 | |
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| LSE: LRD | |
| Industry | Electronics |
| Founded | 1824 |
| Defunct | 2018 |
| Fate | Acquired |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
Key people | Dr Martin Read CBE Chairman Tony Quinlan CEO |
| Revenue | £936.6 million (2017) [1] |
| £63.8 million (2017) [1] | |
| £71.8 million (2017) [1] | |
| Website | www.laird-plc.com |
Laird plc was a leading British-based electronics and technology business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by Advent International in July 2018.
The company was founded by John Laird in 1824 as Birkenhead Ironworks in Birkenhead, Wirral. [2] In 1903 it merged with Charles Cammell & Company Limited and, as Cammell Laird , went on to build numerous ships for the Royal Navy. [2] In 1976 its transport division, which traded as Metro-Cammell , secured a major order to build mass transit railway carriages for the Hong Kong Mass Transit System. [3]
In 1977 its shipbuilding business was nationalised and in 1989 it disposed of its mass transit railway activities. [4] In the 1980s it moved into security products and in the 1990s into electronics. In 2000 it disposed of its automotive industry activities [5] and more recently, in 2007, it disposed of its security business to Lupus Capital. [6] In 2008 it changed its name from Laird Group PLC to Laird PLC. [7]
The company subsequently expanded in electronics with acquisitions such as Wisconsin based LS Research in November 2015 [8] and German based Novero in December 2015. [9]
In March 2018 Advent International made an offer for the company valuing at £1 billion. [10] The transaction was completed in July 2018. [11]
Advent subsequently broke Laird up, selling Laird Connected Vehicles to Molex Electronic Technologies in September 2018, [12] Laird Thermal Systems to Bregal Unternehmerk in July 2021, [13] Laird Performance Materials to DuPont also in July 2021, [14] and Laird Antennas to TE Connectivity in November 2021. [15]
The company's had operations organised as follows:
Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in 1867, acquired more businesses, and began branching out into military hardware and shipbuilding.
The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. The company was founded in 1886, was Britain's largest private employer with over 250,000 employees in the 1980s, and at its peak in the 1990s, made profits of over £1 billion a year.
Alstom is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional and urban trains along with trams.
Birkenhead is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 88,818.
Cammell Laird is a British shipbuilding company. It was formed from the merger of Laird Brothers of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century. The company also built railway rolling stock until 1929, when that side of the business was separated and became part of the Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage & Wagon Company.
The Midland Railway Carriage and Wagon Company was a Birmingham, England, based manufacturer of railway carriages and wagons. It was not part of the Midland Railway.
Metro-Cammell, formally the Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company (MCCW), was an English manufacturer of railway carriages, locomotives and railway wagons, based in Saltley, and subsequently Washwood Heath, in Birmingham. The company was purchased by GEC Alsthom in May 1989; the Washwood Heath factory closed in 2005 and was demolished in early 2019.
The Mumbai Metro is a rapid transit (MRT) system serving the city of Mumbai and the wider Mumbai Metropolitan Region in Maharashtra, India. Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority is the responsible authority for maintaining the metro system. Maha Metro is responsible for all the metro rail projects undergoing in Maharashtra except the Mumbai Metropolitan Area. The system is designed to reduce traffic congestion in the city, and supplement the overcrowded Mumbai Suburban Railway network. It is being built in three phases over a 15-year period, with overall completion expected in October 2026. Mumbai Metro is the sixth longest operational metro network in India with operational length of 46.4 km (28.8 mi) as of January 2023. When completed, the core system will comprise fourteen high-capacity metro railway lines and one metrolite line, spanning a total of 356.972 kilometres (221.812 mi), and serviced by 286 stations.
FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, which is based in Aberdeen in the north-east of Scotland. The company operates transport services in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
MTR Corporation Limited is a majority government-owned public transport operator and property developer in Hong Kong which operates the Mass Transit Railway, the most popular public transport network in Hong Kong. It is listed on the Hong Kong Exchange and is a component of the Hang Seng Index. The MTR additionally invests in railways across different parts of the world, including franchised contracts to operate rapid transit systems in London, Sweden, Beijing, Hangzhou, Macau, Shenzhen, Sydney, and a suburban rail system in Melbourne.
Bombardier Transportation was a Canadian-German rolling stock and rail transport manufacturer, headquartered in Berlin, Germany. It was one of the world's largest companies in the rail vehicle and equipment manufacturing and servicing industry. Bombardier Transportation had many regional offices, production and development facilities worldwide. It produced a wide range of products including passenger rail vehicles, locomotives, bogies, propulsion and controls. In February 2020, the company had 36,000 employees, and 63 manufacturing and engineering locations around the world. Formerly a division of Bombardier Inc., the company was acquired by French manufacturer Alstom on 29 January 2021.
The Macau Light Rapid Transit is a mass transit system in Macau and is also the first railway system in Macau. The first phase of the project started construction in February 2012, and the first section of the Taipa line was opened to the public on 10 December 2019. Currently, the Macau Light Rapid Transit is operated by MTR (Macau), a wholly-owned subsidiary of MTR.
Metrocab was a British brand of taxicabs, started by Metro Cammell Weymann in 1987 and from 2001 owned by Kamkorp.
Cammell Laird Social Club is the ninth album released by Birkenhead-based UK rock band Half Man Half Biscuit, in September 2002.
The East Rail line Metro Cammell EMU was a model of electric multiple unit built in 1980–1990 by Metro-Cammell for the original Kowloon–Canton Railway in Hong Kong. The 29 sets were owned by and were originally operated by the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation (KCRC). They were operated by MTR Corporation (MTRC) after it merged with KCRC in 2007. Although another set of EMU trains from the same manufacturer operate on some of MTR's own lines, there are some significant differences between the two models, with the Metro Cammell EMUs of the original MTR being known as the Modernization Train.
The Metro Cammell EMU is the oldest variation of electric multiple unit that operates on the MTR rapid transit railway system in Hong Kong. A total of 768 cars were built by Metro-Cammell in England between 1977 and 1994, and refurbished from 1998 to 2001 by United Goninan.
Mulliners Limited of Birmingham was a British coachbuilding business in Bordesley Green, with factories in Bordesley Green and Cherrywood Roads. It made standard bodies for specialist car manufacturers. In the 19th century there were family ties with founders Mulliners of Northampton and the businesses of other Mulliner brothers and cousins but it became a quite separate business belonging to Herbert Mulliner.
A&P Group Ltd is the largest ship repair and conversion company in the UK, with three shipyards located in Hebburn, Middlesbrough and Falmouth. The company undertakes a wide variety of maintenance and repair work on commercial and military ships with projects ranging from a two-day alongside repair period through to multimillion UK pound conversion projects lasting for a year or more.
Northwestern Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders was a British shiprepair company based in Birkenhead on the River Mersey.
TSS (RMS) Manx Maid (II) was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead in 1962, and was the second ship in the Company's history to bear the name.