Viking began in 1960, as a small office supply retailer located in Los Angeles, California. The store was opened on January 7, 1960, by Rolf Ostern. Ostern supplemented the retail operation with a catalogue, and this would become the primary marketing technique of the company. In 1969 Ostern changed the name of his store to Viking Office Supplies and moved to a new location. By the middle of the 1970s, Viking had established itself as a West Coast mail order retailer of discount office supplies to small and medium sized businesses. At that time, the company began a geographic expansion. On September 1, 1988, Viking was sold by its founders in a leveraged buyout to the VOP Acquisition Corporation. This company had been founded by Viking's management and the New York investment banking house of Dillon Read & Company, along with some of their affiliates, for the express purpose of purchasing Viking. In December 1989, VOP was merged into its subsidiary, Viking Office Products, in preparation for the company's initial public offering of stock. On March 14, 1990, Viking offered stock to the public on the NASDAQ stock exchange, selling 2,300,000 shares at a price of $10.50 per share to raise $25 million. The company made its first move overseas in September, 1990. At that time, Viking established a United Kingdom subsidiary, Viking Direct Limited, and opened a facility in Leicester, England. In making this move, Viking hoped to gain a toe hold in the European Economic Community before the planned unification of that market. In a brief time, Viking Direct became the largest mail order marketer of office supplies in the United Kingdom. The source of Viking's steady growth was its state of the art database and catalogue customising technology. In May 1998, Viking Office Products merged with Office Depot. The following year the company began to move online, launching e commerce site www.viking-direct.co.uk. In May 2016, following a failed merger with Staples, Office Depot Inc. agreed to sell its European business, including Viking, to The Aurelius Group for an undisclosed purchase price.
Products
Viking Direct sells print supplies, office supplies, paper and mailing, technology, furniture, and writing instruments.
