Card Factory

Card Factory plc
Public company
Industry Retail
Founded 1997
Founders Dean & Janet Hoyle
Headquarters Wakefield, West Yorkshire
Key people
 Geoff Cooper(Chairman)
Richard Hayes (CEO)
Products Greeting Cards, Calendars
Revenue £353.3 million (2015)[1]
£79.4 million (2015)[1]
£33.2 million (2015)[1]
Owner Invesco (27%)
Artemis (12%)
Old Mutual Global Investors (10%)
Number of employees
 6,500 (2014)
Website www.cardfactory.co.uk
Card Factory, Southside Wandsworth, London
Card Factory store in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
Card Factory shop in Wetherby, West Yorkshire

Card Factory is a chain of greeting card and gift stores in United Kingdom founded by Dean Hoyle and his wife Janet; the first store opened in 1997. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

History

Dean Hoyle left school with no qualifications, having a self-confessed greater interest in football.[2] With his wife Janet, from 1993 they began buying cards wholesale, and selling them from the back of their van at car boot sales and public open-air events.[2]

In 1997, they opened their first shop under within the holding company Sportswift Ltd, purposefully choosing secondary retail locations which were cheaper.[2] After opening a few stores, whilst Janet founded and headed-up the internal design and print function, Dean concentrated on expanding the business, with a nominal target of 500 retail outlets.[2] This gave the company a profit-margin advantage over rivals, including Clinton Cards,[3] allowing their advertising to claim that they have not increased prices for ten years.

The couple built a board to expand the business, including: Keith Pacey (Chairman of Maplin); Richard Hayes (Managing Director, their ex-Bank Manager); Chris Beck (Commercial director, ex-Grant Thornton); Darren Bryant (Group finance director, ex-PricewaterhouseCoopers).[2] On 28 November 2008, Card Factory purchased about 80 of the 288 stores from failed greetings card company Celebrations Group (which traded as Card Warehouse and Cardfair), as part of a rescue package, securing around 500 of the 1,800 jobs at Celebrations.[4]

The couple put the business up for sale in January 2010[2] and on 8 April 2010 Charterhouse completed the £350 million purchase of the company.[5] This enabled Dean Hoyle to later buy Huddersfield Town F.C.[2] On 14 July 2011, Card Factory purchased gettingpersonal.co.uk for an undisclosed sum.[6]

In May 2014 the company floated via an Initial Public Offering on the London Stock Exchange.[3]

Operations

The company currently employs around 6,500 people,[5] mostly in front line positions in its stores. Their advertising claims they have not increased prices for ten years.

Macmillan Cancer Support is the company's chosen charity; Card Factory donations to the charity had totalled £1 million by 2008[7] and £3 million by 2014.[8]

Controversy

The company has been successfully prosecuted for Health and Safety infringements on a number of occasions. Incidents have included poor stock management,[9] overstocking of stores,[10] damaged equipment, inadequate risk assessments and staff training.[11]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Preliminary Results for the year ended 31 January 2015". Card Factory. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Nicola Harrison (26 March 2010). "Dean and Janet Hoyle". Retail Week. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
  3. 1 2 Nick Bubb (19 May 2014). "Nick Bubb's verdict: Are the Card Factory and Game IPOs growth stories?". Retail Week. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
  4. ↑ "Wakefield card firm Card Factory's rescue package saves 500 jobs". Yorkshire Evening Post. 28 November 2008. Retrieved 15 July 2011.
  5. 1 2 "Card Factory's £350m Private Equite Sale Completed". Yorkshire Evening Post. 8 April 2010. Retrieved 10 April 2010.
  6. ↑ "GettingPersonal.co.uk (Online retailer of Personalised Gifts) is sold to Card Factory for undisclosed sum". Manchester Evening News. 14 July 2011. Retrieved 14 July 2011.
  7. ↑ Charity cash on the cards from Dean - Local - SpenboroughGuardian Archived 1 February 2011 at WebCite
  8. ↑ "Macmillan has been working in partnership with Card Factory since 2006 and this year saw their total reach £3 million.". Macmillan Cancer Support. Retrieved 10 February 2015.
  9. ↑ "Card retailer culpable for pensioner's fall". Health and Safety at Work. 1 October 2008. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  10. ↑ "Firm fined over safety breach". WalesOnline. 30 October 2008. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  11. ↑ "Health and safety breaches cost firm over £40,000". Leicester City Council. 10 December 2009. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
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