A brief overview of some of the more important drucraft corporations currently active within the UK.  This section will cover British companies.

Cambridge Group a.k.a. Camlink

Camlink is the only British corporation (and one of the only corporations in the world) to own an S+ Well.  The Light Well is in the Cambridge area, and, though Camlink’s primary headquarters is still in London, its shaping department and many of its offices are based in Cambridge.

For a long time Camlink had a reputation for having some of the best shapers in the world.  This, along with some clever business practices, led to them becoming the largest and wealthiest of the UK drucraft corporations.  In recent years, however, they’ve been struggling, and their wealth has drawn heavy government oversight;  significant fractions of Camlink’s stock are held by foreign investors, and factions in the Board have been arguing for years that none of the UK’s S+ Wells should be owned (even partially owned) by any foreign companies for national security reasons.  As such, Camlink’s management decisions are closely scrutinised by the Board, and they’re frequently forced to make decisions for political rather than commercial reasons.  Their stock has fallen as a result and some believe that a corporate split-up might be on the cards.

British Essentia Services

A very old family-owned company dating back to the 1800s, BES has a long history of selling sigls to the British public.  Unlike most drucraft companies, they’ve never diversified or financialised;  their business is sigls, and they’ve stayed in their lane.

Many of the BES sigl designs are decades old.  Even their ‘newer’ sigls are typically based on designs from the last century, and some of the sigls that they provide through the Exchange are based on templates that haven’t substantially changed for over a hundred years.  Many consider their sigls dated as a result, and they do tend to be slow to incorporate new developments, but the positive side to this is a reputation for reliability – if you buy a BES sigl, you typically know that it’s a design that’s been thoroughly tested over a very long time.  BES sigls tend to last longer than their counterparts, though this does typically come with the tradeoff of a higher price.  As such, BES’s main competitors tend to be the Drucraft Houses, since they’re targeting the same sort of market.

Plastron

An energy company that started out in oil and gas with a small drucraft department as an offshoot;  over time, the drucraft department came to provide more and more of their business until nowadays they’re almost entirely a drucraft company with a vestigal energy department.  Plastron focuses on the ‘prospecting’ side of drucraft and does most of its business outside the UK.  They specialise in finding and exploiting Wells on other continents, particularly in high-conflict areas where most companies aren’t willing to go.  Their corporate headquarters is in London but they have many tiny regional offices dotted all around the world.

Linford’s

A London firm with a history as insurance brokers.  During the 20th century they became a major shaping company and had several famous sigl lines – as late as the 1980s and 1990s Linford’s sigls were still quite well-known.  However, a series of market reverses forced them to pull back, and over the 21st century they came to produce fewer and fewer sigls until in the 2010s they stopped selling to the Exchange entirely.  Nowadays Linford’s are primarily a locating company, and while they still have a small shaping department, this is mostly a relic of the past – they’ve shifted into more of a ‘middle man’ role where they make their money supplying information and Well locations rather than anything tangible.  Despite this, they’re quite active on the UK scene, and consistently rate as one of the Top 10 companies in terms of Wells logged with the Registry.

Lancaster Security

As the name suggests, Lancaster Security specialise in sigls in the military and security field.  They mostly sell to the British armed forces but also supply other NATO militaries and private clients.  Nowadays their sigls are considered somewhat dated, but they can typically trade off their long history and contacts with the UK armed forces to land contracts with the UK’s Ministry of Defence.

Unlike most corporations, Lancaster Security does very little locating, preferring to keep their holdings in permanent Wells and make their sigls with the essentia they supply.  It makes them relatively unwieldy and unable to adapt to shifts in demand, but on the positive side it’s also largely insulated them from market fluctuations and has allowed Lancaster Security to keep plodding along as other companies have gone bankrupt.