De La Rue 1968, but this was rejected by the Monopolies commission as being against the public interest. In 1991 the company's name was changed again – this time to "De La Rue plc". In 1965 De La Rue established a joint venture with the Italian printer and inventor Gualtiero Giori called De La Rue Giori. Based in Switzerland, the company specialized in building banknote printing equipment. The company printed banknotes for the Central Bank of Iran during the 1960s. In 1995, the company acquired Portals Limited which had been listed on the London stock market since 1904. For almost 300 years Portals
De La Rue postage stamps for the United Kingdom and some of its colonies, for Italy and for the Confederate States of America. Some famous stamps such as the Cape of Good Hope triangulars were printed by De La Rue & Co. after Perkins Bacon fell out of favour with the postal authorities of the time. The first 50 years of postage stamp production were chronicled in John Easton's "The De La Rue History of British and Foreign Postage Stamps 1855–1901" (Faber & Faber, London, 1958). De La Rue claims to have developed the first practical fountain pen in 1881 and was a