WT - A little History

Wiggins Teape was a speciality paper manufacturer and merchant. Founded in 1761 in the City of London, the Company grew organically and by acquisition until, by the late nineteen seventies, it owned pulp and paper mills, factories and distribution networks in many countries of the world.

Wiggins Teape became a wholly owned subsidiary of the BAT Industries group in 1970. In June 1990, it merged with Appleton Papers Inc, another member of the BAT Industries group and was renamed Wiggins Teape Appleton p.l.c., thereafter being floated on the London Stock Exchange as an independently-owned publicly quoted group. Six months later, it merged with Arjomari Prioux S.A. of France and was renamed Arjo Wiggins Appleton p.l.c.

Appleton Papers Inc was bought by its employees in 2001 and demerged from the Arjo Wiggins Appleton group, which had become a wholly-owned member of the Worms et Cie S.A. group of France in 2000. This group has since sold all its non paper-manufacturing and non paper-merchanting interests and is now known as Sequana S.A. The paper-making businesses now trade as ArjoWiggins whilst the merchanting businesses operate internationally as Antalis. Sequana’s strategy is to focus on its core strength of distribution of paper and related products in all countries where they operate.

To this end in recent years Antalis has disposed of one or two non-core businesses but acquired various complementary companies in terms of either market presence/dominance or supplementary product ranges.

On the manufacturing (ArjoWiggins) side the continued involvement in production has been maintained only in instances where the products form a competitive part of the range offered by the distribution side of the business. All other non-strategic manufacturing, whether it be industrial or niche market specialist products, have been, or are in the process of being disposed of, or closed.

No company anywhere in the world now operates under the name of Wiggins Teape.