![Slotted Angle Assembly spanners](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Slotted_Angle_Assembly_spanners.jpg)
Dexion is a company name and brand particularly associated with the development of the "Dexion"
slotted angle
Slotted angle (also sometimes referred to as slotted angle iron) is a system of reusable metal strips used to construct shelving, frames, work benches, equipment stands and other structures. The name derives, first, from the use of elongated slots ...
steel strip construction system, widely used since the 1950s for domestic and commercial
shelving
A shelf ( : shelves) is a flat, horizontal plane used for items that are displayed or stored in a home, business, store, or elsewhere. It is raised off the floor and often anchored to a wall, supported on its shorter length sides by brackets ...
,
storage racking,
exhibition
An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition ...
stands and
accommodation purposes.
The original UK-based Dexion Ltd manufacturing company spawned several subsidiaries before eventually ceasing trading in 2003. Its bankruptcy saw the start of a long-running pension dispute with former workers.
Manufacture of Dexion products was taken over by the Norway-based
Constructor Group, since 2018 part of Gonvarri Material Handling. Dexion (Australia) Pty Ltd, spun off as a separate company in 2003, continues to trade successfully in the
Australasia
Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologica ...
n and south-east Asia markets.
History
Formation
![Demetrius Comino Portrait](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Demetrius_Comino_Portrait.jpg)
Dexion Ltd (from the Greek for 'right') was established in 1937 in London by Australia-born engineer and printer
Demetrius Comino
Demetrius Comino OBE (4 September 1902 – 27 September 1988)Darbyshire, Anthony, and Duckworth, Eric (2011), ''Demetrius Comino: A life and legacy of achievement'', Comino Foundation. – (accessed: 22 February 2012) was an Australian engineer, ...
, originally to deliver printing-related products.
[Darbyshire, Anthony, and Duckworth, Eric (2011), ''Demetrius Comino: A life and legacy of achievement'', Comino Foundation. – (accessed: 24 February 2012)] In solving problems within his printing business, Comino patented several products to improve efficiency in the printing process. However, his dissatisfaction with the poor versatility of traditional wooden
shelving
A shelf ( : shelves) is a flat, horizontal plane used for items that are displayed or stored in a home, business, store, or elsewhere. It is raised off the floor and often anchored to a wall, supported on its shorter length sides by brackets ...
used to store paper and other materials led him to experiment with steel strips to devise a reusable shelving system.
[Eiloari, Tim "Right Angle" ''New Scientist'', 13 December 1973, p.798.] In 1939 he commissioned
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
-based
Accles & Pollock
Accles & Pollock is a British tube manipulation company based in Oldbury, West Midlands.
History
The company was started in 1896 by James George Accles as Accles Ltd, based at Holford Mill in Perry Barr in Birmingham as a producer of cold-drawn ...
to manufacture an initial batch of angled sections made of steel with slots cut down one side and a long groove cut down the other. The
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
delayed further development of the product until 1947 when Comino was finally able to finance and open a small factory in
Chingford
Chingford is a town in east London, England, within the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The town is approximately north-east of Charing Cross, with Waltham Abbey to the north, Woodford Green and Buckhurst Hill to the east, Walthamstow t ...
, north-east London.
Growth of business
![Slotted Angle Storage System](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Slotted_Angle_Storage_System.jpg)
After initially disappointing sales, production increased to 50,000 feet per week in 1949, generating a business turnover of £500,000 that year. In 1950, production of Dexion strip reached 125,000 ft/week, and a new Dexion factory was opened in
Enfield
Enfield may refer to:
Places Australia
* Enfield, New South Wales
* Enfield, South Australia
** Electoral district of Enfield, a state electoral district in South Australia, corresponding to the suburb
** Enfield High School (South Australia)
...
.
Despite patent constraints
[Profile: Demetrius Comino "The secret is: think about first principles", ''New Scientist'', 25 July 1957, pp.20–21.] and competition from rival manufacturers producing similar products, Dexion Ltd grew rapidly. By 1956, the company's turnover exceeded £2m, it employed 500 UK workers in three UK factories, and had a further 200 employees in Australia, Belgium and Canada, plus licencees in France,
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
, Spain,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
and the United States.
Following the
1953 Ionian earthquake
The 1953 Ionian earthquake (also known as the Great Kefalonia earthquake) struck the southern Ionian Islands in Greece on August 12. In mid-August, there were over 113 recorded earthquakes in the region between Kefalonia and Zakynthos, and the m ...
in Greece, Dexion donated 20,000 feet of its product for new housing (a prototype house was designed within three weeks). "Operation Ulysses" attracted worldwide attention, including an article in ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine and
British Pathe
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
newsreels.
![Slotted angle ghana stadium](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Slotted_angle_ghana_stadium.jpg)
The main scoreboard and television platform at the
1956 Winter Olympics' ski stadium at
Cortina d'Ampezzo
Cortina d'Ampezzo (; lld, Anpezo, ; historical de-AT, Hayden) is a town and ''comune'' in the heart of the southern (Dolomitic) Alps in the Province of Belluno, in the Veneto region of Northern Italy. Situated on the Boite river, in an alp ...
was constructed from Dexion, and
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
's independence celebrations in 1957 involved grandstands for 10,000 people, six miles of crush barriers and 500 bunting poles – all made of Dexion.
The company's turnover grew from £2.5m in 1958 to £5.7m in 1962.
In 1963, Dexion again supported earthquake disaster relief work, following the
1963 Skopje earthquake
The 1963 Skopje earthquake ( mk, Скопски земјотрес од 1963 година, Skopski zemjotres od 1963 godina) was a 6.1 moment magnitude earthquake which occurred in Skopje, SR Macedonia (present-day North Macedonia), then part of ...
, providing building frame materials to enable 49 Royal Engineers to build 1560 dwellings, enough for two complete villages, one of which was nicknamed Dexiongrad.
In addition to the slotted angle product, Dexion developed other systems.
Antony Barrington Brown
Antony Barrington Brown FRPS (13 July 1927 – 24 January 2012) was a British designer, photographer, and explorer. He was known to many colleagues as BB.
Barrington Brown was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford, and following National Servi ...
(well known as a photographer and explorer) joined Dexion in the mid-1950s and devised Speedframe: square-section metal tubes which could be quickly fitted together to assemble tables and benches; the system made over £100 million over the next decade.
Flotation and acquisition
In 1968, the company was floated 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 one of the three largest issues that year, buoyed by results showing a 40% increase in world sales to £14m and a new record profit of £1.133m. A year later, turnover reached £21m, with profits rising to £1.5m.
By this stage, over one million feet per week of Dexion slotted angle were being produced, and sales were increasingly focused on uses in warehousing and distribution. The
Comino Foundation
The Comino Foundation is a United Kingdom-based educational charitable organization. It was founded in 1971 by, and takes its name, from Australia-born engineer and inventor Demetrius Comino and his daughter Anna.Darbyshire, Anthony, and Duckwo ...
educational charity was established in 1971, financially supported by the proceeds of dividend income following Dexion's 1968 public flotation.
The recession of the early 1970s proved more challenging, and following two poor trading years, Dexion came to the attention of Chicago-based steel company
Interlake Inc, and while an initial approach was rebuffed, the £9.4m sale eventually took place in October 1974, valuing Dexion at £4 million less than its 1968 flotation price. Comino, by this point Dexion's chairman, retired, though he retained a place on the company's board until 1978.
Under its new management, Dexion flourished for 20 years with sales reaching £200m by 1995. Interlake sold the Dexion businesses in December 1997 to the English investment company
Apax Partners
Apax Partners LLP is a British private equity firm, headquartered in London, England. The company also operates out of six other offices in New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Munich and Shanghai. As of December 2017, the firm, including its ...
. In 1999, after clearing European anti-monopoly concerns, Apax and Norwegian industrial investment company
Aker RGI
Aker ASA is a Norwegian industrial investment company with ownership interests concentrated in oil and gas, renewable energy and green technologies, maritime assets, marine biotechnology, and industrial software. The company is listed on Oslo St ...
merged their warehouse technologies and material handling units to form the Dexion Group Ltd (Apax) and Constructor AS (Aker); in 2000, the Dexion Group was acquired by Aker and merged with Constructor, while the Australia/Asia Pacific operations were sold. In 2007 Dexion generated a turnover of €70m and, as part of the Aker Material Handling group of companies, was sold to the Swedish finance investor
Altor Equity Partners.
In January 2018, Constructor Group A/S (which in 2010 had a turnover of €100m from operations in 30 European countries)
was acquired by Gonvarri Steel Services which, in March 2018, changed its name to Gonvarri Material Handling while continuing to market the Dexion, Kasten and Constructor product brands.
Dexion pensions controversy
UK manufacture ceased in May 2003, when Dexion's UK businesses were placed into administration, a step that also triggered the automatic winding-up of the Dexion Group Pension and Assurance Scheme, jeopardising the
occupational pensions
A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...
of over 1750 members of its pension fund. This prompted widespread protests, with Dexion one of several examples cited by unions and MPs (including
Michael Penning, MP for the
Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead () is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of London, which is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2011 census was 97,500.
Developed after the Second World War as a ne ...
constituency where one of Dexion's main UK factories was located) campaigning against what they saw as the excesses of private equity investors.
Dexion today
Dexion-branded warehouse solutions continue to be marketed by Gonvarri Material Handling.
Dexion (Australia) Pty Ltd trades successfully in the Australasian and south-east Asia markets.
References
{{reflist
External links
DexionConstructor GroupDexion StoreDexion Italia
Engineering companies of England
1937 establishments in England
Manufacturing companies established in 1937
Manufacturing companies based in London