appliances founded 4 april 1942 headquarters stoney lane prescot merseyside l35 2xw england area served united kingdom canada products fridges freezers parent glen dimplex website lec footnotes references lec derives from longford engineering company lec refrigeration is a british company manufacturing refrigerators and freezers . contents 1 history 1.1 special product division 1.2 motor racing 2 ownership 2.1 sime darby 2.2 glen dimplex 3 structure 4 products 5 see also 6 references 7 external links 7.1 video clips 7.2 news items history edit it was formed in 1942 by fishmongers frank purley and his brother charles reginald purley born 1910 in twickenham as longford engineering company ltd. charles had moved to bognor in 1929 . it began making munitions for the war on longford road in bognor but began making experimental refrigerators from 1945 . it made its first fridge in 1946 the year the shripney road site was obtained with production beginning in 1947 . the name was changed to lec refrigeration on 13 december 1954 . around 60 % of its products were for the domestic market with the rest for commercial use . before 1956 it was selling more products abroad than in the uk . it was based at the shripney works a 14 acre site at bersted in the north of bognor regis in sussex off shripney road a29 next to the bognor regis branch line . on the other side of the railway it had 33 acres of land part of which was used as its own airfield . charles purley would be the company s chairman for many years until october 1991 . the airfield codenamed egkc with an asphalt surface has not been used since 1994 . by 1960 only 13 % of uk homes had a refrigerator compared to 96 % in the usa . around that time lec produced its twelve six range of fridges costing 179 each . in 1970 the co op co operative wholesale society decided to produce its own range of freezers manufactured by lec which retailed at 93 . in 1973 it opened a factory in northern ireland . in the 1970s its freezers were the which best buys . by the early 1980s it had around 1 600 employees and had around 20 % of the uk domestic refrigeration market . its products had the regis suffix to denote where they were made . by the 1980s the company was known as lec refrigeration plc an lse listed company . in march 1993 the company laid off staff and its workforce dropped to below 1 000 when it decided to import its compressors from denmark instead of making them itself . from 1994 a new 35 million computerised factory was built on the neighbouring new era industrial estate . from august 2005 production of domestic fridges was moved to whiston at a site off the a57 near whiston hospital run by glen dimplex home appliances . 1 there are plans to redevelop the bognor site as a sainsbury s. 2 3 4 5 the factory is due to be demolished in mid 2011 . 6 special product division edit from 1956 it opened its special products division which made fridges for hospitals aircraft and laboratories . this is now the leading manufacturer of these types of refrigerators in the uk trading as lec medical and lec commercial . production of specialist fridges continued at bognor from 2005 7 but production finally finished at bognor regis on 19 april 2007 . 7 the division is now owned by glen dimplex professional appliances . 8 motor racing edit lec refrigeration racing was formed by the company in the 1970s and one of the drivers was david purley known for the 1973 dutch grand prix and son of the company s founder . ownership edit it became a public company on 1 september 1964 . in 1988 the company had a turnover of 56 million making a 4 million profit . charles purley died in december 1991 . he had been appointed an obe in the 1986 new years honours list . sime darby edit on 21 july 1994 it was bought by sime darby of malaysia . the company was valued at around 21 million making around 300 000 units a year . in the early 1990s prior to its sale the company had been making a 3 million loss . by 1997 it claimed to be no. 2 in the uk market with a 15 % share after hotpoint with 18 % . glen dimplex edit on 26 february 2005 it was bought by the irish company glen dimplex . structure edit commercial operations are from the glen dimplex site at whiston . products edit fridges freezers wine coolers some of its energy efficient products are registered for an enhanced capital allowance which can be written off against taxable profit as found on the carbon trust s energy technology product list . see also edit local enterprise company scottish business support regional organisation references edit gdha bognor redevelopment old site public consultation demolition production glen dimplex professional appliances external links edit lec lec medical lec commercial history redevelopment of former site bognor regis airport video clips edit medical refrigerator news items edit bognor in september 2008 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title lec refrigeration & oldid 742728387 categories british companies established in 1942manufacturing companies established in 19421942 establishments in englandknowsleycompanies based in merseysidecompanies formerly listed on the london stock exchangehome appliance manufacturers of the united kingdomhistory of west sussexarun navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages polski edit links this page was last modified on 5 october 2016 at 12 10 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by 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