Former type Public Fate Merged Headquarters London, United Kingdom Successor Thorn EMI | Industry Electrical engineering Defunct 1998 Founded 1928 Ceased operations 1998 | |
Founders Alfred Deutsch, Jules Thorn | ||
Thorn Electrical Industries Limited was an electrical engineering business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange but it merged with EMI Group to form Thorn EMI in 1979. It demerged again in 1996 and became a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was acquired by Nomura Group just two years later.
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History
Jules Thorn and Alfred Deutsch founded the company in March 1928 as The Electric Lamp Service Company Ltd. Thorn had worked in England as a travelling salesman for Olso, an Austrian manufacturer of gas mantles. When Olso went bankrupt, Thorn decided to stay in England. Deutsch, an Austrian engineer, visited Thorn in 1928 and was persuaded to stay to help organize the company's production process.
In 1932 Thorn acquired the Atlas Lamp Works and began making light bulbs in Edmonton, north London. The company grew rapidly to become Thorn Lighting, one of the world's largest producers of lamps, luminaires and lighting components. The name changed to Thorn Electrical Industries in November 1936. The company later began to diversify by buying Ferguson Radio Corporation in the late 1950s and Ultra Radio & Television in 1961.
In 1965 Thorn took over local Edmonton firm Glover and Main, gas-appliance manufacturers.
Other notable brands within the Thorn group over the years have included Radio Rentals, DER (both TV rental), Rumbelows (electrical goods), Tricity (cookers and fridges), Kenwood (food mixers), Thorn Kidde (fire protection), TMD (microwave equipment) and Mazda (light bulbs).
Merger with EMI
In October 1979 Thorn merged with EMI to form Thorn EMI.
On 16 August 1996 Thorn EMI shareholders voted in favour of de-merging Thorn. The electronics and rentals divisions were divested as Thorn plc.
Future Rentals, a subsidiary of Nomura Group, acquired Thorn in 1998; it subsequently passed to Terra Firma Capital Partners who set up the BrightHouse chain. The remainder of the company was sold to a private buyer in June 2007.