The company recently celebrated the 75th anniversary of its founding, and it brings Pratley a great sense of achievement, not least because the family still owns the business. “The average lifespan of a family-owned and run business in the USA is about 20 years according to research I recently read by the SC Johnson College of Business in the United States. Of those who succeed past that time, only about 10% of companies transition into the third generation. I am not sure what the statistics are in South Africa, but I would guess that they are even lower,” adds Pratley.
All in the name
The company is best known globally for its Pratley Putty (originally named Pratley Plastic Putty), which was originally developed as an insulator for the junction boxes that the company first produced. “My grandfather returned from World War 2 and started doing business with mines in Johannesburg,” explains Pratley, “and one of his early products was junction boxes. He was an educated and qualified engineer, and he began to experiment with ideas to adhere and insulate electrical terminals to these junction boxes. The putty was a spin-off product and besides being a great insulator, it was also discovered that it had good adhesive and repair features that could be used in other applications. It was the first product of its kind in the world.”
As a result, the Company began producing Pratley Putty for other industrial and DIY applications. Innovation like this has continued through the years, and Pratley says that it “is something we continue to push and it’s in our DNA. We do not sit back and let things rest. We are constantly evolving our products and exploring new ideas. We generally try to steer away from ‘me too’ type products and prefer focusing on producing products with innovative and unique features.”
It turns out that the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 was the perfect opportunity for Pratley; “In times of adversity, there is also great opportunity. As Winston Churchill, working to form the United Nations after WWII said, ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste.’ Through necessity, logistic delays and global raw material shortages, we had, in some instances, to alter one or two of our existing formulations. We had cases where we could not get a specific raw material in the timeframe that we needed or a supplier could not supply at all. By so doing, we actually ended up making some of our products’ performance even better.
Big business
While the name Pratley is well known to consumer customers for DIY adhesive products, the group’s CEO is quick to remind people that the business has far more spheres in which it operates. “We have got three separate divisions under the Pratley name. There is the consumer side, Pratley Adhesives, which are products that the public is generally familiar with. But probably our largest business unit is our electrical termination division which is very well known to industry. There we produce highly innovative cable glands, junction boxes and related accessories. Many of them also comply with stringent international standards for use in hazardous locations.”
There is also a Pratley Minerals division, where we produce a range of eco-friendly, energy saving and pollution-clean-up products for various industries, explains the CEO. “Our company has been working with perlite and zeolite minerals since the 1970s and we are probably one of the world’s leaders in producing these types of products and the related R&D that goes with them. For example, our Pratliperl® product which is a lightweight, thermally insulating and fireproof aggregate is a highly innovative solution when it comes to the energy saving topic that is relevant in South Africa in recent times. It is ideal for producing lightweight, energy saving plasters and screeds when mixed with ordinary cement.
Global appeal
While Pratley is a proud product of South Africa, the company has also stretched across the world. It holds over 350 global patents and manufactures over 1000 products across the various business divisions. “There are not many family run companies that can say they have been around for 75 years, weathered pandemics and wars, and even have a product that has been to the moon,” says Pratley. “It happened almost by accident really. In the 1960s, there was a company in the United States wanted to produce Pratley Putty under licence from us. Their salespeople went to the American Space Agency (NASA) and sold them on the idea of using the product. But they were not actually manufacturing any of it at the time, so we ended up supplying them an amount from our factory in Krugersdorp. It was eventually used on the Ranger Spacecraft, which was the precursor to the Apollo Moon Missions.”
The Pratley family and their employees and business partners can be proud of the work they have done and continue to do. “I am extremely proud, not only of what we have achieved, but also of the very good people that have worked for the company over the years. Many of them started working for us in the ’20s, and eventually ended up retiring from us over 30 years later,” says Pratley. If nothing else, they are proving that with adversity comes great reward if you are brave enough to take that first bold step. One thing my father believed very strongly was that continuous growth is necessary, even in challenging economic environments. It is easy to sit on your laurels or even bunker down during such times, however, there is a danger in doing this for too long. In order to survive, you have to grow, and we certainly intend on doing just that for the next 75 years,” concludes Andrew Pratley.
Enquiries: www.pratley.com