Annual Report 2004 - HL Display

50 years of HL Display
It was 50 years ago this year that Harry Lundvall started the company
H. Lundvall in Borlänge. In his work as a salesman in the meat
industry he had noticed a need among traders to display both their
goods and the price of them more clearly. He set up a little workshop
in his cellar at home and started to make stands for displaying
goods and simple plastic label holders for price information
– products that he then sold to shops, petrol stations and the selfservice
stores that were starting to become popular.
Further developed the plastic holder
In 1969 Harry’s son Åke Westberg took over the business, which
was at the time turning over about SEK two million and had fi ve
employees. Genuine entrepreneur that he was – he had previously
run a number of companies in Sundsvall – he recognised the potential
in his father’s company. Åke further developed his father’s
plastic holder to create a strip that ran along the full edge of the
shelf, where traders could easily insert price information without
having to move the actual plastic holder.
Breakthrough for the datastrip
In 1975 Åke Westberg obtained a patent for his shelf-edge strip.
An old mission house outside Sundsvall was bought, and this was
where he started to produce the strips. The HL Datastrip is the
product for which HL Display is still best known, and it remains
an important part of the product range. The patent was the breakthrough
for HL, as the company was then called. The major Swedish
retail chains recognised the benefi ts of Åke’s solution, and
they soon became major customers.
In 1977 Åke Westberg’s daughter Lis Remius and her husband
Anders Remius started a sales company, Flexi System, which
mainly sold products from HL’s product range. In 1982 HL and
Flexi System were acquired by the investment company Parcon.
Lis and Anders Remius continued to work at HL, and when the
new owner Parcon experienced fi nancial concerns Lis and Anders
bought back the company in 1986, naming it HL Display. At this
point HL Display’s net sales were SEK 28 million.
International expansion
International expansion began in 1987. Export sales had previously
been channelled through direct sales and distributors. Now
for the fi rst time HL Display set up its own sales companies, one
in Belgium and one in the UK. In 1989 new companies appeared
in Sweden and Germany, followed by Norway and France in 1990.
At the turn of the year 92/93 HL Display completed its fi rst acquisition,
with the purchase of Jegab Display. Since then the company
has acquired a number of smaller companies, which have
strengthened the product range or added expertise within a specifi
c fi eld of production technology.
Listing on the Stockholm Stock Exchange
In 1993 HL Display was listed as planned on the OTC list at the
Produced by Kind PR & Information and HL Display
Design: Mats W Nilsson
Photography: Magnus Fond and Hans-Erik Nygren
(Board of Directors and senior executives)
Printing: Wassberg+Skotte Tryckeri
53
Stockholm Stock Exchange. There was tremendous interest and
the launch was oversubscribed several times. The company received
much attention in conjunction with the stock market launch,
as the company was nominated for the “Green Branch”, a competition
for growth companies with good, sustainable profi tability,
which was organised by a TV4 programme called Big Money
and the business newspaper Dagens Industri, and
HL Display actually won it.
New operations in the former Eastern
Block
In 1994 HL Display set up its fi rst branch
in the former eastern block, when the company
in Poland was founded. International
expansion continued with new sales offi -
ces in Austria and the Czech Republic, and
a partnership was set up with Trion Industries
as a means of entry into the American market. In
1997 HL Display added shop fi ttings to its product range, with the
acquisition of Pefab’s factory in Falkenberg. Envoy Display in the
UK was acquired in 1998, and in the same year sales offi ces were
also set up in Hungary and Switzerland.
International expansion continued in line with the rapid growth
of the retail trade in Eastern Europe, with offi ces being set up in
Latvia, Russia and Turkey in 1999, and in the Ukraine in 2002.
Production capacity in the UK was also increased with the acquisition
of RIM Fabrications Ltd in 1999.
Looking even further to the east
During 2000 HL Display also began to look further to the east,
towards Southeast Asia. Many of the company’s customers, such
as Carrefour and Tesco, already had a presence in several major
Asian markets. It was therefore natural for HL Display to have its
own presence in these markets. The fi rst Asian company was launched
in 2000 in Singapore, and it now serves as the hub of HL
Display’s activities in the region. In 2001 another milestone was
passed in the company’s development, as sales broke the billion
kronor barrier for the fi rst time. In the years that followed HL Display
has opened new sales companies at a rapid pace, mainly in
Eastern Europe and in Asia. The company now has its own sales
companies in 28 countries, with more than 950 employees all
over the world.
The story continues
This rapid international expansion combined with continuous, innovative
product development has meant that HL Display has enjoyed
very healthy growth since the mid-1990s. Turnover has increased
from SEK 183 million in 1993 to SEK 1.3 billion in 2004. And the
story of HL Display is not over. Today, 50 years after Harry Lundvall
delivered his fi rst products, HL Display continues its business with
the same objective as it had in 1954 – to set new standards for instore
communication and merchandising in the retail sector.