BPB plc
 | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1917 |
| Headquarters | East Leake, England |
| Products | Plasterboard |
| Parent | Saint-Gobain |
| Website | www |
BPB Ltd (formerly BPB plc) (British Plaster Board) was a British building materials business. It was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index prior to its acquisition by Saint-Gobain of France in 2005.
Founded in April 1917 as British Plaster Board Limited, the company was an early European manufacturer of plasterboard. Sales slowly grew during the interwar period, permitting the company to be floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1932 and fuelling its expansion into the production of gypsum plaster from imported rock. Thereafter, BPB quickly became the dominant domestic producer, a status that was effectively finalised by the purchase of rival firm Gyproc Products Limited in 1944. International expansion proceeded during the early postwar year, having invested into South Africa, France, Canada and Sweden during the 1940s and 1950s. In the early 1970s, BPB set up the subsidiary BPB Industries (Instruments) to provide specialist instrumentation and borehole logging services. The 1980s and 1990s were marked by a series of acquisitions across both Europe and North America.
In March 2002, as a result of the company's acquisition of the US-based firm James Hardie Industries, BPB became the largest producer of plasterboard in the world. That same year, the firm, along with three other competitors, were fined by the European Commission for allegedly operating a cartel to control prices. During August 2005, the French company Saint-Gobain launched a hostile takeover bid; while BPB's board resisted this bid, it ultimately opted to concede control of the company to Saint-Gobain in exchange for a higher price.