Catnic is a Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 based building and construction

Construction

In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...

 products manufacturer which developed and patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

ed a steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 lintel

Lintel (architecture)

A lintel can be a load-bearing building component, a decorative architectural element, or a combined ornamented structural item. It is often found over portals, doors, and windows.-Structural uses:...

.

History

Catnic was established in 1969 when Brian Robinson took his idea to entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 Alfred Gooding

Alfred Gooding

Dr. Alfred Gooding OBE LLB is a Welsh entrepreneur born in Risca, South Wales. In the 1950s he started Modern Building Wales Limited which built 7,000 houses across Wales. His most famous venture is Catnic, the company credited with developing the steel lintel for the building industry...

. The company conceived, developed and pioneered the steel lintel designed for the house building industry, and soon won a major share of the UK market. The name 'Catnic' came from Brian's two children, CATherine and NICholas.

In 1982, Catnic were involved in a landmark patent case, Catnic Components Ltd v Hill & Smith Ltd, which bought about a decision from the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

Today

Having been sold to Corus Group

Corus Group

Tata Steel Europe is a multinational steel-making company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest steel-maker in Europe and is a subsidiary of Tata Steel of India, one of the ten largest steel producers in the world.Corus Group was formed through the merger of Koninklijke...

, Catnic have developed other steel-based building products, including Qwikpost.

The Catnic range is sold throughout the UK by a network of builder's merchants, DIY outlets and garden centres. The market in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

is serviced by Catnic GmbH, and in the rest of Europe, the Middle East and the Far East by a network of independent distributors.