The Thompson name in the wire & cable industry stretches back to the 70’s, when a young Anthony Thompson was Sales Director for a London based manufacturing company called Duratube Wire & Cable, a company that had been in operation during the 2nd World War.

Over time, the company expanded its range of products and made a strategic decision to enter into production of telecom cables. The decision paid off as they managed to secure the British Telecom contract which propelled their business into the elite category of British cable manufacturers. They serviced this multi-million-pound contract with BT for the best part of a decade until the end of the 80’s. Unfortunately, with the loss of this major contract and impact of the early 90’s recession caused Duratube Wire & Cable to enter into administration.

At this point, Anthony faced a life-changing decision and thankfully he had the unconditional support of his wife Pari to aid with this. Consequently, 1990 became a pivotal year for the pair and their three energetic and growing boys. With Anthony’s experience in the industry-along with both of his partners on the sales and operations side-the team formulated a plan to start their own business “a daunting but exciting undertaking”.

Plans had been made, everything had been questioned in terms of timing and finances, so they decided to roll the dice in 1991 when GCI (General Cable Industries) was born. We have to give credit for the company name to Pari – which turned out to be a great move. Although it frustrated a much larger entity from the US with a similar name, who persisted in asking them to change their name (time and time again) but they did not prevail.

GCI had a 5-year business plan to grow the business and then look for outside investment. They started with a 5,000sqft unit in Newbury, Berkshire, UK where they manufactured a small range of low voltage cables. They soon expanded into a 30,000sqft premises, a stone’s throw away, where they began to manufacture telecom and coaxial cables. However, their mastery could not have been any better as the timing of the World Wide Web on August 6th, 1991 meant that seismic shift in society and around the world was happening. GCI was one of the first manufacturers to start manufacturing data cables. Exporting container after container to Hong Kong, the Middle East and all over Europe, at its peak it was making 11,000,000 meters of Category 5 cables every month.

In 1997 GCI was sold to the Marmon Group, a company owned by the Pritzker family from Chicago. Hank West, Executive Vice President at the time, purchased GCI with the blessing and authority of Bob Pritzker, Chairman of the Marmon Group. In turn, a few years later, the Marmon Group was sold to Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Group.

Anthony had been blessed to have three healthy, ambitious sons; all to have experienced working (during the school holidays) on the factory floor at GCI! However, the only one to have followed in his father’s footsteps into the wire and cable industry was Philip; his eldest son.

Having grown up and seen his father succeed, it gave Philip the aspirations of wanting to one day start his own business. Phil’s career started in the United States with Rockbestos Surprenant in 1998 where he had a 12-month internship. Soon after, he returned to the UK to take up an internal sales role at GCI where his father made him work for a every penny. We are lead to believe his starting salary was so low that he was forced to secure a second job at the company- working weekend shifts- whereby he ran cable twinning and bunching machines. Over time, he proved himself and went on to take up a National sales position in the UK, followed by an International sales position where he was responsible for sales in Europe and the Middle East. Having spent 7 years in manufacturing, he decided to dip his toe into the distribution game and worked for one of Europe’s largest cable distribution companies: Cleveland Cables where he was mentored by the talented Terry White. Soon after joining though he was headhunted to run the electrical arm of a small cable accessories business CTL Components, whereby he spent the next 6 years learning how to run a distribution/assembly business.

Just after the financial crisis of 2010, Philip started working for Oman Cables as their European Sales Manager. He was successful in winning business for numerous oil & gas related projects with EPC’s in Europe- such as Tecnicas Reunidas, Tecnimont, Saipem and many others. Philip continued to use his relationships in Europe in helping MacLean Electrical establish their name on the continent. However, with the downturn in the oil & gas sector and the sale of the company in 2015 to the DNOW, he was gifted the opportunity of working with former CEO and mentor at Oman Cables, Mr Hans Meiring and he departed MacLean Electrical.