Cartridge World
Tom Fricke
CEO
Cartridge World is the global leader in ink and laser cartridge refilling. The company has over 1,600 franchised outlets in 61 countries, with its head office in Emeryville, California. Wolseley acquired Cartridge World in August 2007 with plans to double the size of the business during Wolseley’s ownership.
Less than 5% of all printer cartridges sold around the world are refilled. Most used cartridges end up in landfill and can take up to 400 years to decompose. Cartridge World provides an environmentally friendly solution by refilling the cartridges as they can be reused several times. This is both lower cost for the customer as well as reducing greenhouse emissions and waste.
As a first step, a new management team was recruited with Tom Fricke appointed as CEO. Tom has an MBA from Stanford, and had a 12 year international career with Pepsi of which he spent four years as Managing Director for Smith’s Snackfoods in Australia.
Under Tom’s leadership, Cartridge World has had a double digit growth in same store sales and has continued the geographic expansion into new markets around the world.
Wolseley Private Equity has supported Tom and the management team, helping to develop strategy, corporate governance and providing capital. Wolseley is represented on the Cartridge World Board by Peter Hasko (Chairman), Angus Stuart (Director), Peter White (Company Secretary) and James Todd (Alternate Director).
