Alfred Gooding (died 29 January 2018[1]) was a Welsh entrepreneur. Over a fifty-year period, he founded companies in the construction and electronics sectors.
Gooding was born in Risca, South Wales, the son of a miner.[2] In the 1950s he started Modern Building Wales Limited which built 7,000 houses across Wales.[3] His most famous venture is Catnic, the company credited with developing the steel lintel for the building industry.[4] In 1982, the company was involved in a House of Lords case, Catnic Components Ltd v Hill & Smith Ltd. Gooding sold it the following year, making a personal profit of £9 million. Another company, Race Electronics, was founded in the 1980s in partnership with Japanese business interests.[2]
Gooding was chairman of CBI Wales. He was awarded with a fellowship from the University of Wales, Newport, in 2010.[5]
In 2007, Gooding organised a bid to buy the troubled bank Northern Rock.[6]
In 2014, the house in Rhiwderin, near Newport, where Gooding, then 82, lived with his wife Lavinia was destroyed by fire; the couple escaped unharmed.[7]