WWRD Holdings Limited is a company that was created by

KPS Capital Partners KPS Capital Partners is an American investment company that manages KPS Special Situation Funds, a family of investment funds. KPS specifically invests out of two funds raised in October 2019: KPS Special Situations Fund V ($6.12 billion) and KPS ...

in 2009 out of the remains of Irish firm Waterford Wedgwood plc, and it has been owned since 2015 by Finnish home products maker

Fiskars Fiskars Corporation (natively Fiskars Oyj Abp; formerly Fiskars Oy Ab until 1998) is a Finnish consumer goods company founded in 1649 in Fiskars, Finland, Fiskars, a locality in the town of Raseborg, Finland, about 100 kilometres (62 mi) wes ...

. The company owns

Waterford Crystal Waterford Crystal is an Irish manufacturer of crystal glassware, especially cut glass products. It is named after the city of Waterford in Ireland. In January 2009, the main Waterford Crystal manufacturing base on the edge of Waterford was cl ...

Wedgwood Wedgwood is an English China (material), fine china, porcelain and luxury accessories manufacturer that was founded on 1 May 1759 by the potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and was first incorporated in 1895 as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons L ...

and

Royal Doulton Royal Doulton is an English ceramic and home accessories manufacturer that was founded in 1815. Operating originally in Vauxhall, London, and later moving to Lambeth, in 1882 it opened a factory in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in the centre of Engl ...

, among other brands, and the name WWRD is an

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

for 'Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton'.

History

On 5 January 2009, following years of financial problems at the group level, and after a share placement failed during the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

Waterford Wedgwood Waterford Wedgwood plc was an Irish holding company for a group of firms that specialized in the manufacture of high-quality porcelain, bone china and glass products, mostly for use as tableware or home decor. The group was dominated by Irish bu ...

was placed into administration on a "going concern" basis, with 1800 employees remaining. On 27 February 2009, Waterford Wedgwood's receiver,

Deloitte Deloitte is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees, and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, along wi ...

, announced that the New York-based private equity firm

had purchased "certain Irish and UK assets of Waterford Wedgwood and the assets of several of its Irish and UK subsidiaries" in a transaction expected to be completed in March. In March 2009, KPS Capital Partners announced that it had acquired group assets in a range of countries, including the UK, USA and Indonesia, would invest €100 million, and move a number of jobs to Asia to cut costs and return the firm to profitability. In a move that had begun under the previous owners, some 1500 jobs were cut in the UK, leaving 800 workers in the UK producing only the high-end Wedgwood products. KPS Capital Partners placed Wedgwood into a group of companies known as WWRD, an acronym for "Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton". In May 2015,

, a Finnish maker of home products, agreed to buy 100% of the holdings of WWRD. On 2 July 2015, the acquisition of WWRD by Fiskars was completed, including the brands Waterford, Wedgwood, Royal Doulton, Royal Albert and Rogaška. The acquisition was approved by the US antitrust authorities.

References

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External links

WWRD Holdings Limited
at LinkedIn 2009 establishments in Finland Holding companies of Finland Fiskars