De La Rue

De La Rue plc (UK: /ˈdɛləruː/, US: /ˌdɛləˈruː/) is a British company headquartered in Basingstoke, England that manufactures paper and security printed products including banknotes, passports and tax stamps. It also has a factory on the Team Valley Trading Estate in Gateshead, and other facilities in Debden in Essex and Bathford in Somerset.[2] There are overseas offices in Kenya, Sri Lanka and Malta. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

De La Rue plc
Public limited company
Traded asLSE: DLAR
ISINGB00B1XN5J68 
IndustryPrinting
PredecessorWaterlow and Sons, Harrison and Sons 
Founded1821
FounderRyan Burnett 
HeadquartersBasingstoke, England
Key people
  • Kevin Loosemore (Chairman)
  • Clive Vacher (CEO)
Revenue £564.8 million (2019)[1]
£31.5 million (2019)[1]
£18.3 million (2019)[1]
Websitewww.delarue.com

History

The company was founded by Thomas de la Rue, who moved from Guernsey to London in 1821 and set up in business as a 'Leghorn' straw hat maker, then as a stationer and printer.[3] In 1831 he secured his business a Royal Warrant to produce playing cards. In 1855 it started printing postage stamps and in 1860 banknotes.[3] The company's first banknotes were made for Mauritius.[4] In 1896, the family partnership was converted into a private company.[3]

In 1921, the de la Rue family sold their interests. The company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1947.[3] Then called Thomas De La Rue & Company, Limited, it changed its name in 1958 to The De La Rue Company Limited. A takeover bid for De La Rue was made by the Rank Organisation in 1968, but this was rejected by the Monopolies commission as being against the public interest.[5] In 1991 the company's name was changed again – this time to De La Rue plc.[3]

In 1965 De La Rue established a joint venture with the Italian printer and inventor Gualtiero Giori called De La Rue Giori. Based in Switzerland, the company specialized in building banknote printing equipment.[6] The company printed banknotes for the Central Bank of Iran during the 1960s.[7]

In 1995, the company acquired Portals Limited which had been listed on the London stock market since 1904. For almost 300 years Portals had been regarded as the leading banknote paper manufacturer in the world, having manufactured banknote paper for the Bank of England since 1724.[8]

In 1997, De La Rue acquired Harrison and Sons, the stamp and banknote printers based in High Wycombe. The factory closed permanently in 2003.[9]

In early 2002, De La Rue purchased Sequoia Voting Systems, a California based company that was a large provider of electronic voting systems in the United States, from Jefferson Smurfit Group plc for $23 million.[10] After losing money for three years in a business way out of the company's traditional lines, on March 2005 Sequoia was sold to Smartmatic, a multi-national technology company which had developed advanced election systems, voting machines included.

In 2003, the company acquired the Debden based banknote printing operations of the Bank of England.[11] In 2003 and 2004 the company supplied banknotes to Iraq.[12][13]

The company was recognised by Hermann Simon as a role model for other small- to medium-sized businesses in his book Hidden Champions.[14]

The Highest Perfection,[15] a history of De La Rue was published in 2011. Written by Peter Pugh for De La Rue, it covered the years 1712–2003.[15]

In August 2014, the company announced the appointment of Martin Sutherland (formerly of BAE Systems Applied Intelligence) as chief executive officer.[16]

In 2016, the Cash Handling division (Cash Processing Systems) was sold to Privet Capital. In September 2016, the Bank of England issued its polymer five pound note, the first note from the bank to be printed on polymer.[17] In December 2016, the company announced it had purchased the DuPont Authentication division.[18][19]

In March 2018, the company sold the paper business. De La Rue retained a 10% share in the new business, Portals.[20] In April 2018, the company decided to appeal against the decision of the British government to manufacture passports in France.[21] It subsequently decided against appealing.[22]

In October 2019 the company sold its Identity Solutions business to HID Global for £42m.[23]

Operations
The Debden Security Printing Ltd printing facility, owned by De La Rue, which prints Bank of England banknotes.

Banknotes

De La Rue sells high-security paper and printing technology for over 69 national currencies.[24]

Security printing and papermaking

De La Rue also produces a wide range of other secure documents, including:[24]

Past products

Playing cards

In 1843 De La Rue established its first overseas trade, as de la Rue's brother Paul travelled to Russia to advise on the making of playing cards. Thomas de la Rue's designs for playing cards are the basis for the modern standard design. The playing card business was sold to John Waddington in 1969.[25]

Postage stamps

The company has also printed postage stamps for the United Kingdom and some of its colonies, for Italy and for the Confederate States of America. Some famous stamps such as the Cape of Good Hope triangulars were printed by De La Rue & Co. after Perkins Bacon fell out of favour with the postal authorities of the time. The first 50 years of postage stamp production were chronicled in John Easton's The De La Rue History of British and Foreign Postage Stamps 1855–1901 (Faber & Faber, London, 1958).

Writing instruments

De La Rue claims to have developed the first practical fountain pen in 1881 and was a leading manufacturer of fountain pens in Britain. Products were marketed under the "Onoto" brand. Production of fountain pens by De La Rue ceased in Britain in 1958 but continued for a few more years in Australia.[26]

Board games

During the 1930s De La Rue created a number of board games. These included a cricket game, Stumpz, which was produced in a number of different editions, and Round The Horn, a game which re-created the then annual race of grain-laden, square-rigged sailing cargo ships from Australia to London. The games consisted of high quality components and used playing cards as part of the component set.[27]

  • The King of Diamonds from a De La Rue pack c. 1860.
  • Cape of Good Hope triangular postage stamp of 1853.
  • A sheet of Stamps for St. Christopher, 1884.
  • Confederate States of America postage stamp, 1862
gollark: It acts as a great way to disguise the real bad things he does.
gollark: I don't actually live there, so I don't know MUCH about it.
gollark: orange man badhe is unironically bad but somehow doing bad things constantly makes people stop caring???
gollark: * probably basically always
gollark: But also think the government would manage to mess it up horribly if they ended up getting involved in some way.

See also

References
  1. "Annual Report 2019" (PDF). De La Rue plc. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
  2. "How did Libyan money come to be printed in Britain?". BBC. 2 September 2011. Retrieved 2 September 2011.
  3. "Our History – De La Rue". www.delarue.com.
  4. "UK banknote printer fears for its future". BBC News. 26 November 2019.
  5. Competition Commission Reports Archived 4 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  6. International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 34 (2000), p. 141
  7. Shargi, Ali (15 December 1998), ESKENĀS, VIII/6, Encyclopædia Iranica, pp. 615–624
  8. "Cash machine". The Economist. 11 August 2012. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  9. "Up to 350 jobs to go at printing firm". Your Local Guardian. 7 October 2002. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  10. Sequoia Voting systems Receives Mandate from De La Rue, Kiosk Marketplace 29 May 2002
  11. Bank of England: Sale of Bank Note Printing Operations
  12. Moore, By James. "Iraq windfall gives lift to De La Rue". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  13. "De La Rue shares surge on deal to print new banknotes for post-Saddam". The Independent. 8 July 2003. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  14. Simon, Hermann: Hidden Champions of the 21st Century : Success Strategies of unknown World Market Leaders. London: Springer, 2009.- ISBN 978-0-387-98147-5.
  15. Pugh, Peter (2011). The Highest Perfection. Icon Books Ltd. ISBN 978-184831-335-4.
  16. "Banknote printer De La Rue appoints BAE's Sutherland as boss". The Telegraph. 29 August 2014. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
  17. "The New Fiver has been issued | Bank of England". www.bankofengland.co.uk. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  18. "De La Rue to Acquire DuPont Authentication Business | Healthcare Packaging". www.healthcarepackaging.com. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  19. Goldsmith, Courtney (12 December 2016). "De La Rue shares rise after it says it will acquire DuPont Authentication". Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  20. "DE LA RUE PLC Completion of paper transaction". polaris.brighterir.com.
  21. Elgot, Jessica (2 April 2018). "Post-Brexit passports contract: De La Rue to appeal against decision". the Guardian. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  22. Monaghan, Angela (18 April 2018). "De La Rue drops passport appeal and issues profit warning". The Guardian.
  23. Keller, Sinead. "De La Rue announces sale of Identity Solutions Business". www.delarue.com.
  24. "About us". delarue.com. Archived from the original on 25 June 2014. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  25. Wintle. "History of De La Rue". The World of Playing Cards. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  26. "History of Onoto Pens". onoto.com. Archived from the original on 23 April 2015. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  27. "Stumpz by Thos. de la Rue & Co. Ltd". replaycricket.com. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
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