He’s the King of Refurb – and he’s back doing what he does best.

Three years after selling CFA Trading, which became the largest Microsoft authorised refurbisher in the UK and Europe, Leon Lindblad has returned to refurbishing laptops and other devices.

Together with his wife and business partner, Joanna Seager, he built Poole-based CFA Trading into a multi-million pound company employing 60 people at its height.

Now the 49-year-old is back at the helm of The Refurb Company, providing refurbishment services and training to companies around the globe.

Launched last August it already has more than 30 clients with its top three – in Germany, Holland and Estonia – each turning over more than a billion pounds.

Performance is well ahead of expectations with over £250,000 generated in The Refurb Company’s first six months.

Leon, pictured left, said: “The American parent company decided to close down CFA and move all the services back over to the United States.

“A lot of my clients depended on CFA for providing refurbishment services.

“A couple of them asked me to start up again as they needed to do keyboard printing so I launched The Refurb Company.

“We are purely offering refurbishment services to other companies.

“But if you want to learn how to refurbish laptops on scale – if you’re another computer company and you have a load of laptops to refurbish – then we’ll teach you how to do it.

“We’ve got a company in Estonia where we’re providing keyboard printing technologies.

“We’re giving them our know-how, obviously for payment, so they can do it themselves

“One of the big problems in our industry is that, over the last few years, there are a few global companies that have started setting up refurb facilities in Dubai.

“Thousands upon thousands of laptops are being sent over to Dubai, getting refurbished and then getting flown back again.

“For me, one of the worst things about that is they purport to be a green company.

“Our promise is that we will never send a device or part to another country to get refurbished or repaired.

“We pledge that it will be remade in the UK but I want it to be remade in France, in Germany. In fact, every country doing their own refurbishment.

“We are very much trying to promote Think Globally, Refurbish Locally.”

One of The Refurb Company’s biggest clients is Europe’s largest leasing company.

It, alone, processes 300,000 laptops annually.

Leon said: “One of their clients is VW.

“VW have 50,000 laptops globally and every three years they renew their lease.

“The leasing company take the laptops offsite, data wipe them and then effectively wholesale them out.

“What they want to do now is bring them back into the circular economy which is to data wipe, refurbish, test, repair and make them look cosmetically good before putting out on a second tier lease.

“You’ve got your VWs of this world but other companies don’t need brand new laptops on lease.

“The idea is that a laptop goes out for two or three years to, say, a mainline corporate and then to smaller businesses.”

The Refurb Company, based In Technology Road, Poole, currently employs three people with a further three on contract.

Leon said: “I want to raise standards so that consumers can get a better laptop.

“One of the problems of our industry is that, for a long time, it would get data wiped, the laptop wiped over and then sent out whereas customers are now becoming more discerning.

“As an industry if we want to start being taken seriously we’ve got to provide a really good quality of refurbished product.

“I also want to put together an education package, something like a NVQ in refurbishing IT, with a proper qualification.

“I’m providing training videos for people.

“When we supply skins to people for them to refurbish laptops then we provide training videos and support on the best way to prepare the laptop, how to fix any cracks and wipe them.

“We’re also able to refurbish screens without replacing the screen.

“The whole idea of refurbishment and reuse is to try and use the original parts as much as possible.

“Every time you replace a part it’s adding to the carbon footprint.”

Leon’s other business interests include owning Wraptastic, specialising in car and commercial vehicle wraps, and co-owning Sharkey’s Sports Bars in Bournemouth and Southampton.

He also owns the two-acre site in Technology Road which includes a Business Park.

Leon said: “The Refurb Company is performing beyond expectations.

“If we were doing £10,000 or £20,000 a month in revenue I’d have been happy but we’re actually averaging about £50,000 – and that’s just services.

“What really satisfies me professionally is that we’re doing our bit to reuse stuff.

“Looking to the future, we’ve got a company in Australia that wants us to help set up refurb for them in keyboard printing.

“For my part I’d like to do more consulting with the bigger companies abroad, travelling over there to help them do refurbs themselves.

“I also think The Refurb Company, keeping it small as a services company, is perfectly suited to becoming a franchise.

“Our constant theme is how can we successfully recycle, reuse more, get more people to accept refurbishment as a viable alternative to brand new and raise standards generally.”

• therefurbcompany.com