[edit]Dunlop advertisement for its golf balls, 1922
Dunlop was established as a company manufacturing goods from rubber in 1889.[5] The company entered the sporting goods market in 1910, when it began to manufacture rubber golf balls at its base in Birmingham.[1] The company introduced the Maxfli golf ball in 1922.[6]
Dunlop extended into tennis ball manufacture in 1924.[7] In 1925, F A Davis was acquired, which had tennis racket manufacturing expertise.[8][7] Dunlop opened acquisition discussions with Slazenger in 1927, but without success.[7] In 1928 the sports division became a subsidiary of Dunlop Rubber named Dunlop Sports.[5] Headquarters were relocated from Birmingham to Waltham Abbey in Essex.[6]
The Dunlop Masters golf tournament was established in 1946.[9] It was sponsored by Dunlop until 1982, and is now known as the British Masters.
In 1957 Dunlop acquired the golf club manufacturer John Letters of Scotland.[10] In 1959 the Slazenger Group was acquired.[5] The Dunlop "flying D" logo was introduced in 1960.[9]
In the 1970s and 1980s, Dunlop was slow to adapt to the new materials that tennis rackets were increasingly being made from, believing that wood would remain the dominant material.[5]
Tennis (left) and squash balls by Dunlop
In 1983 the John Letters golf club business was sold back to members of the Letters family.[11] One year later, the sports businesses were merged to form Dunlop Slazenger.[12]
In 1986, the parent company, Dunlop Holdings, was acquired by the industrial company BTR for £549 million.[13] BTR cut marketing spending to just 8 per cent of sales and reduced investment in grass roots sponsorship and research and development.[14]Steffi Graf's sponsorship money was cut so she defected to a Wilson racket.[14]
In 1996 Dunlop Slazenger was acquired by the private equity firm Cinven for £330 million.[5] To save money, Cinven moved production of Dunlop tennis balls from England to the Philippines. Slazenger Golf and Maxfli were sold off to reduce debt.[15]
In December 2016, Sports Direct announced it had agreed to sell the Dunlop brand to Sumitomo Rubber Industries for £112 million ($137.5 million).[17] Sumitomo already owned the rights to the sports as well as the rubber industries brand in most of the world. The sale is due to be completed by May 2017.[18]
^ abThe Growth and Performance of British Multinational Firms before 1939: The Case of Dunlop Geoffrey Jones The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Feb. 1984), pp. 35–53 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Economic History Society Article Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2596830