Viking Direct, trading as Viking, is an office supply mail order catalogue company based in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and a

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

of Office Depot Europe. It is headquartered in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...

. Founded in 1960 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, Viking operates in over eleven countries worldwide, and employs 1,300 people in the United Kingdom. The company is a mail order seller of office supplies to small and medium sized business.

History

Viking began in 1960, as a small office supply retailer located in

. The store was opened on January 7, 1960, by Rolf Ostern. Ostern supplemented the retail operation with a catalogue, and this would become the primary marketing technique of the company. In 1969 Ostern changed the name of his store to Viking Office Supplies and moved to a new location. By the middle of the 1970s, Viking had established itself as a West Coast mail order retailer of discount office supplies to small and medium sized businesses. At that time, the company began a geographic expansion. Irwin Helford became chairman in 1984, and his photo appeared on the cover of Viking catalogues for many years. On September 1, 1988, Viking was sold by its founders in a leveraged buyout to the VOP Acquisition Corporation. This company had been founded by Viking's management and the New York investment banking house of Dillon Read & Company, along with some of their affiliates, for the express purpose of purchasing Viking. In December 1989, VOP was merged into its subsidiary, Viking Office Products, in preparation for the company's initial public offering of stock. On March 14, 1990, Viking offered stock to the public on the NASDAQ stock exchange, selling 2,300,000 shares at a price of $10.50 per share to raise $25 million. The company made its first move overseas in September, 1990. At that time, Viking established a United Kingdom subsidiary, Viking Direct Limited, and opened a facility in Leicester, England. In making this move, Viking hoped to gain a toe hold in the European Economic Community before the planned unification of that market. In a brief time, Viking Direct became the largest mail order marketer of office supplies in the United Kingdom. The source of Viking's steady growth was its state of the art database and catalogue customising technology. In May 1998, Viking Office Products merged with

Office Depot The ODP Corporation is an American office supply holding company headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The company has combined annual sales of approximately $11 billion, and employs about 38,000 associates with businesses in the United States. ...

. The following year the company began to move online, launching e-commerce site www.viking-direct.co.uk. In May 2016, following a failed merger with Staples, Office Depot Inc. agreed to sell its European business, including Viking, to

Aurelius Group Aurelius Group is an investment company with offices in five European countries. History In 2005, Dirk Markus and Gert Purkert, both former McKinsey consultants, founded Aurelius as a privately held investment vehicle investing in small- and m ...

for an undisclosed purchase price. In 2021, Aurelius sold the business to The RAJA Group.

Products

Viking Direct sells print supplies, office supplies, paper and mailing, technology, furniture, and writing instruments.

References

External links

Official Viking Direct website
{{Authority control Retail companies established in 1960 Companies based in Leicester Office supply companies of the United Kingdom 1960 establishments in California