Card Factory
 |
|
| 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] | |
|
Number of employees
|
6,500 (2014) |
| Website | www.cardfactory.co.uk |
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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
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- ↑ Charity cash on the cards from Dean - Local - SpenboroughGuardian Archived 1 February 2011 at WebCite
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