founded 1915 headquarters east leake uk parent saint gobain website www.bpb.com bpb plc british plaster board is a british building materials business it is the world s largest manufacturer of plasterboard . it once was a constituent of the ftse 100 index . in 2005 the company was purchased by saint gobain of france . the company subsidiary british gypsum which was the uk operating arm of the company operates as a subsidiary of saint gobain with five manufacturing sites in britain as of 2012 . 1 contents 1 history 1.1 inter war period 1.2 early post war history 1.3 recent history 1.4 takeover 2 operations 3 references 4 external links 4.1 news items history edit inter war period edit the development of plasterboard a sandwich of gypsum plaster between two sheets of paper dates back to the late nineteenth century in the usa . the first patent was granted in 1894 but it was not until an american frank culver persuaded his new employer thomas mcghie and sons to buy a plasterboard plant from the usa that this new product was introduced to britain . a site was acquired at wallasey cheshire and building started in 1916 . however mcghie s shareholders could not supply sufficient funding and in 1917 the plasterboard assets were sold to a new company british plaster board limited bpb . the british building industry was initially slow to adopt the new product . helped by a more modern plant purchased in 1927 sales gradually increased and by 1932 the company was able to float on the london stock exchange.the additional capital enabled bpb to build a new factory at erith in 1934 . the erith plant had the capacity to manufacture the gypsum plaster the core of the plasterboard product and bpb began importing gypsum rock from canada . this encouraged negotiations with other gypsum companies in britain and a breath taking series of take overs followed in the next two years making bpb the dominant force in the industry . in particular these included the gotham company with plaster works in the north of england and the gypsum mines limited with its large gypsum mine at mountfield sussex . early post war history edit in 1944 bpb acquired its large rival gyproc products limited ; after that there were only a handful of small companies and when ici withdrew from the market in 1968 bpb was the 100 % british producer of plaster and plasterboard . organisationally all domestic gypsum activities were consolidated in the british gypsum subsidiary and the parent company was bpb industries . bpb had also acquired the main paper supplier in 1953 the aberdeen firm of c. davidson . the post war period saw extensive overseas investment through subsidiaries and associates . south africa was the first investment 1946 followed by placoplatre in france 1952 western gypsum of canada 1954 and sweden 1957 . 2 recent history edit in 1987 it bought rigips a well known brand in austria germany italy and the netherlands . in april 1996 it bought borgadts of germany for 21m . in june 1996 it bought gypsum industries of south africa for 28m . in october 1998 it bought gyproc of scandinavia for 95m already having a joint venture called scancem . in march 2000 it bought heidelberger dammsysteme of germany which made polystyrene insulation for 22m . in june 2000 it acquired the celotex company of the usa which made ceiling tiles for 230m . in january 2001 it bought rawlplug ltd. for 27m . in october 2002 it acquired gyproc benelux of belgium for 52m . in march 2002 it acquired james hardie industries another us business for 245 million . 3 takeover edit bpb regained its place in the ftse 100 index in june 2005 after an absence of fourteen years . however since may 1996 bpb had a joint venture with the french company saint gobain making glass fibre insulation . in august 2005 bpb received a hostile takeover bid from saint gobain which set a price of 720 pence per share . the bpb initially resisted this strongly but eventually accepted a revised bid of 775 pence per share which valued the company at 3.9 billion us 6.7 billion . 4 bpb was delisted in december 2005 . in 1997 it closed its head office which was in northwich . operations edit bpb is a multinational company with operations in europe the middle east africa and asia . in europe its main rivals are lafarge of france and knauf of germany who have a uk plant at immingham . plasterboard is mainly used for internal partition walls . bpb s other products include plaster insulating materials fastenings decorative wall covering and ceiling components . british gypsum has plants at barrow upon soar in leicestershire kirkby thore in cumbria mountfield near robertsbridge in east sussex sherburn in elmet in north yorkshire and east leake . it also has training facilities in erith south east london clevedon in bristol and flitwick in bedfordshire . references edit british gypsum locations www.british gypsum.com retrieved 5 april 2012 above is all sourced from routley john comp . a saga of british industry 1959 ; jenkins david the history of bpb industries 1973 isbn 0 9502572 0 6 ; and the monopolies commission plasterboard 1974 245m buy makes bpb world leader bpb accepts bid from french firm external links edit official site british gypsum parent company news items edit bpb accepts french bid in november 2005 hostile bid in august 2005 fined in november 2002 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title bpb plc & oldid 732060815 categories building materials companies of the united kingdomcompanies based in nottinghamshirecompanies established in 1915companies formerly listed on the london stock exchangemanufacturing companies of the united kingdomrushcliffesaint gobain 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 fran ais edit links this page was last modified on 29 july 2016 at 09 47 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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