De La Rue beats stiff competition to win licence to print Britain's banknotes

De La Rue has won the contract to print Britain’s banknotes – beating G4S and the French to the work.

The money-printer already produces sterling notes for the Bank of England, and yesterday signed a fresh ten-year deal that will start in April 2015.

The group was already selected as ‘preferred bidder’ in September for the contract, which is worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

That's the ticket: De La Rue has won the contract to print Britain’s banknotes – beating G4S and the French to the work

That's the ticket: De La Rue has won the contract to print Britain’s banknotes – beating G4S and the French to the work

Shares, which have halved this year following a spate of profits warnings and the departure of its chief executive, rose nearly 3.7 per cent to finish 17.4p up at 492p. 

The move is a blow to G4S, which had teamed up with a French company Oberthur Technologies to bid for the contract.

For the first time in Britain’s history De La Rue will print on plastic banknotes for £5 (featuring Winston Churchill from 2016) and £10 notes.

These are more durable and can last up to twice as long as paper ones. The £20 and £50 will still be produced on paper.

De La Rue produces its own banknote paper, but lost the contract to produce the polymer banknotes last year. It subsequently spent £1million trying to buy the company that beat it, Australian firm Innovia.

 

The comments below have not been moderated.

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.