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...
s business, which collapsed in 1990 through excessive debt. Of the ten residual brands that survived the collapse, nine of the businesses survive presently.
Foundation
The company was founded in 1970 by the Gatward family, as a printed
paper bag
A paper bag is a bag made of paper, usually kraft paper. Paper bags can be made either with virgin or recycled fibres to meet customers’ demands. Paper bags are commonly used as shopping carrier bags and for packaging of some consumer go ...
manufacturer. After hiring marketing manager John Bray, he developed a strategy to move into wallpaper manufacture. Hiring designers John Wilman and Linda Beard, they developed a range similar to the classic fashion look developed by Welsh entrepreneur
Laura Ashley
Laura Ashley (née Mountney; 7 September 1925 – 17 September 1985) was a Welsh fashion designer and businesswoman. She originally made furnishing materials in the 1950s, expanding the business into clothing design and manufacture in the 1960s ...
. To develop new overseas markets, Bray hired John Ashcroft from competitor
Crown Wallpaper
Crown Wallpaper, also known as the Crown Wallpaper Company, was an agglomeration of wallpaper manufacturers in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain ...
as export manager.
Coloroll Group
Appointed managing director in 1981, Ashcroft bought the Gatwards and Bray out of the business in 1984.
Ashcroft's strategy was to extend the Wilman/Beard designs across a range of home furnishings, to provide a co-ordinated whole home look to the consumer. After floating the business in 1985 – leading shareholders included the pension funds of Scottish Amicable and
British Coal
The British Coal Corporation was a nationalised corporation responsible for the mining of coal in the United Kingdom from 1987 until it was effectively dissolved in 1997. The corporation was created by renaming its predecessor, the National Co ...
– the company spent £420 million in the next five years on acquisitions, of which £16 million was spent in the United States, taking the strategic vision into a reality.
The brands they bought included:
*Alexander Drew, printing
*Burlington Wallcoverings, later sold to Graham & Brown
*
Denby Pottery Company
Denby Pottery Company Ltd is a British manufacturer of pottery, named after the village of Denby in Derbyshire where it is based. It primarily sells hand-crafted stoneware tableware, kitchenware and serveware products including dinner sets, mugs ...
*
Edinburgh Crystal
Edinburgh Crystal was a cut glass manufactured in Scotland between 1867 and 2006, and was also the name of the manufacturing company. In addition to drinking glasses, Edinburgh Crystal made decanters, bowls, baskets, and bells, in several ranges ...
Royal Winton
Royal Winton is an English brand of ceramics, made by Grimwades Limited, a Stoke-on-Trent based company founded in 1885. The brand is particularly associated with chintzware.
History
The company was founded by Leonard Lumsden Grimwade, an exper ...
Staffordshire Tableware
Staffordshire Tableware Ltd. was a producer of mugs, tableware and dinnerware based in Stoke-on-Trent, England.
It was formerly the ceramics division of the Coloroll Group. Coloroll went into receivership in 1990 and the ceramics division was s ...
*
William Barrett Group
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
, furniture, later bought by property developers with assets sold to
Hampson Industries
Hampson Industries plc was a large British provider of engineering services to the aerospace and automotive industries. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index. It is now in administrati ...
*
Edward Fogarty
Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”.
History
The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sax ...
, duvet/pillow supplier
* Walmates Vinyl, US wallpaper manufacturer
Collapse
In 1988, the group paid £215 million for recently created clothing and carpet conglomerate John Crowther, which had not itself been fully integrated. When Coloroll bought the John Crowther group they acquired Herbert Johnson. Coloroll sold this London firm of hatters to a management buy-out team called the Response Group.See Prior, Katherine (2012). ''In Good Hands: 250 Years of Craftsmanship at
Swaine Adeney Brigg
Swaine London, known previously as Swaine Adeney Brigg is one of the oldest names in luxury goods and has traded in London's St James's for over 270 years. The House remains one of the most celebrated and decorated makers and it is the ultimate de ...
''. Cambridge: John Adamson. , p. 133. In 1989, the United States wallpaper operations were sold off to create cash. In 1990, a refinancing exercise led to an audit by the banks that showed that group debt was at £350 million. Refusing to underwrite the rising debt without an additional capital injection, proposed buyer
Candover Investments
Candover Investments plc. was a British-based, private equity firm, specialising in arranging and leading large buyouts and buyins. Candover Investments is structured as an investment trust. On 31 August 2010, Candover announced that it would unw ...
withdrew when the debt level increased to nearly £500 million.
In June 1990, the High Court agreed at the banks' request to the appointment of
Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...
as receivers. In six months they agreed eight
management buyout
A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...
s, and sold off two other business, including a sale to Blackburn family-run business, Graham & Brown. 1,500 employees in non-saleable businesses were made redundant, while less than half of the £200 million owed to the banks was recovered; lead lender
NatWest
National Westminster Bank, commonly known as NatWest, is a major retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom based in London, England. It was established in 1968 by the merger of National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank. In 2000, it ...
took a £25 million loss. Swedish investment companies
Mercurius
Mercury (; la, Mercurius ) is a major god in Roman religion and mythology, being one of the 12 Dii Consentes within the ancient Roman pantheon. He is the god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence, messages, communication (including divinati ...