History
Findel Plc History
1962 - Fine Art Developments Limited floated on the Birmingham Stock Exchange. The group's principal activities were the design and manufacture of greeting cards and gift wrap together with a mail order service for national charities and fund raising
1965 - Entered the general mail order market with its first catalogue, offering products sold via agents to the consumer market.
1982 - Far East buying office established in Hong Kong
1989 - Entered educational supplies market through acquisition of Hestair Hope
1992 - State of the art £40m automated warehousing facility opened in Accrington
1996 - Strategically, group focus moved to Direct mail order from declining Agency mail order and substantially increase the product offering, together with the provision of extended credit to the customer base
1997 - The group demerged into two distinct businesses: Fine Art Developments plc with sales of £235m retaining Mail Order and Education, and Creative Publishing plc with sales of £149m acquiring the card, giftwrap and stationery manufacturing operations
1998 - Creative publishing plc acquired by Hallmark Cards for consideration of £188m
2000- Fine Art Developments changed its name to Findel plc
2001 - The charity mail order division was sold to an MBO team for £20m
2001 - Novara plc, a rival educational supplies business, was acquired for a total consideration of £57.4m
2003 - Acquisition of three further educational supplies businesses for a total consideration of £7.1m
2004 - Acquisition of GLS Educational supplies for consideration of £26,9m
2005 - Findel announced new record for sales £458m
2006 - Findel announces strategic initiative to develop new Cash with Order division and acquires Letterbox, I Want One of Those, Kitbag and purchases remaining shares in Confetti Network. Kleeneze also added to Home Shopping Division
2007 - The Cotswold Company enhances the Cash with Order business. Philograph Publications Limited Group (Philip & Tacey Ltd in the UK and Didax Inc in the USA) was purchased for £1.3m cash consideration. Synergy Managed Equipment Services Limited (SMES) was purchased for a debt free maximum cash consideration of £1.4m. SMES provides a managed wheelchair products and support service to the healthcare market
2008 - Findel announces new record for sales: £634m
Related links
Board of Directors
Overview of Our Operations
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