Heron Corporation
Property developers
1966 Heron started selling petrol to the public[1]
1971 Heron Petroleum opened its 100th service station
1972 Heron Holdings, parent company of the Heron Group, changed its name to Heron Corporation[2]
1973 In addition to its property, petrol retailing and vehicle distribution activities, the company proposed to enter the shipping business[3]. Planned to develop a major business in vehicle distribution; was already the largest independent petrol retailer[4]
1975 Acquired Suzuki (GB) (Heron had previously been involved with Suzuki in motorcycle racing)[5]
1977 Acquired Ingersoll, makers of watches, which would now concentrate on digital watches to be sold through conventional channels such as jewellers[6]
Heron International NV owned Heron Corporation; Heron Service Stations was a subsidiary[7]
1988 Heron International, having built up a network of filling stations and sold much of it to other operators, was planning to increase the number of its service stations from 60 to 200 over 3 years because of improved profitability in the business area[8]