Waterford Wedgwood

Waterford Wedgwood is a public company, the holding entity for a group of companies headquartered in Ireland, specialised in the manufacture of high quality china, porcelain and glass. The group is dominated by Tony O'Reilly and his immediate family, and the family of Mr. O'Reilly's second wife, Chryss, the two families together having invested hundreds of millions of euro in it. Its financial record has been mixed, and significant cost-cutting has been ongoing for many years.

ubsidiaries

The group's constituent companies include:
* Waterford Crystal, with brands including "Waterford", "Marquis by Waterford" and a number of Waterford-designer cooperations, such as with John Rocha
* Wedgwood (Josiah Wedgwood and Sons), with the range of Wedgwood brands, along with Coalport, Mason's and Johnson Brothers
* Rosenthal AG
* Royal Doulton
* Cashs of Irelandand the group also licences its brands to other companies.

Financials

Revenues are significant, Waterford being more than twice the scale of its nearest competitor in analysts reviews, but the company has been in losses for five consecutive years.

Results for 2007-2008

Sales for the year to April 5 2008 were 671.8 million euro, down 9.4% year-on-year. Losses were 231.1 million euro, up from 71.3 million euro in the previous year.

Operational costs have been reduced, with around 4000 jobs removed or in the process of being removed since beginning 2005.

The results are poorer than expected, and out of line with comments O'Reilly made in a 2007 business magazine interview, predicting profitability by 2008.

hare performance

In October 2008, the shares fell to .1 euro cent [Dublin, Ireland: The Irish Times, Business section - Markets - online - [http://www.irishtimes.com/business/markets/sharesdetail/0942038.html?range=3m] ] .

Financing

2007

A convertible preference share issue was made in April 2007, totalling 200 million euro. Subscribers included Lazard Alternative Investments (50 million euro), Tony O'Reilly, Peter Goulandris and others. As with other share issues of recent years, the issue was on a par basis, and did not proportionally dilute existing capital.

2008

It was announced 1 August 2008 that a further 120 million euro will be raised in share sales in 2008, taking the total raised since 2005 to over 400 million euro.

In September 2008, details of the new share issue were further announced, and this issue "will" proportionally dilute capital, reducing the entire value of the shares extant prior to the new issue to under 5% of the total capital after the issue - this will be achieved by issuing 5000 additional shares for each share subscribed. Sir Anthony O'Reilly and Peter Goulandris have announced that they will take up their full allotments, investing a further 60 million euro, and Lazard Brothers will increase their shareholding.

Management

On 2 April 2008, the CEO, Peter Cameron (previously COO, and prior to that CEO of acquisition All-Clad), resigned, and was replaced by David Sculley.

Directors

At April 2008, the Board of Directors comprises:
* Sir Anthony (Tony) O'Reilly, Chairman
* Peter Goulandris, Deputy Chairman
* Lady Chryss O'Reilly (nee Goulandris)
* David W. Sculley, Group CEO from 1 August 2008, Interim Group CEO (from 2 April 2008), partner in a New York investment firm
* Anthony Jones, CFO (from November 2007)
* Mark Downie, Company Secretary
* Dr. F. Alan Wedgwood
* Lord Wedgwood
* John Foley, CEO of Waterford Crystal
* Kevin McGoran, Chairman of Waterford Crystal and Fitzwilton plc
* Ottmar C. Kusel, CEO of Rosenthal AG
* (P.) Redmond O'Donogue, Group CEO until 31 August 2005
* Patrick J Molloy, senior independent director
* Jonathan (Jon) H. Kagan (Lazard)
* Ali E. Wambold (Lazard)

External links

* [http://www.waterfordwedgwood.com/ Company website]
* [http://www.rosenthalshop.de/ Rosenthal Website]
* [http://www.royaldoulton.com Royal Doulton Website]
* [http://www.waterford.com/ Waterford Crystal Website]
* [http://www.wedgwood.com/ Wedgwood Website]
* [http://www.cashs.com/ Cashs of Ireland Website]