Realstone Group has changed hands through a management buy-out. 

The business was started more than 50 years ago by David Gregory, who died last year. It has grown to become one of the UK’s largest natural stone quarrying and processing operations. 

The Chesterfield-based Group are suppliers, processors and quarriers of indigenous and imported natural stone. Realstone Ltd have three production sites and their sister company, Blockstone Ltd, have 10 quarries, eight of them active.

Blockstone’s sandstone quarries include Peakmoor, Dukes and Wattscliffe from Derbyshire, Scotch Buff from Richmondshire, Stoneraise from Cumbria and Cove Red from Dumfries and Galloway. The famous Ancaster limestone from Lincolnshire is also part of their portfolio. Realstone also have a contracting division in Scotland. 

The Group has supplied stone to many high profile projects across the globe. To name a few: St Andrews University, Glasgow Cross; the renovation of St Pancras Station; Performing Arts Centre in Toronto, Canada; the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception restoration in New York State; the new BBC HQ in Glasgow; Gresham Street, London; the City of Edinburgh HQ at Waverley.

The buy-out team comprises Iain Kennedy, Steve Wright, Andrew Gregory, John Thompson, Paul Bailey and John Nolan. They purchased the Group with the support of a structured funding package put together by Matthew Chennery and his team at Barclays Bank 

Iain Kennedy, Managing Director, told NSS, that ownership was well spread among the buy-out team.

He said the recession had not influenced the deal. “This has been on-going for two years. For the majority of that time we have been in recession or approaching it. The business is such that we all believed it was a deal worth doing.”

He said the management team had not taken over the business to make major changes, although they had ideas that would inevitably result in some changes.

“We are refocusing on what the business is all about and where we are now in these tight times, not where we were two years ago.”

He saw growth coming from thin cut stone, especially in the facades division, in which Andrew Gregory is heavily involved. Stone would remain core to the business although Realstone recognised other materials were also required by customers.

Andrew Gregory said: “As a Gregory continuing in the business I am delighted to be part of the new MBO team dedicated to the company’s continued success.”