Pilkington

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pilkington plc is the largest glass manufacturer in the United Kingdom. It is based in St Helens, Merseyside. It was formerly an independent company listed on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, but in 2006 it was taken over by Nippon Sheet Glass of Japan.

The company was founded in 1826 as a family-run business in St Helens. It was at one time the biggest employer in the northwest industrial town. The distinctive blue-glass head office still dominates the town's skyline.

Pilkington has turnover of £2.7 billion, with manufacturing operations on five continents, and sales in more than a hundred countries.

In 1957 Pilkington invented the Float Process, a revolutionary method of glass production floating molten glass over a bath of molten tin, abolishing the costly need to polish and grind glass to make it clear. Pilkington then sold the Float Process under licence to the rest of the world.

In late 2005 the company received a takeover bid from the smaller Japanese company Nippon Sheet Glass. The initial bid and the first revised bid were not accepted, but on 16th February 2006 Nippon increased its offer for the 80% it did not already own to 165 pence per share (£1.8 billion or $3.14 billion in total) and this was accepted. The combined company will compete for global leadership in the glass industry with the leading Japanese glassmaker Asahi Glass, which had around a quarter of the global market at the time of the deal. Pilkington had 19% and Nippon Sheet Glass around half that. [1]