The other day I had a chat with a customer and a paint manufacturer’s name that I haven’t heard in a long while came up – Signpost Paints.
It got me thinking about the merry go round of paint companies and what became of many of them or who owns who now?
I’ve been in the paint industry since 1987. When I first joined the company the most recognisable (and certainly our biggest supplier) was Crown Paints…largely due to being advertised on Liverpool FC’s shirts! Liverpool were league champions twice in my first 2 years here and then they waited 30 years for another one. Must have felt like waiting for a painted front door to dry!
Crown are still one of the biggest players (pun intended) and we’re still proud to be major stockists of all of their brands but they haven’t been owned by Crown Paints as such for a long while.
From memory I’ve seen them change hands 6 times from Crown to Reed, to Williams Holdings to Akzo Nobel to Endless to Hempel….who have recently bought Farrow and Ball!
During that time, the collective owners have bought, sold, closed and shelved such well known names as Permoglaze, Sandtex, Sadolin, Sikkens, Signpost, Magicote, Macpherson, Berger and more!
And Crown themselves were thrown into the ether in 2006 when their owners, Akzo Nobel bought ICI Dulux and as part of the deal had to release Crown, Sandtex, Sadolin and Macpherson into the market which is where Endless (apparently a Mercedes Benz Franchise) bought them. Blimey!
And so, back to the name that started my chain of thought…Signpost.
Well, out of the ashes of Signpost Paints, one of the chemists started a new company with a friend from another defunct company, Ripolin.
That company is 
the maker of
MSP and Barn Paint! You’ll find a full stock of all of their paints in both our
Harlow and Buckhurst Hill shops!
I’m not sure how many times this will happen again but if I’m still selling paint in another 34 years (I’ll be 84!) I can’t imagine things will have stayed the same…
I shall update the diary!
Be well.
Pat.
