Ferguson plc


Ferguson plc is a Jersey registered multinational plumbing and heating products distributor with its head office in Winnersh Triangle, United Kingdom. Ferguson has approximately 35,000 employees across three regions. Its brands include Ferguson Enterprises, Wolseley and William Wilson.
Ferguson plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Wolseley plc changed its name to Ferguson plc in March 2017, to reflect the primacy of its operations in the United States. The company is registered in Jersey. The company continues to trade as Wolseley in the United Kingdom and Canada.

History

Wolseley

Ferguson's business began in 1887 named Wolseley and making sheep shearing machinery. Herbert Austin, who had worked on Wolseley's shearing machinery development in Melbourne Australia from 1887, when he was aged just 20, was appointed its manager and received a share of its equity.
Seeking other suitable products Austin designed his first car in 1896, and for the next four years, continued to develop and improve his designs. Though the board did allow Austin to purchase some machinery to build cars, they decided around 1900, it was unlikely to be a profitable industry. In 1901, Wolseley's embryo car business was acquired by Vickers, Sons and Maxim.
The postwar rise of synthetic textiles sharply reduced the demand for wool and the necessary machinery, and in 1960, Wolseley diversified activities, by buying Nu Way Heating Limited. Nu Way Burners Limited was founded in 1932 in Vines Lane, Droitwich Spa, Oil Burner Components Limited was founded by Nu Way in 1959, as a national spares organisation. Out of that grew O.B.C. Limited, and then Wolseley Centers Limited, the major distributor of plumbing and central heating equipment.
In 1965, Wolseley purchased Granville Controls and Yorkshire Heating Supplies.

Ferguson

Wolseley continued to expand buying both manufacturing and distribution businesses. In 1982, it entered the market in the United States by acquiring Ferguson Enterprises, a distributor of plumbing supplies, with around fifty branches on the East Coast of the United States. In 1984, some of the manufacturing businesses were sold off, and since that time Wolseley has been mainly a distribution business.
There were further acquisitions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe. Wolseley moved into Europe, by buying French plumbing supplies business Brossette in February 1992. Acquisition of many more distribution businesses followed. In April 2000, Wolseley sold most of its remaining manufacturing businesses to Cinven for £215 million.
Wolseley issued a profit warning in July 2008, after the credit crunch, and announced 6,000 job losses. It sold Build Center and Brossete to Saint-Gobain in July 2011, and ISB Group in April 2015. Bois & Matériaux went to OpenGate Capital in November 2015.

Ferguson plc

Wolseley announced it would rebrand as Ferguson effective 31 July 2017, because almost all of its business was now in the United States, in the name of Ferguson Enterprises. For the moment, it would continue to use the name Wolseley in the United Kingdom and Canada, for its brand recognition. The stock listing switched to new holding company Ferguson plc on 1 August 2017.

Operations

Summary

Ferguson is organised geographically as follows:
In the United Kingdom, Ferguson trades as Wolseley and is based in Warwick in Warwickshire. Following a restructuring of the business in the country announced in February 2016, which resulted in most of the trading brands being renamed, and brought under the single brand of Wolseley, the company now trades in the United Kingdom only as Wolseley and William Wilson. William Wilson is supplier of plumbing, heating and bathroom products in Scotland.

United States

Ferguson plc operates in the United States as Ferguson Enterprises.

Canada and Central Europe

Ferguson plc operates in Canada as Wolseley Canada, where it is organised into the following businesses: Plumbing, Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration, Waterworks and Industrial.