Give a brief history of Darlings’ Chocolates plc and explain why Colonel Darling chose a sole proprietorship to start his business.

In 1933 a retired army colonel Joshua Darling returned to his native town Liverpool from India, where he had served. His goal was to open a chocolate factory, because at that time chocolates were not as good they used to and, besides, the market of high-quality chocolates was not saturated enough. He decided that his product would be made only of the finest ingredients and his competitive advantage would be hand-made finishing. I believe that he chose Liverpool because it was a sea port and in future it would be easier for him to develop sea freight. Moreover, it was a time of high unemployment there and it gave him an opportunity to find a qualified but cheap labor force. He interviewed over forty people but hired only about 20 employees, because his enterprise was a sole-proprietorship. It was a good form of business to start with because of several reasons:

- Joshua Darling wanted to produce high quality chocolates for the upper market because initially this segment wasn’t saturated. That meant that his target audience from the very beginning wouldn’t be large and there was no necessity to open a huge factory.

- his starting capital wasn’t so big because he didn’t have enough money

- he was the only owner and he could control everything himself

- he didn't share his profit with anybody else

- he had personal contact with all employees

But it also had a large negative aspect — it was an unlimited liability, which meant that he was fully liable for all debts and damages. He could even lose all his personal assets in case of failure. But, as he was a newcomer and he was not aware of all the details and risks of running a business, he decided to discover everything in this industry by himself with the aim of attracting somebody else into his business in future.

In 1934 his daughter Alice married a businessman Mr. Windbourne, who could become a potential partner. The colonel’s business needed to be expanded and that's why it was necessary to change the type of his business into a partnership. And Mr. Windbourne helped him to fulfill this task by joining him in 1940.

In 1950 they started their export campaign. It was a very risky step because they penetrated a new overseas market even in other countries like Australia and South America. They exported the most popular brand – The Colonel’s Choice.

Furthermore, Joshua Darling was very old and it was time to start thinking about inheriting his firm. Due to it the partnership was reorganized into a LTD (private limited company). Five years later Alice finally joined the company. Joshua died in 1963. As a result, she became the majority shareholder.

In the 1960’s the prices for raw materials increased substantially and the company needed more capital and that’s why they started to sell theirs shares on the stock market. It resulted in another changing of the type of business into PLC (public limited company). 40 percent of shares were sold to Fountain Foods but Alice retained her controlling interest to save the family business.

Darlings needed extra capital to be invested in the company but it was difficult for the company to find investors. Fountain Foods made an extremely attractive offer to Mrs. Windbourne - the Darlings sell to Fountain Foods 30 more percent of their shares in exchange of the promise to revitalize the factory. That was a brief history of the Darlings company.

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