As the industry starts to come to terms with the big news that Door-Stop International is now an American company, I want to take a look at some of the more detailed aspects of the buyout and what might happen in the future.

Money

The size of the numbers involved for a company that makes only doors are really quite big. Masonite’s statement said that Door-Stop had an annual turn over of $38 million, which at the current exchange rate according to the BBC is around £22.8m. They said the net amount of cash to purchase the business was $50 million, which equates to around £30m. To anyone this is a lot of money, but it also demonstrates how valuable Masonite sees Door-Stop within the UK market.

With the purchase of Door-Stop, Masonite now have a fantastic ready made gateway into the UK entrance door market.

Opportunity

Make no mistake about this, this is a good acquisition for both businesses. For Masonite, they have the largest possible opening to get well stuck into the UK entrance door market, if they choose to do so. For Door-Stop, they can call on the experience and expertise of a company with over 7000 customers in 80 countries across the world. They can start to look at other areas of the world’s door market to make improvements of their own.

If you take a look at Masonite and their portfolio of products and services, they are already well stocked. They have been in business since 1925, so what they don’t know about doors (well, American ones) probably isn’t worth knowing. So their reasons for purchasing Door-Stop probably centre around wanting to extend their global reach a little bit further, expanding their portfolio and of course hoping to make some decent profit.

For Door-Stop, this could turn into a very exciting period in the company’s short history. With a business with the heritage and knowledge of Masonite, Door-Stop could evolve into a completely different company to what we see them as now – for the better of course. I see there being chances to seriously expand their door range to include options and styles from the US. In fact the amount of products could expand massively, if Masonite and Door-Stop decide that there would be a market for new designs in the UK. This is of course me speculating on what could happen. I could quite easily be wrong.

Jobs

Sources from Door-Stop have already said that trading of the business would continue as normal and that jobs will be safe, which should put at ease the staff at Door-Stop. Although it is worth pointing out that now Masonite do have overall control, it is not within the realms of possibility that this could change if the Americans deem it fit.

But I believe that any negative tinkering from the American with Door-Stop wouldn’t be a wise move. They currently employ 200 people in their Nottinghamshire and by all reports it is a pretty well run machine. Any tweaking and changing to the set up might only serve to upset the rhythm of the business.

Sign Of Success

What this deal does demonstrate is how successful Door-Stop became in such a short space of time. The business is only 6 years old and in that time it became one of the UK’s biggest companies in the fenestration sector, and certainly the entrance door market. To get to that sort of status normally takes much longer than 6 years, so I think no matter your opinion of the Duttons and of Door-Stop, you have to congratulate them on creating such a successful and valuable business in such a short space of time.

The other way I would see this is that this is a great advert for British manufacturing. It demonstrates that other countries still see British companies who make things as desirable purchases, and the way I see it is that’s a good thing and we should probably be proud of that. Although some might see it as a shame that another British company is now owned by a foreign power.

I could go on with my analysis, but I think I’ll stop there for now. I’d like to congratulate the Duttons on a successful transaction and wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

All comments welcome on this in the section below.