At the beginning of the year I made my predictions for the five companies we should be keeping an eye out during this year. As we’re approaching the halfway mark, I thought it might be a good time to take stock and see how many, if any, of my predictions were worth reading about. Here are the five I put forward:
Solidor
At the start of the year I said that Solidor, or rather DW3, were going to be one of the big ones to watch this year. With a wallet full of cash to spend, the seemingly endless pot of cash put almost anyone in their sights. And throughout the year so far they have followed through on their promises of acquisitions on a personal level and company level. Most notably, the double acquisition of Eclectic Systems and Window Widgets.
That one was a big one, but may not be the last this year, as the group have promised more to come.
Synseal
Second on my list was Synseal. I think after their late 2014 takeover of LB Plastics and Manse Masterdor, attention was still on the company to see if they were going to make any more moves. So far on the spending front they appear to have been quite quiet.
On the product front though, the Warmcore aluminium bi-folding door product seems to have got off to a very strong start, with fabricators, including traditional PVCu companies, taking the product on board. You know you’ve got a good aluminium product when staunch PVCu-ists start looking at it!
Door-Stop
Might have been a bit off on this one! At the start of 2015 I was talking about the possibility of American money being the start of something. They brought out a new range of hardware early on in the year. But so far this year, I can’t see anything that has been utterly earth shattering from the company. I suspect they are just keeping their heads down now and focusing on the business at hand.
Still another six months to prove me right though!
John Fredericks
You might not have seen anything from them yet that you would consider industry changing. But I know otherwise. As a customer of theirs, and for their support of DGB, I have seen a set of new products that will genuinely set John Fredericks part from much of the rest of the PVCu fabricator market.
It’s just about ready to go. When it’s out, and the industry starts to understand the ramifications and advantages of these new products, this prediction is going to be proved to be spot on!
Prefix
Last but not least, I picked Prefix primarily on the work they have been doing in the solid roof sector, and their brilliant planning and preparation work which for me has put them ahead of everyone else producing solid roofs right now.
But this prediction is actually going to be proved right by another means. I can’t see anything about it, but trust me, it’s going to be good!
So really, I think I can say I’ve got about four out of five of my predictions right so far, which isn’t a bad attempt. At the end of the year I’ll write another update post to see how these companies have fared this year.
missed me off the list though……;-)