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It’s rather unusual for most people to consider the work that is undertaken to keep Britain’s most prized buildings looking clean and as stunning as the day that they were built. In the skilled sector that carries out this cleaning, restoration and maintenance work, there is one company that emerges as the clear market leader. This company is Stoneguard (Holdings) Plc.

Formed almost 40 years ago as part of Petrofina and working as Seaguard, the company began it’s life as a restorer of ship’s hulls. As the shipping industry began to suffer in the 1970’s, the decision was taken to change the company’s name to Stoneguard and to focus attention on the cleaning and restoration of buildings as government grants began to transform this into a fast expanding sector.

The business and it’s reputation grew rapidly over the coming years and soon became one of the country’s most recognised specialists working on such prestigious buildings as the Palace of Westminster and Buckingham Palace.

In 1991 Mike Hinman, who had been employed by Stoneguard all of his working life and business partner Nick Constantine took the decision to take the company over. The new owners re-named the business Stoneguard (London) Limited and began to meet their customers’ growing demand by extending the reach of the business to provide a more locally based service.

Over the next eleven years offices were opened in Manchester (1993), Scotland (2000) and the Midlands (2002). Stoneguard (Holdings) Plc also came into operation in 1994. By providing regionally based operations, Stoneguard were able to outstrip their competitors by saving the customer the heavy costs associated with moving plant and labour around the country.

As a means of building upon their incredible success and maintaining the edge that they have over their competitors, Stoneguard are using their credit insurance policy to extend credit with confidence and to therefore expand the business without the risk of bad debt. Managing Director Mike Hinman comments, “The construction industry holds many risks and insolvency amongst clients is not unheard of. Taking out a credit insurance policy through LDPA has meant that we are able to obtain rapid credit decisions on potential clients, which has proved invaluable on a number of occasions. In one instance we even turned down a project, only to find that the client went insolvent shortly afterwards.”

Mike continues, “Because of the protection that credit insurance provides, Stoneguard have the confidence, drive and ambition to go forwards and aim to double in the next 24 months.”