This year, Manchester paint manufacturer HMG Paints, an independent family-owned firm competing successfully in a market comprising mainly multinationals, celebrates its 75th anniversary. Within three years of its formation, the entire company, lock, stock and paint barrel, was moved to new premises on a single horse and cart, including all four employees.

Today, HMG employs around 165 staff at its Collyhurst headquarters, has a network of subsidiaries and associate companies across Europe, America and the Middle East, and produces millions of litres of paint annually. In fact, it's estimated that if a line were drawn with just the carbon black pigment it has used for paintmaking over 75 years, it would stretch to the moon and back 400 million times!

Thanks to forward-thinking management, a skilled and remarkably loyal workforce, outstanding product performance and a level of friendly, personal service that is distinctive nowadays, HMG Paints has built significant brand share in a number of market sectors, notably Commercial Transport, Offshore & Marine, Civil Engineering & Construction, Light Industry, Furniture, Model & Hobby and Speciality Finishes. Its paint can be found on every continent, in every ocean and, in tune with its maxim 'one name that covers everything', on virtually every substrate, from steel to glass, concrete to grass.

Among thousands upon thousands of applications, HMG provides acrylic paints for rocketships, antifoulings for ships and customs boats, powder coatings for electronics manufacturers, wood coatings for furniture and coffin makers, rust inhibitors for radio telescopes, weatherproof coatings for lighthouses, adhesives for artefacts, grass paint for sports stadia, flexible coatings for hot air balloons and biocidal paints for hospitals.

At the other end of the scale, it also makes special coatings for straw hats, shoe eyelets, electric light bulbs, modelmaking and car exhausts. HMG Paints itself is a wholly-owned subsidiary of H Marcel Guest, the name of the original company and its eponymous founder, Harold Marcel Guest, a dapper Belgian with a penchant for immaculate suits, gloves and spats. A former travelling salesman, he originally set up producing cellulose capping solutions, used for beer bottle tops, with three staff, Herbert Falder, grandfather of the current MD and Marketing Director, Stanley Wallwork and Bertram Bernie.

The firm's diversification into cellulose paint came about by accident, when carelessly-thrown capping solvent stripped paint off the founder's car and an improvised coating was hastily formulated to conceal the damage. Marcel Guest felt that paint was not his forte, however, so within a year Herbert Falder bought him out for the not inconsiderable sum of £100, including rights to the name, and later moved the firm to Fitzgeorge Street, where it remained until the move to Collyhurst in 1959.

Herbert's son, Brian Falder, who joined HMG as a youngster in 1942 and full-time three years later, ran the company for forty years, overseeing a major period of growth, before semi-retiring as Chairman in the 90's. Brian then handed the reins to his sons, John and Stephen, both qualified industrial chemists, who are Managing and Marketing Director respectively. They have maintained and enhanced the firm's reputation for developing innovative new products for important niche markets, like its Slippy Bottom antifouling, Byotrol antimicrobial formulation and Roadover highway repair system; its unrivalled colour matching service, drawing upon over 50,000 standard shades; and its singular willingness to stipulate no minimum quantity, right across the range.

Despite a continuing presence, the Falders are not even the largest family in the firm, thanks to a strong tradition of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives working alongside one another. Long-serving employees is another characteristic: 82 year old Albert Moore joined the company in 1933, delivering paint with a bicycle and sidecar, and was still working part-time until recently; Stanley Wallwork later received a BEM in tribute to his long employment; while foreman Ronnie Harvey retired after 51 years loyal service. In fact, the total employment record of the current 165 staff adds up to around 2,300 years, or an average of 14 years per person. All of which translates into an enormous breadth of knowledge and expertise among HMG's workforce, which in turn facilitates high levels of technical support and service for its customers.

As a paint manufacturer operating near a thriving city centre and drawing its employees from the local area, HMG Paints devotes considerable energies to environmental, community and corporate social responsibility issues. It's riverside site with thousands of native trees is linked to the regional Red Rose Forest urban woodland project and used as an open air classroom for schoolchildren.

The family board members play active roles on various industry, governmental and charitable bodies, including the CBI, the Proskills arm of the Government Sector Skills Council, Prince's Trust, Community Forest North West and Better Regulation Task Force. This allows a proudly independent British company to have a voice in many forums that might affect the future of its business, its marketplace and its workforce.

The firm's works with schools including curriculum packages, work experience placements and career enhancement projects was also recently recognised with a Corporate Social Responsibility award.

One final claim to fame. HMG's Collyhurst site was the setting for the pilot episode of ITV's classic police drama 'Prime Suspect', it's production of paints and primers also providing inspiration for the series' title.

Further enquiries to:
HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com