Type Public company Founders Dean & Janet Hoyle Headquarters Wakefield, United Kingdom Founder Dean Hoyle Number of employees 6,500 | Industry Retail Operating income Revenue 353.3 million GBP (2015) Founded 1997 Net income 33.2 million GBP (2015) | |
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Key people Geoff Cooper(Chairman)
Richard Hayes (CEO) Products Greeting Cards, Calendars CEO Karen Hubbard (25 Apr 2016–) | ||
Bizarre card requests card factory
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.
Contents
Card factory madness
History
Dean Hoyle left school with no qualifications, having a self-confessed greater interest in football. 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.
In 1997, they opened their first shop under within the holding company Sportswift Ltd, purposefully choosing secondary retail locations which were cheaper. 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. This gave the company a profit-margin advantage over rivals, including Clinton Cards, 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). 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.
The couple put the business up for sale in January 2010 and on 8 April 2010 Charterhouse completed the £350 million purchase of the company. This enabled Dean Hoyle to later buy Huddersfield Town F.C. On 14 July 2011, Card Factory purchased gettingpersonal.co.uk for an undisclosed sum.
In May 2014 the company floated via an Initial Public Offering on the London Stock Exchange.
Operations
The company currently employs around 6,500 people, 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 and £3 million by 2014.
Controversy
The company has been successfully prosecuted for Health and Safety infringements on a number of occasions. Incidents have included poor stock management, overstocking of stores, damaged equipment, inadequate risk assessments and staff training.