Albion

Albion Ltd was established in 1896 in Northern Ireland for the manufacture of men's and boy's wear. The two founding Partners were Jack Fetherston from Belfast and Ted Sharman from Leeds. The original factory was established in Belfast in 1896 with a "state of the art" factory being built in Leeds in 1907. This factory was one of the largest clothing factories built in Leeds at the time. The Company grew over the years and eventually was operating a total of 17 manufacturing units in both Northern Ireland and Yorkshire employing in excess of 2000 people. The Company was hugely successful in this period and in 1965 the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and became a Public Limited Company. The demise of the clothing industry in the mid 1970's resulted in Albion embarking on a gradual closure program of its UK factories as they became under extreme pressure from overseas imports. At the same time the Company established an offshore production division which over the years has developed into our core manufacturing base. Joint manufacturing ventures were established in Morocco in the mid 1980's and these factories became the core of the Company's production base until mid 2000's when further price pressure forced the company to look further afield for production partners. In 2005 the company was delisted and became a private company owned by the Lowe family. In 2008 Albion Ltd acquired E Walters and this company has now been integrated into the organisation and their associated Chinese production facilities have expanded the Company's value and quality offer that can be given to our customers. More recently the Company has taken strategic stakes in a number of manufacturing facilities in Bangladesh to strengthen the supply chain and logistics from this important origin which benefits from duty free access into the EU, Canada and other important markets. Turnover has now grown to excess of $40 million per annum and the Company is now looking beyond its current product base and products for further growth and expansion. The Company has a very strong and reliable manufacturing and merchandising culture and prides itself on being a strong garment manufacturing company.