Britain`s fastest growing private companies

Transcription

Researched and compiled by
FAST
TRACK
December 7, 2008
The firms in this
year’s Fast Track 100
grew rapidly during
the good times,
but now they face
all the challenges
of a tough new
economic order, says
Catherine Wheatley
Sponsored by
o rapidly has the business landscape changed in recent weeks
that even rapidly growing firms,
adept at responding to change,
must fight to prosper.
Last week interest rates were slashed to
2%, the pound sank in value to less than
$1.50, and the Bank of England governor
Mervyn King has warned that the British
economy would shrink by 2% in the first
half of next year. Business failures rose 26%
between June and September, according to
the Insolvency Service, the biggest quarterly jump for 18 years. Meanwhile, there are
serious concerns about the availability of
bank loans for smaller firms.
This year’s Sunday Times Virgin Fast
Track 100 is a snapshot of Britain’s fastestgrowing private companies taken immediately before the most recent upheavals.
The league table, which ranks firms by
sales growth over their latest three financial years, covers a highly volatile period in
which cheap debt, high consumer confidence and rapid corporate expansion have
been followed by a global contraction in
spending and growth.
As the credit crisis continues, the 12th
annual league table, compiled by the
Oxford research and networking events
company Fast Track, reveals a collection of
entrepreneurial companies that have
moved nimbly and decisively to exploit the
market conditions. Some have forged a
place in new markets such as organic food
and alternative energy. Others have found
space to grow in established industries,
S
FAST TRACK
Fast Track 100 is researched and
compiled by Fast Track, the
Oxford-based networking events
and research company that ranks
Britain’s top private companies and
provides a network for
entrepreneurs to meet.
including finance and engineering. For the
past three years, they have demonstrated a
remarkable ability to build sales and create
wealth and jobs. Further ahead, they will
need to innovate and work hard to adjust to
the new economic order.
A handful of companies in this year’s
Fast Track 100 have already become household names. Smoothie-maker Innocent
(No 36), appearing on the league table for
the fifth consecutive year, is becoming
an established fixture on supermarket
shelves. Lorries bearing the logo of the
organic food delivery firm Abel & Cole
(No 81), in the league table for the third
year running, are a familiar sight on the
road. Silver Cross (No 3), supplier of babycarriages to generations of royalty, has
been in the headlines since its prams
became popular with celebrity mums such
as Angelina Jolie and Madonna.
It has taken the No 1 company on the
Fast Track 100, Hotel Chocolat Stores, just
four years to establish a thriving retail
brand. Founders Angus Thirlwell and Peter
Harris, chocolatiers who have already
developed a successful mail-order business
and a popular tasting club, have built a
30-strong chain of stylish outlets boasting
design and service more reminiscent of a
boutique hotel than a high-street shop.
Despite the downturn, the pair are opening three more stores before Christmas. Up
to 10 more units are planned for next year.
“We are upbeat, and our trading is resilient,” said Harris. “We think people are
more likely to deny themselves a new car
than chocolate.”
Ever since the inception of the Fast
Track 100, food and drink companies have
made a strong showing in the annual
league table, showing perhaps that basic
commodities will always be in demand and
can generate fast-growing sales whatever
the economic climate. This time Hotel
Chocolat Stores is among 10 foodie firms,
including Gü Chocolate Puds (No 58),
Tyrrells Potato Chips (No 97) and dim-sum
restaurant chain Ping Pong (No 33),
launched by the former general manager of
celebrity hangout Nobu.
Britain’s
fastest
growing
private
companies
In association with
But overall, the sector breakdown of this
year’s league table reflects an economy
that was growing strongly until earlier this
year. Two-thirds are service companies.
There are 24 recruitment firms in the
league table — seven more than last year —
a sign of the rapid expansion that was taking place until last year. Building-related
businesses, such as shop-fitting contractor
Probuild Birmingham (No10) and residential property broker Movewithus (No 78)
account for a further 11 places.
Meanwhile, finance-related firms
including business loan provider CSG
(No 14) and insurance broker Towergate
Partnership (No 56) have claimed just six
places, against 11 last time. Engineering
companies such as Dawnus Construction
(No 79), which has just built an eco-sustain-
able visitor centre on Pembrokeshire’s
Skomer Island, also account for six slots.
Energy firms have a strong presence
again in this year’s league table, reflecting
rising demand and high prices over the
period. Ice Energy Heat Pumps (No 42),
which supplies systems that suck warmth
from the ground and redistribute it to
household heating systems, and niche oil
and gas services firm Acteon (No 57) both
appear for the second year. Recruitment
consultancy FPSG is at No 48 after expanding into the energy sector while the acquisitive oil consultancy firm Mentor IMC
Group sits at No 24.
Surprisingly, the combined economic
impact of this year’s Fast Track 100 is broadly similar to that of last year’s top 100 businesses. They have total sales of £3.3 billion,
‘‘
THESE ARE
ENTREPRENEURIAL
COMPANIES THAT
HAVE MOVED NIMBLY
TO EXPLOIT MARKET
CONDITIONS
slightly higher than last year’s figure of
£3.1 billion. Together, they have created
18,480 jobs over the period and employ a
total of 24,241 staff, down on 2007’s tally of
29,760. Venture-capital and business-angel
investors hold stakes in 21 companies, but
founders or their families still own a further 72 firms.
Entrepreneurial businesses like those on
the Fast Track 100 can survive and even
prosper during the downturn by cutting
costs, managing cash and seizing opportunities, as KPMG’s Malcolm Edge explains
on page 6. Fast Track research shows that
some league-table companies are already
finding fresh growth opportunities. For
example, Movewithus has launched a
“pre-possession” service, where the firm
works with borrowers to sell their proper-
ties swiftly — and at realistic prices —
before they are repossessed.
Businesses such as Hotel Chocolat Stores
and Silver Cross are using direct marketing
and other postal services to attract and
retain new customers, as highlighted by
Tim Rivett of Royal Mail on page 8. Others
are searching for new markets abroad,
according to HSBC’s Steve Price on page 4.
Over the past three years, companies in
the league table have grown rapidly in a
buoyant market that has only lately been
hit by the fall-out from the credit crisis.
There is no doubt they will have to adjust to
survive the downturn. But many Fast
Track 100 companies have already started
to prove they have the optimism, dynamism and sheer guts to succeed whatever
the economic climate.
2
FAST TRACK 100
The 100 fastest-growing
UK private companies
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100
84
A
Hotel Chocolat Stores
TorFX
Silver Cross
JJ Fox
The Book Depository
Burgopak
Paladin Group
Manpower Direct
Medicare First
Probuild Birmingham
TDX Group
Allen Lane
Interim Partners
CSG
Practicus
On Holiday Group
Towry Law
Mayday Healthcare
Hobson Prior
First Point Group
Reflex Vehicle Solutions
EA Consulting Group
Applied Language Solutions
Mentor IMC Group
New Career Skills
33Six Consultancy
Octavian Security
DRL
Asteral
Seven Publishing Group
Danbro
Global Resourcing
Ping Pong
Kew Green Hotels
Cornwallis Elt
Innocent
Balhousie Care Group
Fusion People
Draycott Ward
LNT Construction
Geothermal International
Ice Energy Heat Pumps
G2 Recruitment Solutions
Airport to Hotel
Shilton Sharpe Quarry
Oyster Partnership
Miroma
FPSG
Investigo
SPI (Materials)
Kinsey Allen Consulting
Integrated Subsea Services
AJ Power
No 1 Currency
Alsbridge
Towergate Partnership
Acteon
Gü Chocolate Puds
Maria Mallaband Care Group
Savant
McLaren Construction
People Source Consulting
Edge Recruits
Ten Lifestyle Management
Net-a-porter.com
Health Management
Sprue Aegis
Eurostaff Group
Instant Offices
Fast & Fresh Restaurants
Go Ape!
Caspian UK Group
Sloane Square Hotel
Oliver Marketing
Playforce
MSI Group
7city Learning
Movewithus
Dawnus Construction
Henleys Clothing
Abel & Cole
Lucy Wernick & Associates
Tonic Life Communications
Connex Recruitment
Just Lamps
PineSolutions.co.uk
Simply Biz
Ink Publishing
DriveTech
Henry Howard Finance
Parasol
1927 London
Joules
Creativevents
GGR-Unic
Portfolio Payroll
Tyrrells Potato Chips
Cameron Black
Felicini
Stats Group
† Unaudited accounts
ity
ctiv
Chocolate retailer
Foreign currency provider
Pram maker
Recruitment consultancy
Online book retailer
Packaging designer
Property services provider
Security services provider
Shopfitting contractor
Debt management provider
Financial recruitment consultancy
Business finance provider
Interim recruitment consultancy
Holiday sales agency
Independent wealth adviser
Medical recruitment consultancy
Telecoms recruitment consultancy
Vehicle rental provider
Management consultancy
Translation services provider
Oil industry consultancy
Vocational training provider
Household appliance supplier
Medical equipment provider
Magazine publisher
Payroll services provider
IT recruitment consultancy
Restaurant chain
Hotel operator
Fruit drinks maker
Care home operator
Technical recruitment consultancy
Insurance industry consultancy
Care home developer
Renewable energy supplier
Airport transfer provider
Legal recruitment consultancy
Corporate barterer
Exhaust component supplier
Executive search consultancy
Offshore services provider
Diesel generator manufacturer
Outsourcing consultancy
Insurance underwriter and broker
Premium pudding maker
Care home operator
Construction consultancy
Building contractor
Concierge service
Online fashion retailer
Occupational health adviser
Safety products manufacturer
Office supplier
Subway sandwich franchiser
Adventure course operator
Burger King franchiser
Hotel operator
Marketing agency
Playground equipment maker
Training course provider
Residential property broker
Civil engineering contractor
Clothing wholesaler
Organic produce retailer
Clothing wholesaler
PR consultancy
Projector lamp supplier
Wood furniture retailer
Support services provider
Airline magazine publisher
Driver trainer
Designer clothing distributor
Clothing retailer
Catering services provider
Lifting solutions provider
Payroll recruitment consultancy
Potato chips producer
Design and construction provider
Restaurant chain
Pipeline engineer
Q
fH
no
atio
Loc
Hertfordshire
Cornwall
Skipton
Bristol
Gloucester
South London
Bath
Essex
Central London
Birmingham
Nottingham
Central London
Harrogate
Southeast London
Henley
West Sussex
Bracknell
Central London
Tunbridge Wells
Central London
Middlesbrough
Twickenham
Manchester
East London
East Sussex
Central London
Nottingham
Bolton
Reading
South London
Blackpool
Bromley
Southeast London
West London
Central London
West London
Dundee
Hampshire
Bath
Leeds
Coventry
Oxfordshire
Bristol
West Sussex
Central London
Central London
Central London
Glasgow
Central London
Staffordshire
East London
Aberdeen
Northern Ireland
Edinburgh
Central London
Maidstone
Norwich
West London
Leeds
Central London
Essex
Bristol
Devon
Central London
Central London
East Sussex
Coventry
Central London
Central London
Lancashire
Suffolk
Surrey
Central London
West London
Wiltshire
Central London
Central London
Cambridgeshire
Swansea
Manchester
Wimbledon
Central London
Central London
Liverpool
Berkshire
Norwich
Huddersfield
Central London
Berkshire
Newport
Warrington
SW London
Leicestershire
Central London
Oldham
Central London
Herefordshire
Central London
Sheffield
Aberdeen
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% arowth
g
225.53%
217.08%
179.46%
165.59%
160.15%
147.73%
147.34%
143.99%
142.72%
142.08%
138.94%
138.72%
136.57%
133.12%
132.96%
127.47%
119.21%
118.85%
116.76%
114.76%
114.75%
114.35%
111.43%
107.91%
104.72%
100.62%
100.26%
99.56%
98.43%
96.73%
95.79%
92.57%
90.89%
90.73%
90.09%
89.14%
88.76%
88.01%
87.12%
86.60%
85.81%
85.43%
84.98%
84.31%
83.07%
82.90%
80.09%
79.82%
79.60%
77.98%
77.69%
77.17%
76.44%
75.50%
74.43%
72.78%
71.72%
71.07%
71.03%
70.84%
70.75%
68.40%
67.95%
67.71%
67.32%
66.77%
66.72%
65.74%
64.98%
64.55%
63.67%
63.62%
63.53%
63.15%
62.71%
62.24%
61.76%
61.30%
61.16%
60.65%
60.49%
59.41%
59.18%
58.66%
57.92%
57.69%
57.53%
57.52%
56.82%
56.74%
56.36%
55.65%
55.25%
54.93%
53.92%
53.64%
53.61%
53.45%
53.26%
52.83%
-8
07
20
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00
s, £
sale
†18,384
265,389
*15,181
†8,953
†40,201
†5,260
15,677
5,566
†10,538
9,442
†17,259
16,131
5,691
†28,822
21,698
11,430
49,161
11,031
8,186
†10,518
16,145
20,646
†5,480
28,215
5,266
†8,109
†8,317
†80,982
11,084
30,751
34,924
9,723
*10,632
37,424
*8,157
†113,193
8,630
34,135
5,639
25,736
†12,796
†7,769
†15,981
8,587
6,874
†5,305
†9,125
52,269
†19,209
9,139
8,721
56,198
18,005
474,061
6,125
268,931
194,690
†16,776
25,158
†21,732
133,843
†5,378
†6,116
†10,034
55,158
7,571
7,263
13,168
*†5,331
6,525
6,084
41,828
6,051
†8,439
6,374
†9,202
*16,524
27,900
68,783
†25,731
27,939
11,646
5,110
†6,709
†21,362
†7,176
10,665
25,280
10,106
29,817
248,968
23,115
22,225
†10,230
12,809
7,375
†12,910
†10,281
6,799
8,760
-5
04
20
*533
*8,325
*696
*478
2,283
*346
*1,036
383
*737
666
*1,265
*1,186
430
2,275
*1,716
971
4,667
*1,052
804
*1,062
*1,630
2,097
580
3,139
614
*1,004
1,036
*10,190
1,419
4,039
4,653
1,362
1,529
5,394
1,188
16,729
1,283
*5,137
*861
3,961
1,995
1,219
2,525
1,372
1,120
867
1,562
8,990
3,316
1,621
1,554
*10,105
3,278
87,708
1,154
52,136
38,452
3,351
5,029
4,359
26,883
1,126
1,291
2,127
11,775
1,632
1,567
2,892
1,187
1,465
1,388
9,549
1,384
1,943
1,480
2,155
3,904
6,649
16,432
6,207
6,758
2,875
*1,267
1,680
5,425
1,830
2,728
6,467
2,620
7,744
*65,133
6,130
5,939
2,751
3,513
*2,034
3,562
2,846
1,889
2,454
0s
00
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sale
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27
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22
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70
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28
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148
48
12
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350
247
1,159
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5,801
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103
ed
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2004
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1958
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1987
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ge
Pa
Opened five new shops in 2008 and now has 30 stores nationwide
Top traded currencies are euros, US dollars and Australian dollars
Sold its first custom-built pram in Beijing this year
Expanded to Truro because the directors like surfing and beach cricket
Offers free worldwide delivery on every title
Founder drew inspiration for his packaging design from children’s pop-up books
Plans to offer energy inspections to ensure compliance with new regulations
Engineering graduates started the company from a converted warehouse
Claims to recruit social workers for every local authority in London
Branching out to start refitting schools and local council properties
Acquired Madrid-based competitor to kick off international expansion
Clients include Transport for London and the Royal Horticultural Society
Awarded Age Positive Employer Champion by the Department for Work and Pensions
Founder previously set up, ran, and sold off a similar business
Its three founding directors drew no salary for the first 12 months
Says its management has more than 60 years of experience in the travel industry
Made five acquisitions in 2007, including Baker Tilly Financial Services
Claims its offices haven’t closed in four and a half years
Supplies highly skilled specialists for drug discovery and approval projects
Headquartered in London but claims not to have a single British client
Its 500 clients include DHL and Network Rail
Originally founded to manage change arising from the introduction of the euro
Founder was featured on Dragons’ Den and Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire
Iceni Capital recently took a 55% stake in the company
Counts Halifax Rugby Union player Will Kay as one of its graduate electricians
Founder previously set up and sold two businesses
Placed former Gurkha soldiers as guards at Ikea store in Nottingham
Says it has made about 225,000 deliveries this year
Claims most of its staff are clinical scientists, medical engineers or radiation specialists
Publishes magazines for Sainsbury’s and fashion retailer Asos.com
Husband and wife team used a redundancy payout to set up company
Is expanding into new sectors such as construction in Dubai and the UAE
Founded by the former general manager of Nobu restaurant
Runs the largest Holiday Inn Express in Europe at Stansted airport
All three directors compete in endurance sporting events for charity
Claims 130,000 people a week sign up for its innocent e-mail
Sponsors a PhD student at Dundee University to carry out research on dementia
Has just opened an office in Perth, Australia
Sales jumped sharply on account of the 2007 floods
Says it is building 15 new care homes, with capacity for more than 1,000 beds
Claims to have laid more than 300,000 metres of pipe to extract ground heat
Recently acquired an underfloor heating company to launch Ice Energy Floor Heating
Recently backed a former employee’s recruitment start-up
Founder took a job as a holiday rep in Corfu during a gap year and still works in travel
Started from a Fleet Street Starbucks in 2002
Sponsors carbon offset projects and claims to be fully carbon neutral
Founder did barter deal with Regus to secure his first office in St James’s Square
Made its second acquisition in the oil and gas recruitment sector in a £4m deal last year
Undertakes finance recruitment for Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Amazon
Claims to supply more than 10m exhaust parts to car makers each month
Handles only permanent placements to clients such as JP Morgan
Bank of Scotland Corporate invested a reported £80m for a 12.5% stake in April
Recently launched a range of green generators running entirely on biodiesel fuel
Says its new system can process hundreds of exchange transactions per second
Works with more than 40 clients, including a range of FTSE 100 companies
Claims to be Europe’s largest privately owned insurance intermediary
Acquired competitors in Brazil and Singapore in 2007
Recently started selling hot chocolate served in Waitrose cafes
Company also builds and sells retirement apartments
Its construction projects include the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Moscow
Projects include Europe’s first carbon-neutral logistics depot based in Staffordshire
Set up with a grant from the Prince's Trust
Developed “Job Pods”, video booths where jobseekers can sign up and register CVs
Its concierge service advises clients on eco-friendly holidays and energy-efficient homes
Has received more than £10m in funding since its launch eight years ago
Claims to work with 32 FTSE 250 companies
Recently launched a new line of wireless fire safety devices
Says 12 languages are spoken in its London head office
Claims to work with more than 50 FTSE 100 companies
Offers a range of sandwiches containing only 6g of fat or less
Claims to take up to 100,000 bookings a year for its adventure courses
Claims to be one of the largest Burger King franchisers in Britain
Has put a laptop, wireless broadband and a PlayStation in every hotel room
Claims that automated marketing technology is the key to its success
Makes up to 100 installations of its playground equipment per month
Claims to be the preferred supplier of staff for Ericsson Japan
Claims it trains about 20,000 staff each year for clients including HSBC and Citigroup
Says it sold more than £500m worth of part-exchange property in the last year
Projects include an environmentally sustainable centre on Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire
Now has a new retail division with nine stores nationwide
Food past its sell-by date feeds animals at Longleat Safari Park and the London Zoo
Founder started with a £1,500 council grant and a loan from her father
Has offices in New York City, Dallas and western France
Owner founded the business with £7,000 in savings
20% of sales now come from its own-brand lamps that the firm manufactures itself
Claims to be carbon-neutral and that only two of its staff use cars to commute
Says its non-profit business academy has helped 2,000 users in six months
Publishes in-flight magazines in 17 languages, including Chinese, Polish and Khmer
Claims to train drivers for more than 200 corporate fleets, including Sainsbury’s
Claims to handle up to 300 lease transactions monthly
Claims to provide employment services for more than 25,000 contractors
Recently launched a baby lifestyle brand created by Bon Jovi's drummer
Claims its childrenswear is John Lewis’s best-selling children’s line this season
Provides bar and catering services to the Red Bull Air Race and Cartier Polo
Its cranes were used to raise the floor of a swimming pool without draining the water
Clients include HMV, Citibank and Sony
Newest potato chip flavours include beef and horseradish and ale and cheese
Says 80% of projects are within 10 miles of the company’s front door
Its Manchester branch is rumoured to be one of Wayne Rooney’s favourite eating spots
Recently opened offices in Houston and the UAE
* Annualised figure
THE RULES OF
ENGAGEMENT
THE Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100,
published annually since 1997, is the
definitive league table of Britain’s private
companies with the fastest-growing sales.
It excludes technology companies, which
are featured in our separate league table,
the Tech Track 100.
Criteria: Companies had to be registered
in the UK as independent, unquoted and
holding companies, not as subsidiaries.
Sales were measured by compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) over three
financial years, between 2004 and 2007,
or 2005 and 2008, depending on the latest
available accounts. Annualised sales had
to exceed £250,000 in the base year and
£5m in the latest year. Companies had to
have 10 or more employees and be
making a profit before tax in their latest
accounts. A minimum of 25 weeks of
trading in the base and latest years was
required. For financial years with fewer, or
more, than 52 weeks, the figures were
annualised on a simple pro-rata basis.
Companies had to show an increase
in sales from penultimate to latest year
and to forecast further sales growth.
Unless otherwise stated, sales of
recruitment agencies reflect total invoiced
amount to the employers, including
contractors’ salaries and commission. The
base-year figures may be from audited or
unaudited accounts. Final-year figures
that are unaudited are marked.
Exclusions: Pure property developers
were excluded, as were trading firms,
such as financial traders. Companies did
not qualify if growth resulted from a
restructuring of their accounts, or if they
had a county court judgment of more than
£10,000 against them.
Data-collection methods: Some
companies nominated themselves and
others were nominated by their advisers.
Other sources were used, including trade
press and media coverage. Firms were
also identified by researching accounts
filed at Companies House and financial
data provided by Bureau van Dijk’s Fame
and Experian’s Corporate Researcher. The
final 100 companies were selected from
more than 1.5m businesses. All those in
the league table were interviewed by
telephone and many were visited.
The companies are not endorsed by the
sponsors of Fast Track 100, nor are they
necessarily the best-run companies. They
are ranked on historical performance.
Incomplete information: Companies that
file late and those whose accounts may
not have been processed by October 10,
www.bvdep.com
2008 were not considered.
Some exceptions were made to the
qualification criteria set out above. The
compiler’s decision is final and no
correspondence will be entered into.
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THE SUNDAY TIMES
timesonline.co.uk/business
07.12.08
3
Chocolate firm enjoys the taste of success
Plant HirerHOTEL CHOCOLAT STORES
114.24%
1
Chocolate retailer
225.53%
A MONTHLY chocolate-tasting club and
marketing designs taken from the
London fashion scene have won
Hotel Chocolat its status as one of
Britain’s cool brands.
The Hertfordshire company was set up
in 2003 by Peter Harris and Angus
Thirlwell, building on their previous
decade of experience as mail-order
catalogue-based chocolatiers, and they
opened their first shop in 2004. Today the
company has 30 shops across Britain —
five of them were opened this year — and
has ambitious plans to have 60 retail
In store: style and innovation
Plant HirerTORFX
2
114.24%
217.12%
IF TorFX founder Jon Beddell has his way,
traveller’s cheques will one day be
replaced by a pre-paid travel debit card
carrying different currencies like the one
his company offers in partnership with
Mastercard. TorFX handles large
foreign-currency transactions of £5,000
and above from its base in Cornwall.
It claims to register more than 500
individual and corporate clients monthly,
including Ginsters and Mitsubishi
Carbide. The firm says its competitive
pricing has pushed up sales — measured
by gross transaction value — 217% a year
from an annualised £8.3m in 2005 to
£265.4m in 2008.
Plant HirerSILVER CROSS
3
Pram maker
114.24%
179.46%
THE Heritage prams hand-made to the
specifications of its 1877 original have
earned Silver Cross a place among the
baby brands of the rich and famous,
outlets by 2011. The mail-order business
is run as a separate sister company.
Founders Harris and Thirlwell have
long experience of the confectionery
sector, having started off in 1988 selling
peppermints for the corporate market
before moving on to chocolate.
With motifs and typefaces inspired by
fashion trends, originality and
innovation are part of the company ethos.
The company’s 500g “chocolate slabs”
include flavours such as roast Italian
coffee and triple chocolate wham bam.
Other offerings include chilli and almond
chocolate “canapés” and a range of “cocoa
cuisine” products such as chocolate pasta
and cocoa nib balsamic vinegar.
The founders emphasise that ethical
standards are integral to the company
philosophy as well. Its chocolates are
made with no artificial additives or
hydrogenated fats.
Hotel Chocolat runs a 140-acre cocoa
plantation on the Caribbean island of
St Lucia. The estate dates back to around
1745 and the company had to restore it.
Hotel Chocolat has also established an
“engaged ethics” programme on the
island, buying cocoa from other local
growers and guaranteeing to take their
crop at 30%-40% above the market price.
The company’s efforts to rejuvenate
the cocoa-growing industry through a
model of sustainable production and fair
standards for suppliers have won at least
one high-profile supporter: in March
Prince Charles cut the first ground for
a chocolate factory to be built on the
St Lucia estate.
A cool image and an ethos of corporate
responsibility have helped the company
to grow. Harris and Thirlwell have
ambitious plans, from opening their
St Lucia chocolate factory to tourists,
to upcoming plans to build a real Hotel
Chocolat for visitors on the estate.
The company’s sales have soared 226%
a year from an annualised £533,000 in
2005 to £18.4m in 2008.
including Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez
and Cate Blanchett. Chairman Alan
Halsall and his brother Graham took over
the Skipton company in a £4m buyout
deal in 2006, and will soon be offering
the Doodle, a new patented convertible
highchair. Sales have grown 179% yearly
from an annualised £696,000 in 2004 to
an annualised £15.2m in 2007.
Plant HirerJJ FOX
4
114.24%
165.59%
FOUNDED in Bristol in 2004 with five
employees, this recruitment consultancy
now has 82 consultants across offices in
Manchester, Richmond, Newcastle,
Bournemouth and Truro. Its recruits are
placed in the IT, manufacturing, finance,
education, construction and healthcare
sectors. Founders Adam Smith,
Robert Tillett and Dominic Smith were
directors at recruitment companies who
joined forces with former City lawyer
Daniel Smith to create their business.
JJ Fox’s sales have grown 166% a year
£9m in 2007.
JUSTIN WILLIAMS
Business is sweet: Angus Thirlwell, co-founder of the company that now has 30 shops across Britain and plans to double the number by 2011
Plant HirerTHE BOOK DEPOSITORY
114.24%
5
160.15%
ANDREW CRAWFORD, the founder of
this Gloucester firm, was part of the team
that helped to launch Amazon.com in
Britain. He set up the Book Depository
in 2004 to fill an online niche for
hard-to-find books. Today it has 1.8m
titles that can be dispatched from its
warehouse in 48 hours. The company
offers free worldwide delivery and has
a custom-built system that determines
the cheapest and most efficient way of
getting a book to a customer. The
website’s publishing arm issues 150
out-of-copyright titles a week. Sales at the
Book Depository have grown 160% a year
from £2.3m in 2005 to £40.2m in 2008.
Plant HirerBURGOPAK
6
Packaging designer
114.24%
147.73%
BURGO WHARTON invented and
patented his sliding tray packaging in
1998. Ten years later his firm Burgopak
has used the design to produce a reported
22m mobile-phone boxes for Motorola.
The London company’s packaging is used
in the telecoms, media and
pharmaceutical industries, as well as for
special-edition items such as Rugby
World Cup ticket packs and the Scissor
Sisters’ latest album. The company has
invested £2.5m in a custom-designed
machine to mass-produce its packaging
for pharmaceuticals. Sales have surged
148% a year from an annualised £346,000
in 2005 to £5.3m in 2008.
Plant HirerPALADIN GROUP
7
114.24%
Plant HirerMANPOWER DIRECT 114.24%
8
143.99%
THIS Essex company was founded in 2003
to supply security guards to the public
and private sectors. Set up by university
friends Muhammad Alam, Omer Malik
and Kashif and Sharjeel Bhatti, it has
grown from 10 employees to a pool of
more than 500. It now supplies security
and car-parking enforcement services to
clients that include local councils, the
NHS and large retail outlets. Sales at the
company have swelled 144% a year from
£383,000 in 2004 to £5.6m in 2007.
147.34%
THIS property support-services group was
founded by Tim Saunders in 2000, and has
grown through acquisitions. The Paladin
Group is made up of four subsidiaries,
which provide property management,
inspection, testing and maintenance
services. The company is backed by NVM
Private Equity, which helped fund the
£2.7m acquisition of Phoenix Precision
Electric this year. Sales at the Bath firm
have grown 147% a year from an
annualised £1m in 2005 to £15.7m in 2008.
Plant HirerMEDICARE FIRST
9
114.24%
142.72%
THIS recruitment consultancy says it
has worked with every local authority in
London, placing temporary social workers
to councils within the M25. Medicare
First also provides occupational therapists
and physiotherapists for private clinics,
and claims to place up to 90 of its recruits
a month. High demand in the London
area for qualified social workers has
meant lots of repeat customers, and
co-founders Andrew Yetzes, Karl
Chatterjee, Robert Beaman and Elliott
Barrett have presided over strong
performance. Sales at the firm have
grown 143% a year from an annualised
£737,000 in 2005 to £10.5m in 2008.
Plant HirerPROBUILD BIRMINGHAM
114.24%
10
142.08%
REFITTING shops for Tesco, the Co-op
and Iceland accounts for 75% of the
business carried out by this Birmingham
company. Probuild completes about 50
big refits a year, and is involved with
another 100 refits of smaller shops and
offices. It also carries out maintenance
and repair work. Founder Anthony
Sherlock incorporated Probuild as a
limited company in 2003, and in 2004 had
just one big customer. Then Nigel Ford
joined as operations director and together
the two men have grown sales 142% a year
from £666,000 in 2005 to £9.4m in 2008.
Probuild is now branching out into work
on schools and council buildings.
Pockets of health
glow amid gloom
Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson
salutes the brave entrepreneurs
who are seizing opportunities
even as the economy slumps
he publication of this
year’s Sunday Times
Virgin Fast Track 100
comes at a time of
great uncertainty in
both the British and world economies. More than a decade of
global growth has come to a
halt and consumers and businesses are under pressure.
The banking troubles — foreshadowed by Northern Rock’s
troubles late last year — have
now affected many of our main
high-street banks. The Bank of
England has stepped in to save
Northern Rock and Bradford &
Bingley, HBOS is being bought
by Lloyds TSB and interest rates
have been cut to the lowest level for more than a generation to
stimulate the economy.
Against this backdrop, it is
even more remarkable, that in
its 12th year, the Fast Track 100
list continues to power ahead
and its leading companies
maintain such a strong rate of
growth. On average, these companies have almost doubled
their sales each year over the
past three years.
It is a reassuring sign in
these times that Britain’s entrepreneurs are still finding interesting niches — this year’s list
has pram makers, chocolate
shop owners, playground builders and suppliers of healthy
food to balance the usual
recruiters and business service
companies.
All have sustained a healthy
T
growth in sales and profits and
have generated employment.
In fact, the 100 companies created more than 18,000 jobs in the
past three years, an achievement that underlines the dynamism of the private sector.
Hamish Stevenson and his
team at Fast Track came to me
in 1996 with the idea of sponsoring the first proper analysis of
Britain’s fastest-growing companies. Since then the size and
make-up of the list and the profile of the entrepreneurs has
changed a great deal — but it
has always been a good reflection of the focus and the health
of the British economy.
The 2008 list is no exception.
It reveals the clear shift
towards service businesses and
away from manufacturing that
has happened over the past 20
years.
More than two-thirds of the
companies and half of the top
10 are involved in services.
Recruitment again tops the list,
with 24 companies out of the
100. I often wonder whether
Virgin missed an opportunity
in recruitment.
It will be interesting to
assess the list next year and see
how differing economic conditions may alter the make-up
and whether the focus of the
top 100 companies will reflect
further expansion overseas, as
growth is maintained by
exports and new markets.
At Virgin this has already
been the case. Our performance
in the past year has been driven
by a combination of resilient
growth among our big UK companies — such as Atlantic,
Active, Media, Money and
Trains — and continued international expansion across the
mobile, health clubs and airline
businesses.
Many of our companies are
now well established and
appear in some of Fast Track’s
other lists of Britain’s top-performing private companies. So
far the strength of our brand
and product has stood Virgin in
good stead and our businesses
have been performing well.
Money and Trains recently
reported strong profits for last
year; Atlantic posted a substantial rise in its half-year profits,
while Active goes from
strength to strength.
Virgin Atlantic and Holidays
have been remarkably resilient
performers this year. Atlantic
has benefited from the investment in its fast-track channel
at Heathrow’s Terminal 3. New
routes were limited to the
revived service to Kenya and a
second flight to Hong Kong.
On the international side we
launched Virgin Mobile in
India, together with our partner Tata Group. We launched
radio stations in Dubai and Canada and have new gyms opening in Australia and Dubai at
the start of next year.
We continue to look for new
areas to open up and are keen to
break back into the city-centre
hotel market when the time is
right and also continue to
assess the health sector to find
the right business model and
entry point.
It is this opportunism and
sensible risk-taking that marks
out many of the Fast Track 100
companies and the entrepreneurs behind them. In my
recent book Business Stripped
Bare, I said: “The brave may not
live forever — but the cautious
do not live at all.”
Being brave and making decisions is a key characteristic of
all entrepreneurs. It is not
about taking crazy risk but
about analysing the opportunity, the competition, protecting
your downside and then going
for it.
As the Fast Track 100
research shows, the leading
company in this year’s list —
Hotel Chocolat Stores — is a
perfect example of sensible
risk-taking. Founded by Peter
Harris and Angus Thirwell in
1993 as a traditional cataloguebased chocolatier, the company
made its breakthrough by
rebranding in 2003 and setting
up a separate retail business
under the name Hotel Chocolat. The first store opened in
2004 and since then the company has opened 30 stores and its
designs for its slabs of chocolate
have won it status as one of Britain’s cool brands.
In contrast, Silver Cross (No 3)
was founded in 1877 and is the
oldest business on the list. Its
management has revived the
business and remodelled it for
the 21st century, with the
prams designed in Britain but
made in China. A host of celebrity customers have helped to
propel it from No 12 on the list
last year to the No 3 this year.
Growing by promoting a healthier lifestyle: Keith Abel and Ella Heeks of the organic produce retailer Abel & Cole
The number of companies
returning to the list is particularly pleasing; with 39 of last
year’s list making a second
appearance this year. Of those,
10 are in the list for a third time
in a row, two are making their
fourth appearance and Innocent (No 36), the fresh fruit
smoothie maker, is in the list
for a remarkable fifth straight
year (see table on page 10).
In the same vein as Innocent, it is good to see compa-
nies such as Abel & Cole (No 81),
the organic produce retailer,
maintaining their strong sales
growth through promoting a
healthier lifestyle and that businesses focused on renewable
energy and improved sustainability are making a breakthrough into the list.
One of those is Geothermal
International (No 41), which
harnesses the power of natural
heat to produce its efficient
heating and cooling systems. It
was founded in 2000 and has
won clients such as B&Q, Unilever and the NHS.
The need to generate growth
in a sustainable way is exercising all businesses. Hotel Chocolat has had an innovative way
of dealing with this both from a
production angle — its chocolate has no artificial additives
— and in environmental terms.
It runs a 140 acre cocoa plantation in St Lucia that aims to
rejuvenate the cocoa growing
industry and build a chocolate
factory and hotel on the St
Lucia site. Thus proving business can grow fast and in a sustainable way.
I look forward to seeing
whether more businesses will
promote such innovative
schemes and hope that many
of these will shape the list of
Fast Track 100 companies for
years to come.
n Sir Richard Branson is founder
and chairman of the Virgin Group
4
FAST TRACK 100: Britain’s fastest-growing private companies
Plant HirerMAYDAY HEALTHCARE114.24%
18
Medical recruitment firm
118.85%
CHARLES SAFAPOUR’s experience as a
prison officer proved useful when he
and Nick Poturicich founded Mayday
Healthcare in 2003 to provide
round-the-clock emergency medical staff
for prisons. Prisons still account for a
third of the company’s business. Its other
clients include Harley Street hospitals
and NHS trusts that need staff in a hurry.
Mayday was founded with funding put
up by Kevin Coyle of Coyle Personnel,
who owns the company. Surging demand
for specialty nurses has helped the
London company grow sales 119% a year
from an annualised £1.1m in 2004 to £11m
in 2007.
Plant HirerHOBSON PRIOR
19
114.24%
116.76%
OPERATING in a niche sector, this
Tunbridge Wells recruitment firm
supplies clinical, medical and regulatory
specialists to big pharmaceutical firms
and life-science companies all over
Europe. Founders Jane Woodhead and
Matthew Perrett say they rely on the
detailed industry knowledge of their
consultants in placing highly skilled
candidates to manage clinical trials and
drug-approval projects. Increasing
placements of specialist contract staff
have helped sales grow 117% a year, from
£804,000 in 2004 to £8.2m in 2007.
Plant HirerFIRST POINT GROUP 114.24%
20
Recruiting for pharmaceutical companies: Jane Woodhead and Matthew Perrett, founders of Hobson Prior
Plant HirerTDX GROUP
11
114.24%
Debt management provider 138.94%
CLIENTS ranging from the big four banks
to utility companies such as Eon and
Thames Water may use Nottinghambased TDX Group to sort out their bad
debts. Acting on its clients’ behalf, the
company manages a panel of
debt-collection agencies, handles asset
sales, deals with insolvency arrangements and will resolve other financial
problems. Founded by Mark Onyett with
help from business angels, the company
this year acquired a Madrid-based
competitor in a deal backed by the
venture-capital firm Eclipse. Sales have
soared 139% a year from an annualised
£1.3m in 2005 to £17.3m in 2008.
Plant HirerALLEN LANE
12
Financial recruitment firm
114.24%
138.72%
THIS London business specialises in
recruiting finance professionals for the
public and not-for-profit sectors.
Focusing on southeast England, it says
it has more than 100 clients, including
the City of Westminster Council, London
Business School, Royal Horticultural
Society and Transport for London.
James Allen and Ben Lane used their
recruitment experience to found the firm
in 2004, and have presided over sales
growth of 139% a year from an annualised
£1.2m in 2005 to £16.1m in 2008.
Plant HirerINTERIM PARTNERS 114.24%
13
136.57%
DOUG BAIRD founded this Harrogate
firm in 2003 to supply interim
management staff to companies going
through structural upheavals or needing
to fill staff vacancies. The company has
capitalised on the growth in public-sector
employment. It now claims to have
10,000 registered candidates and opened a
London office this year. Interim Partners’
clients include Thames Water, Morrisons
and Norwich Union. Its sales grew
137% a year from £430,000 in 2004 to
£5.7m in 2007.
Plant HirerCSG
14
114.24%
133.12%
BUSINESSES looking to invest in
hard-to-finance software upgrades, office
refurbishment and telecoms systems may
go to this London company for funding. It
arranges unsecured loans from leading
British and European banks, ranging
from £50,000 to £5m, which are typically
paid back over three years. In 1998
managing director David Jackson sold
a similar business that was financing
business car fleets. He founded CSG two
years later. Sales have soared 133% a year
from £2.3m in 2005 to £28.8m in 2008.
Plant HirerPRACTICUS
15
Interim recruitment firm
114.24%
132.96%
FOUNDERS Jason Luckhurst, Boyd
Kershaw and Paul Wandless set out to
break the mould of recruitment
consultancies when they founded their
interim management business in 2004.
Practicus claims to apply a “sports agent”
model to the placement of senior interim
managers, aiming to offer the same
personalised service that a sports agent
would provide a Premier League
footballer. It has 75 clients across the HR,
finance and project management sectors,
including eBay, Nationwide and the NHS.
The Henley company plans to expand in
continental Europe next year. Its sales
have risen 133% a year from an annualised
£1.7m in 2004 to £21.7m in 2007.
Telecoms recruitment firm
114.76%
ALTHOUGH headquartered in London,
this recruitment agency, which supplies
mainly contract engineers to the
telecommunications industry, does not
have a single British client. Founders
David Taylor and Alistair Rynish claim to
focus on emerging markets, dealing with
customers in 85 countries from offices in
Mexico and Dubai. Mobile product and
service providers such as Nokia, Siemens
and Ericsson account for most of its
turnover, which has grown 115% a year
£10.5m in 2008.
Plant HirerREFLEX VEHICLE SOLUTIONS
114.24%
21
Vehicle rental provider
114.75%
THIS commercial-vehicle rental company
says it offers round-the-clock support and
flexible rental agreements to its 500
clients, which include DHL and Network
Rail. Based in Stockton and Didcot, Reflex
Holiday sales agency
127.47%
ON HOLIDAY GROUP was formed in 2004
by travel-industry veterans Steve
Endacott, Bill Allen and Brian Young, to
sell holidays, accommodation and
services direct to the public. The West
Sussex company also offers its packages
through travel agents such as Travel
Republic, On The Beach Holidays and
Freedom Direct, and claims to be
responsible for more than 400,000
passengers a year. Travellers demanding
low-cost, flexible holidays to destinations
in the Mediterranean and North Africa
have helped sales rise 127% a year, from
£971,000 in 2004 to £11.4m in 2007.
Plant HirerTOWRY LAW
17
22
Management consultancy
Plant HirerAL SOLUTIONS
23
114.24%
Independent wealth adviser 119.21%
THIS Bracknell-based independent
wealth adviser claims to be one of the
largest in Britain, managing more than
£2 billion in assets for wealthy
individuals and corporate clients. It
generates revenues from fees rather than
commissions, going against the industry
norm. The company is owned by
Palamon Capital, whose buy-and-build
strategy created it. Palamon started with
a small acquisition in 2003 and added
Towry Law three years later. The two
businesses were merged, and chief
executive Andrew Fisher and his team
have since bought a further five
companies. Sales have soared 119% a year
from £4.7m in 2004 to £49.2m in 2007.
Plant HirerEA CONSULTING GROUP
114.24%
114.35%
BUILDING on his 21 years of experience
in management consultancy, Steve
Robson founded this Twickenham firm in
1998 to help companies deal with change
generated by the introduction of the euro.
Claiming to work only with companies
in the FTSE 250, and mainly in financial
services, the firm says the present
banking turmoil has generated new
business from clients that are looking to
respond to uncertainty in the markets.
The company is looking to expand
accordingly, with a recruitment drive
under way that aims to add 100 new staff.
EA Consulting’s sales grew 114% a year
from £2.1m in 2005 to £20.6m in 2008.
Plant HirerON HOLIDAY GROUP 114.24%
16
Vehicle Solutions claims to have more
than 3,000 service outlets and a fleet of
8,500 vehicles. Managing director
John Collins has opened a resale
operation to dispose of the company’s
old cars and vans, helping to boost sales
115% a year from an annualised £1.6m in
2004 to £16.1m in 2007, and opened an
Ireland office in September. The
business’s ultimate holding company is
based in the British Virgin Islands.
Sailing through the banking turmoil: Steve Robson of EA Consulting Group
114.24%
Translation services provider 111.43%
THIS Manchester firm claims to be able to
translate almost anything. It can rewrite
documents in Japanese or advise people
who want to tattoo a name on their
bodies in Hindi script. Gavin Wheeldon
says his company has prospered despite
rejection on Dragons’ Den in 2006. He
spoke no foreign languages when he
remortgaged his house in 2003 to found
Applied Language Solutions, but today
the company offers online translation
services in more than 140 languages for
clients that include Nike, Google Europe,
HP and Yahoo. The company uses people
who have experience of the sectors in
which its clients work. It also has a team
of IT developers who have produced a
highly accurate translation management
program to ensure the most appropriate
specialist translators are assigned to each
task. The company’s sales have soared
111% a year from £580,000 in 2005 to
£5.5m in 2008.
New markets are the key to growth
HSBC’s Steve Price explains how
the bank is supporting growth
companies in search of fresh
markets at home and abroad
inding foreign markets for its range of
woollies, wellies and
other country clothing has played a key
part in the rapid growth of fashion retailer Joules.
As the Fast Track 100 research
shows, the company, at No 93
in this year’s league table, has
built a network of distributors
to sell sweaters, gilets, tweeds
and other stylish clothes to
shops across Europe and North
America, where customers are
said to be attracted to the label’s
fun, outdoorsy look. Exports
now account for almost a tenth
of the Leicestershire company’s
sales, which have grown 55% a
year from £5.9m in 2005 to
£22.2m in 2008.
Four years ago, Joules
switched its account to HSBC
when its bank refused to lend
money to implement a new
growth plan. “We showed the
same business plan to HSBC
and it was happy to go with us,”
said Tom Joule, the company’s
founder. “In the event, sales
exceeded our expectations.
“The bank was great at helping us to see how to expand
quickly without running out of
cash. It showed us how to use
our debtor book to raise cash
F
Happy to take the plunge: exports account for 10% of Tom Joule’s clothes sales
rather than running a huge
overdraft facility. They also
allowed us to raise money
against our export customers.”
HSBC, which backs 18 companies in this year’s Fast Track
100, remains committed to
helping high-growth companies achieve their potential
both at home and abroad, providing their plans make commercial sense in the present climate. We understand that rapidly expanding firms have special requirements, especially
during times of economic
uncertainty. What’s more, we
are also one of the most strongly capitalised and liquid banking groups in the world.
As British consumer confidence has faltered and the
pound’s value has fallen
against the world’s leading currencies, many firms are pursuing growth by developing new
markets abroad.
As the research shows,
Joules is considering franchise
opportunities in Dubai. Construction consultancy Savant
(No 60), which has worked on
projects such as the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Moscow, generates
all but 15% of its turnover from
eastern Europe, Russia and the
former Soviet states. Recruit-
ment consultancy First Point
Group (No 20) has no British clients; it focuses on supplying
telecoms engineers in emerging markets such as Mexico.
HSBC recognises the important role that overseas trade
now plays for many firms.
Growing ventures are quickly
exposed to the possibilities and
pitfalls of foreign trading. The
expansion of the European
Union and the emergence of
international trade shows have
opened an array of opportunities abroad. A website immediately creates a global presence.
‘‘
THE EXPANSION
OF THE EU HAS
CREATED MANY
OPPORTUNITIES
OVERSEAS
We know that foreign expansion introduces many challenges, from dealing with currencies and arranging credit to
deciphering foreign languages
and legal systems. Our network
of more than 9,500 offices in 85
countries offers an unrivalled
knowledge of foreign markets
and a wealth of contacts. We
were able to assist Joules in all
aspects of its international business expansion — for example,
we were able to advise the firm
on hedging its dollar exposure.
Our International Banking
Centres call on the expertise of
colleagues around the world to
support our customers as they
open overseas accounts, a process that can often be complicated by local regulatory issues.
In Britain, our 160 commercial centres respond quickly to
requests for help with matters
such as raising capital and tackling liquidity problems, which
is particularly important in
today’s economic climate. Each
centre is staffed by experienced
managers and their goal is to
build strong relationships with
the bank’s clients.
The packaging designer
Burgopak, No 6 in the league
table, is another of HSBC’s
clients that is taking advantage
of our local network and global
expertise. Ever since founder
Burgo Wharton launched the
company in 2001, he has taken
the business into new countries in a bid to improve sales.
In his earliest days, he asked
friends to help find buyers in
Paris and Berlin. Two years ago,
the company opened a design
studio next to the Chicago head-
quarters of one of its biggest clients, Motorola. Today, the company generates more than half
of its £5.3m turnover from overseas customers.
The London-based business
has used HSBC to provide currency and other international
banking services. As the company has expanded by opening a
factory in China and winning
fresh clients in the pharmaceutical and telecoms sectors, it
has added yen, dollar and euro
accounts to its facilities.
“Finding new markets,
either in new countries or with
new industries, is how we have
expanded,” said group chief
executive Patrick Heininger.
Burgopak is one of a growing
number of customers that use
our online banking platform,
HSBCnet. The service, available
in 11 languages and 57 countries, provides a range of cash
management, payments and
trade finance solutions
through a single online delivery channel.
“HSBC has a wide international presence, with offices
everywhere that we operate,
and a very effective internet
banking facility that enables us
to transfer money quickly,”
said Heininger.
HSBC is committed to supporting its clients through
tough times as well as good.
Our mission is to build strong
working relationships with our
clients, help them to tackle the
challenges ahead and to maximise their potential.
n Steve Price, head of commercial
banking at HSBC, was talking to
Catherine Wheatley
THE SUNDAY TIMES
Plant HirerMENTOR IMC GROUP 114.24%
24
Oil industry consultancy
107.91%
THIS London company supplies highly
skilled technical professionals to oil and
gas companies across the globe. Founder
John Richards started the business in
1987 after 12 years as an oil-industry
consultant. Mentor IMC now has offices
in Britain, America, Singapore and
Australia to handle its blue-chip clients.
Iceni Capital has recently invested an
undisclosed sum for a 55% stake, which
will fund further expansion and
acquisitions. Sales have grown 108% a
year from £3.1m in 2005 to £28.2m in 2008.
Plant HirerNEW CAREER SKILLS 114.24%
25
Vocational training provider 104.72%
THIS firm was founded by Tim Addison
and Trevor Dormedy in 2003 to provide
retraining for workers who wanted to
switch to the construction industry. The
East Sussex company says it has now
trained more than 5,000 students through
its alternative apprenticeship
programme. The firm is hoping to benefit
from the growing renewable-energy
market by offering training in
solar-energy work. Backing from Bridges
Ventures earlier this year should help the
company to expand into new sectors. Its
sales have grown 105% a year from
£614,000 in 2005 to £5.3m in 2008.
Plant Hirer33SIX CONSULTANCY 114.24%
26
100.62%
SENIOR IT professionals are placed at
international banks and finance firms
with the help of the London firm 33Six
Consultancy. Serial entrepreneur John
Taylor founded the company in 2003 as
a specialist recruitment firm, helping to
place candidates in blue-chip jobs in
Britain, Singapore, Hong Kong and
New York. A shift away from placing
permanent staff toward finding people
for short-term contracts has helped sales
grow 101% a year, from an annualised
£1m in 2004 to £8.1m in 2007.
Plant HirerOCTAVIAN SECURITY 114.24%
27
100.26%
FORMER solicitor Sukhi Ghuman spotted
a gap in the market when he founded
Octavian Security in Nottingham in 2003.
07.12.08
5
His company provides security staff from
its bases in Britain, Canada and Spain to
clients such as the BBC, Ikea and the
Ryder Cup. It has also branched out into
security services consulting. The
company claims it was the first to employ
former Gurkha soldiers and has worked
with local authorities to combat
anti-social behaviour. Sales grew 100% a
year from £1m in 2005 to £8.3m in 2008.
Plant HirerDRL
28
Appliance supplier
114.24%
99.56%
CUSTOMERS including Sainsbury’s,
Boots, Marks & Spencer, House of Fraser
and Debenhams count on DRL to help
manage the distribution and supply of
household appliances purchased from
their websites. The Bolton company,
founded by John Roberts in 2000, says it
has a range of 4,000 products and made
225,000 deliveries in 2008. Faster and
more frequent deliveries to a wider range
of postcodes have helped sales jump 100%
a year, from an annualised £10.2m in 2005
to £81m in 2008 (which includes the total
value of goods delivered to customers).
Plant HirerASTERAL
29
Medical equipment
114.24%
98.43%
NHS HOSPITALS across Britain may hire
this Reading company to supply, finance
and manage on-site technology, leaving
medical staff free to focus on patient care.
Founded by David Rolfe and Stephen
Hodgson in 2003, Asteral provides
mainly radiology theatres and oncology
equipment to seven NHS hospitals. It
claims more than half its staff are
registered clinical scientists, medical
engineers or radiation specialists. Sales
have grown 98% a year from £1.4m in
2005 to £11.1m in 2008. The company is
owned by the investment firm Brook
Henderson Group.
Plant HirerSEVEN PUBLISHING GROUP
114.24%
30
Magazine publisher
96.73%
MEDIA professionals Michael Potter,
Seamus Geoghegan and Jo Sandilands
built on their experience in the industry
to found this London publishing
company in 2003. Seven Publishing has
expanded through numerous acquisitions
funded by its 42% shareholder Guardian
Media Group, among others. Most of its
revenue is derived from producing
He’s got it covered: Sukhi Ghuman’s Octavian provides security staff in Britain, Canada and Spain to clients such as the BBC, Ikea and the Ryder Cup
magazines for companies such as fashion
retailer Asos.com and Sainsbury’s. It also
produces traditional newsstand products
such as the food magazine Delicious. The
company’s sales grew 97% a year from
£4m in 2004 to £30.8m in 2007.
Plant HirerDANBRO
31
114.24%
95.79%
CONTRACTORS looking to escape the
burden of administering tax, national
insurance and pensions may come to this
Blackpool company for help. Danbro says
Vital statistics of the Fast Track 100
SECTORS: 67 of the companies are service-sector businesses, with the
biggest group being 24 recruitment agencies, followed by 14 companies
in business services.
GEOGRAPHY: London is the most fertile area for entrepreneurship, being
the home of 38 companies. But southeast and north England are not far
behind, home to 18 and 15 of this year’s companies, respectively.
Plant HirerKEW GREEN HOTELS 114.24%
SALES: The combined sales of the companies rose from £569m to
£3.3 billion in a three-year period.
34
EMPLOYMENT: Companies on average almost doubled their number of
employees every 18 months in the past three years. They created 18,480
new jobs during the three years; 52 of the companies employ more than
50 people.
FOUNDERS: The youngest founder was 23 and the oldest 64 when they
started their companies. The average age of company founders is 36.
OWNERSHIP: 72 of the companies are owned by their founders, while
21 have received venture-capital or business-angel investment.
it acts as an umbrella company for some
1,500 contractors, who use its services in
place of establishing their own limited
companies. It also offers accounting
services to nearly 800 limited companies.
Founded by Damian and Helen
Broughton in 2000, the firm has a
growing list of IT clients that have helped
to boost sales 96% a year from £4.7m in
2005 to £34.9m in 2008 (sales here are
the total amount invoiced on behalf of
contractors plus Danbro’s fees).
business specialists to a global client base
in sectors such as banking, finance and
consultancy. Founded by Daniel
Richardson to supply specialist SAP
professionals, the company has
diversified to provide high-level
candidates in new sectors such as
construction, procurement and health.
Sales have increased 93% a year from
£1.4m in 2004 to £9.7m in 2007.
Plant HirerPING PONG
Plant HirerGLOBAL RESOURCING114.24%
32
Keeping hospital equipment running smoothly: Asteral founders David Rolfe and Stephen Hodgson
IT recruitment consultancy 92.57%
THIS Bromley recruitment company
supplies permanent and contract IT and
33
Restaurant chain
reasonable prices. Founded by former
Nobu restaurant manager Kurt Zdesar in
2004, Ping Pong has 11 outlets in London
serving Asian dim sum, fragrant teas and
cocktails. Hosting Ping Pong parties for
groups of eight or more has helped to
keep the dining rooms packed, and sales
have soared 91% a year from £1.5m in 2005
to an annualised £10.6m in 2008.
114.24%
90.89%
THIS dim sum chain has taken its place
with the likes of Wagamama and
Yo Sushi as a popular destination for
Londoners who enjoy novelty along with
Hotel operator
90.73%
WELCOME BREAK colleagues Jeremy
Richardson and Paul Johnson were
experienced leisure-industry operators
when they founded Kew Green Hotels in
2001, and their London company now has
20 hotels, including 12 full-service
Holiday Inns. This year it made its first
foray into four-star hotels when it
acquired a Marriott at the John Lennon
Airport in Liverpool. The company is
partly owned by Bank of Scotland
Corporate and Moorfield Group, a
specialist property finance group. Its
sales have grown 91% a year from £5.4m
in 2004 to £37.4m in 2007.
Plant HirerCORNWALLIS ELT
35
114.24%
90.09%
THIS London firm recruits IT
professionals for the fund management,
insurance and banking sectors. Its main
clients include Aviva Investors, BNP
Paribas and Lloyd’s of London and it
claims to have doubled its blue-chip
client base this year. Cornwallis Elt was
founded by Tim Skelding in 2001, and
today he is an equal shareholder in the
company with directors Andy Johns
and Russell McIntyre. Sales have risen
90% a year from £1.2m in 2004 to an
annualised £8.2m in 2007.
6
Plant HirerINNOCENT
36
Fruit drinks maker
Quarry in 2003. The London company
offers psychometric testing of candidates,
and places junior and senior lawyers for
corporate and law-firm clients in Britain,
Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia.
It says it has recently increased its
proportion of senior placements, which
command higher fees. Having recently
helped to broker a merger between a
British law-firm client and an American
law-firm partner, the company hopes to
pursue more opportunities to benefit
from increasing consolidation in the
legal sector. Sales grew 83% a year from
£1.1m in 2004 to £6.9m in 2007.
114.24%
89.14%
CELEBRATING its fifth consecutive year
on the Fast Track 100 league table,
Innocent has kept business booming by
becoming a brand that is synonymous
with healthy lifestyles and eco-friendly
values. Its pulped-fruit drinks with no
additives are now sold in 10 European
countries. Its newest offering is a line of
gourmet vegetarian instant meals,
including Moroccan squash tagine and
Tuscan bean stew. Founders Richard
Reed, Adam Balon and Jonathan Wright
claim their new “veg pots” fulfil your
five-a-day fruit and veg requirement
when finished off with a smoothie.
The London company’s sales have
grown 89% a year from £16.7m in 2004
to £113.2m in 2007.
Plant HirerOYSTER PARTNERSHIP114.24%
46
Plant HirerBALHOUSIE CARE GROUP
114.24%
37
Care home operator
88.76%
FOUNDER Tony Banks set out to supply
the Scottish market when he consolidated
his four care homes into Balhousie Care
Group in 2005. Today it has 16 care homes
across Scotland serving 550 residents from
its Dundee headquarters. It offers
long-term residential and nursing care
and respite for full-time carers, and also
has units for dementia and special-needs
residents. The group has grown rapidly
through acquisition, with three new
homes bought in 2007, and now plans to
expand outside Scotland. Sales have
grown 89% a year from £1.3m in 2005 to
£8.6m in 2008.
Plant HirerFUSION PEOPLE
38
Technical recruitment firm
Plant HirerMIROMA
47
114.24%
88.01%
THIS Hampshire recruiter finds technical
staff for sectors such as civil engineering,
construction and railways. Founded by
Paul Metcalfe and five colleagues,
Fusion People has seven offices in Britain
and two in Australia, and also handles
business in the Middle East. The company
claims to have between 600 and 700 active
clients, and says that a high rate of repeat
business has boosted its growth. Sales
rose 88% a year from an annualised £5.1m
in 2004 to £34.1m in 2007.
Plant HirerDRAYCOTT WARD
39
Insurance consultancy
Flying high: FPSG founder John Hailstone (lower man) has raised sales to
£52m by expanding his recruitment consultancy into the oil and gas sector
Geothermal’s sales grow 86% a year from
£2m in 2005 to £12.8m in 2008.
Plant HirerICE ENERGY HEAT PUMPS
114.24%
42
114.24%
87.12%
Plant HirerG2 RECRUITMENT
43
Plant HirerLNT CONSTRUCTION 114.24%
Care home developer
86.60%
THIS Leeds-based construction business
designs and builds care facilities and a
small number of retirement flats. It
develops an average of 16 care homes a
year with amenities such as en-suite
bathrooms and satellite televisions. The
company forms part of the LNT Group,
which is owned by Lawrence Tomlinson,
whose other businesses include
healthcare consultancy, software,
chemicals and automotive interests.
Projects for clients such as Orchard Care
85.43%
THIS Oxfordshire company is at the
forefront of the growing market in
renewable energy with its systems that
use ground heat to generate hot water
and home heating. It also supplies its
Swedish-made pumps to corporate clients
such as the National Trust, the Duchy of
Cornwall, as well as new clients Big
Yellow Self Storage and Harrogate
Borough Council. Founders Andrew
Hillier and Andrew Sheldon are now
trying to break into the housing authority
market. Sales have risen 85% a year from
£1.2m in 2005 to £7.8m in 2008.
IF your house or office gets damaged and
you make an insurance claim, then
Bath-based Draycott Ward could be the
business that carries out the repairs.
Founded in 2004 after an asset buyout of
Colonial Preservation by Christopher and
Anthony McKenty, the company works
closely with clients such as Norwich
Union and HBOS across southwest
England and Wales. Flooding in 2007
saw insurance claims rocket, and the
business has been booming since.
Draycott Ward’s sales have grown 87%
2005 to £5.6m in 2008.
40
82.90%
THIS recruitment consultancy specialises
in finding staff for public-sector clients
such as Citywest Homes and Strathclyde
Police, while its private-sector customers
include Southern Electric and Carillion.
With offices in London and Glasgow, the
company claims to have 20,000 registered
candidates filling positions in housing
management, property maintenance,
surveying and building services.
Founding partners Jack Barton and David
Whomes and managing director Colin
Fairbank have boosted sales 83% a year
from £867,000 in 2005 to £5.3m in 2008.
Making back-up electricity generators: Ashley Piggott of AJ Power
Homes have helped to raise the sales of
LNT Construction 87% a year from £4m in
2005 to £25.7m in 2008.
Plant HirerGEOTHERMAL INTL 114.24%
41
85.81%
THIS Coventry company has harnessed
the power of natural heat to produce its
energy-efficient heating and cooling
systems. It designs pumps that use
ground heat and installs them into
homes and buildings for clients that
include B&Q, Unilever and the NHS. The
company was founded by Brian Davidson
in 2000 and, last April, Scottish and
Southern Energy took a 20% stake in a
deal that valued the business at £75m.
Increased government incentives for
energy-efficient systems have helped
IT recruitment firm
114.24%
Plant HirerAIRPORT TO HOTEL 114.24%
Airport transport provider
Plant HirerSHILTON SHARPE QUARRY
114.24%
45
Legal recruitment firm
83.07%
DRAWING on their experience in legal
recruitment, directors Nick Shilton and
Gavin Sharpe founded Shilton Sharpe
80.09%
EXPERIENCE of working for the tycoon
Vincent Tchenguiz gave Marc Boyan the
confidence to found the corporate media
barter company Miroma in 2003. He took
on its first office in a barter deal, trading
outdoor billboard space with Regus for
accommodation in St James’s Square.
Miroma takes excess stock from clients
such as Levi’s and the car company Kia
and trades it for media services and
advertising from partners that include
MTV, Sky, Five and CBS. The London
company claims to have overseen £100m
of clients’ advertising since 2003. Sales
2005 to £9.1m in 2008.
Plant HirerFPSG
48
114.24%
79.82%
THIS recruitment consultancy places
staff in a range of sectors, including IT,
finance, human resources and
engineering. With headquarters in
Glasgow and offices in seven locations,
FPSG says it has a base of some 400 clients
ranging from Clydesdale Bank and
Halliburton to small family businesses.
It says it provides a total solution for
customers, placing candidates on both
a permanent and a temporary basis.
Founder John Hailstone has expanded
into the oil and gas sector, with the £4m
acquisition of Jobact Petrochem late last
year, helping to raise sales 80% a year
from £9m in 2004 to £52.3m in 2007.
84.98%
CLAIMING to have placed candidates in
more than 20 FTSE 100 companies, this
Bristol recruitment agency was being
run on a single computer out of founder
James Gorfin’s flat just five years ago.
Now boasting more than 3,000 active
clients across a range of sectors, the
company is looking to expand into
continental Europe. Sales grew 85% a year
from £2.5m in 2005 to £16m in 2008.
44
Hotel in 2002. His company provides
travel agents with transfer services
between airports and hotels, and also
allows holidaymakers to book direct
online. Claiming to operate in 70
countries and in more than 4,000 cities
and resorts, the West Sussex company
has links with Easyjet and other airlines
that sell its service through their
websites. It is also launching a revamped
ski shuttle service to winter holiday
destinations. Sales grew 84% a year from
£1.4m in 2004 to £8.6m in 2007. The
company is half-owned by Hong
Kong-based Unifol International, a
consortium of business-angel investors.
114.24%
Corporate barterer
84.31%
BEING made redundant at Thomas Cook
spurred Paul Stanyer to found Airport to
TOP 10 COMPANIES WITH THE MOST EMPLOYEES
Rank Company
Activity
91
56
72
59
57
31
34
17
27
60
Insurance underwriter
Burger King franchiser
Care home operator
Hotel operator
Independent wealth adviser
Parasol
Towergate Partnership
Caspian UK Group
Maria Mallaband
Acteon
Danbro
Kew Green Hotels
Towry Law
Octavian Security
Savant
2007-8 staff
Page
5,801
3,299
1,159
1,095
1,041
1,021
720
650
500
460
10
7
9
7
7
5
5
4
5
8
Agile adjust quickly
to tougher times
Growth companies can beat the
slump by managing cash, cutting
costs and seizing opportunities,
says KPMG’s Malcolm Edge
ritish business is
grappling with
tough financial and
economic conditions, but nimble,
fast-growing companies could
still be set to prosper. Firms
such as those in the Fast Track
100 are better equipped to adapt
quickly to a market that has
changed dramatically in recent
weeks.
Optimism, determination
and an ability to make rapid
decisions — key characteristics
of any entrepreneur — are
precisely the qualities that will
steer companies through
today’s crisis. But owners and
managers must also apply the
basic rules of cutting costs,
managing cash and seizing
competitive opportunities if
they are to flourish.
Almost two-thirds of the
senior executives polled in
KPMG’s third quarter National
Business Confidence Survey
said prospects for business
were either bad or very bad —
the bleakest results we have
B
recorded since our survey was
launched four years ago.
There is no doubt the same
conditions will affect the companies in the Fast Track 100.
But, crucially, many have a spirit and determination to succeed
that could see them address
problems head on, well before
they reach a critical stage.
This year’s Fast Track 100
companies cover a broad range
of sectors including building,
food and drink, leisure, media,
financial services and health.
Each is facing a unique challenge, but through our experience with clients over the past
year, KPMG has identified the
key steps they should be taking to protect and grow their
ventures.
Growth companies that act
now to cut costs, manage their
cash and seize opportunities
are likely to avoid the gloom
that is gripping the business
community as the financial crisis progresses.
First, it is vital that companies act fast to cut unneces-
sary costs where they can.
Firms that import raw materials or components are coming
under particular strain as sterling weakens. Reducing overheads is also important in sectors, such as property or retailing, that are under particular
stress or where customers or
suppliers are in distress.
For example, as the Fast
Track research shows, Kew
Green Hotels, at No 34 in the
league table, has recently
joined an energy-purchasing
consortium to cut power bills at
its properties. The company
has also doubled profit margins
at one hotel by reviewing every
supply contract from maintenance to linen and fruit juice.
It is also important to keep
staff costs under control. It
seems unlikely that Fast Track
100 companies, which have
together created more than
18,400 jobs over the three years
they have been measured, will
continue to expand at such a
pace. Instead, they must think
about managing their costs
without losing sight of the
need to retain the talent pool
they have built.
By being creative, managers
can make significant savings
on their employment overheads without resorting to
redundancies. Recently we
have seen companies try other
options such as reducing production, taking longer breaks
than normal and getting staff
to agree to modest pay cuts to
save jobs.
We are also advising companies to look closely at their
cash position. Put simply, this
is about setting key performance indicators and being clear
about who is monitoring them.
For example, companies need
to consider how they are managing their creditors and debtors and whether the process in
place is effective for their business. Furthermore, companies
must be able to identify the
future cash needs of the business and start planning now.
As part of this process, we
are helping firms re-examine
their financing and consider
whether they have the appropriate level of working capital
at the best interest rate.
The credit crisis has made
renegotiating banking facilities
more challenging for all businesses, so early action will be
important to secure the right
funds at the right price.
Companies that expanded
Hotter property: Kew Green Hotels has joined an energy-purchasing consortium to cut its power bills
into new sectors or markets
while debt was cheap and confidence was soaring should consider refocusing on their core
businesses.
It is vital that they can differentiate themselves from their
rivals by offering better, more
efficient or cheaper goods and
services in this tough environment. Such a step might
involve disposing of non-core
parts of the business or acquiring bits of another business to
strengthen their offering.
Finally, we think determined and optimistic entrepreneurs like those at the helm of
many Fast Track 100 companies will find fresh opportunities in the fast-changing market. The weak pound is proving
an advantage for export-based
businesses such as Just Lamps
(No 85), which supplies projector lamps in Europe, America
and Asia.
For these fleet-of-foot firms,
this unprecedented market
environment can be a tremendous opportunity.
Looking ahead, tough times
are set to continue. Our National Business Confidence survey
found that the vast majority of
those polled said the economic
outlook would get worse before
it got better.
Complacency is especially
dangerous in a volatile market.
But with the right planning
now, many of Britain’s fastestgrowing private companies
should come through the crisis
in good shape.
n Malcolm Edge, head of UK
national markets for KPMG, was
talking to Catherine Wheatley
THE SUNDAY TIMES
Plant HirerINVESTIGO
49
Recruitment agency
114.24%
50
114.24%
Exhaust component supplier 77.98%
CHANGES in legislation on vehicle
exhaust emissions have produced
favourable results for John Elder and
Michael Holt since they founded their
Staffordshire company in 1998. They
claim it is the largest British distributor
of stainless-steel tubes used in products
such as exhaust-gas recirculation systems
for diesel cars. The company says it
supplies more than 10m tubes to the
automotive industry each month, as well
as to manufacturers including Honeywell
and BAE. Sales shot up 78% a year from
£1.6m in 2004 to £9.1m in 2007.
Plant HirerKINSEY ALLEN CONSULTING
114.24%
51
Executive search firm
7
TOP 10 COMPANIES WITH THE BIGGEST SALES
79.60%
CLAIMING to be a preferred supplier of
financial employees to Tesco, this
recruitment agency started in London,
and has opened franchises in St Albans
and Guildford, where local directors own
49% of the shares. Specialising in
accountancy, finance, management
consulting and IT staffing across all salary
levels, Simon Smith and Scott Beckson’s
five-year-old business also supplies
Prudential, Amazon and Marks &
Spencer. Investigo has recently launched
a new technology platform that aims to
connect clients and candidates directly.
The company has grown its sales 80% a
Plant HirerSPI (MATERIALS)
07.12.08
77.69%
THIS London-based executive search
firm, founded in 2001 by Jonathan Robin
Rank Company
Activity
54
56
2
91
57
61
36
28
79
52
Currency dealer
Currency dealer
Payroll operator
Offshore services
Building contractor
Fruit drinks maker
Appliance supplier
Building contractor
Offshore services
No1 Currency
Towergate
TorFX
Parasol
Acteon
McLaren Cons
Innocent
DRL
Dawnus Cons
Int Subsea
† Unaudited accounts
Staff
Page
474.1
268.9
265.4
249.0
194.7
133.8
†113.2
†81.0
68.8
56.2
39
3,299
46
5,801
1,041
131
280
263
401
322
7
7
3
10
7
8
6
5
9
7
* Sales represent gross transaction value
and Bruce Lock, claims to provide
strategic advice, market research and
permanent placements for the financial
sector. Its clients include the American
investment bank JP Morgan, with most
business coming from Europe, America
and the Middle East, and the company
has recently taken on consultants
servicing the hedge fund, commodity
and environmental sectors. Sales grew
78% a year from £1.6m in 2004 to £8.7m in
2007, and the company says it is planning
to open offices in Dubai in 2009.
Plant HirerINTEGRATED SUBSEA 114.24%
SERV
52
Sales, £m
77.17%
FROM its base in Aberdeen, Integrated
Subsea Services provides remotely
operated vehicles as well as survey and
diving services to customers in the oil and
gas industry in the North Sea, Egypt, the
Caribbean and the Caspian Sea. It was
founded by industry specialists Ian Herd
and Bruce Webster in 2002, and this year
Bank of Scotland Corporate invested a
reported £80m for a 12.5% stake.
Expanding its fleet and adding staff to
keep up with demand have helped to
boost sales 77% a year, from an annualised
£10.1m in 2004 to £56.2m in 2007.
Plant HirerAJ POWER
53
Diesel generator maker
114.24%
76.44%
IF Barclays Bank employees in South
Africa experience a power failure, they
are likely to switch on diesel generators
designed and manufactured by AJ Power.
Headquartered in Northern Ireland and
founded five years ago by Ashley Pigott,
the company produces some 1,500
generators annually, of which
three-quarters are sold to corporate and
residential customers overseas. With its
recent launch of biodiesel fuel generators,
the company is planning to expand
business in Africa and the Middle East.
Sales grew 76% a year from £3.3m in 2005
to £18m in 2008.
Plant HirerNO 1 CURRENCY
54
114.24%
75.50%
BRITISH holidaymakers seeking summer
sun abroad keep this business busy
during July and August. With 256
bureaux de change, No1 Currency offers
currency exchange and wire transfer
services to individuals from travellers to
investors in foreign property. From its
base in the heart of Edinburgh the
company also attracts corporate clients
including Dairy Direct and Caledonian
Investments (Gulf). Founders Mark
McElney and David Hale want to keep up
the pace of expansion and have helped
grow sales — measured by gross
transaction value — by 76% a year from
£87.7m in 2005 to £474.1m in 2008.
Plant HirerALSBRIDGE
55
Outsourcing consultancy
114.24%
74.43%
SPOTTING a niche in the market for
outsourcing and offshoring, and drawing
on their experience in the field, Tim Lloyd
and Rick Simmonds founded their
London company in 2002. They claim to
work with 40-50 clients each year,
including government agencies and a
range of FTSE 100 businesses. The
company has been keen to expand,
amalgamating with an American
consultancy in 2005 and opening a Paris
office in January, and now claims to have
more than 100 consultants in Europe and
North America. Sales grew 74% a year
from £1.2m in 2004 to £6.1m in 2007.
Plant HirerTOWERGATE PARTNERSHIP
114.24%
56
Gü Chocolate Puds was inspired by Belgium’s patisserie desserts
72.78%
TOWERGATE’s acquisitive business
strategy has pushed consolidation in the
insurance sector. Executive chairman
Still expanding: Peter Cullum’s Towergate has made 160 acquisitions since it was founded just over a decade ago
Peter Cullum has made 17 acquisitions
this year alone, bringing the company’s
total to nearly 160 since it was founded
just over a decade ago. The Maidstone
firm says it now controls more than
£2.1 billion in gross premiums, making it
Europe’s largest independently owned
insurance intermediary. It specialises in
niche insurance markets such as military
equipment, nightclubs, holiday homes
and therapists. This year it created
Towergate Financial Services, raising
£108m from Royal Bank of Scotland and
Lloyds TSB to acquire a string of regional
independent financial advisers. Sales
2004 to £268.9m in 2007.
Plant HirerACTEON
57
114.24%
71.72%
WITH 19 subsidiary companies, including
new acquisitions in Brazil and Singapore,
and a joint venture in Qatar, this Norwich
firm’s operations span the globe. Acteon
provides oil and gas companies with
technology for linking the seabed to the
surface, and also supplies staff. Chief
executive Richard Higham led a
secondary buyout in 2006 backed by First
Reserve for an undisclosed amount.
Acteon’s sales soared 72% a year from
£38.5m in 2004 to £194.7m in 2007.
fruit desserts bearing its more recent Frü
brand. High-profile marketing campaigns
for new products and a sponsored ice rink
at the Natural History Museum have kept
sales growing 71% a year, from £3.4m in
2005 to £16.8m in 2008.
Plant HirerGü CHOCOLATE PUDS 114.24%
SERVING Britain and the Channel Islands
from its headquarters in Leeds, this
company operates 49 care homes for the
elderly and adults with autism and
learning disabilities. Two newly-built
homes with another 86 beds should be in
operation by May 2009. Chairman Phil
Burgan and managing director Maria
Twarowski have pursued an aggressive
acquisition strategy and are looking to
expand into southeast England. Sales
have grown 71% a year from £5m in 2004
to £25.2m in 2007.
58
Premium pudding maker
71.07%
TAKING inspiration from patisserie
desserts in Belgium, James Averdieck’s
upmarket dessert range can now be found
in supermarkets from Waitrose to the
Co-op, as well as on Virgin Atlantic and
British Airways flights. The London
company began with oven-ready
chocolate soufflés but now offers
snack-sized puddings, cheesecakes and
Plant HirerMARIA MALLABAND 114.24%
59
Care home operator
71.03%
8
COMPANIES WITH FEMALE FOUNDERS
Rank Name
Activity
Founder
TorFX
Susan Benstead
3
19
Hobson Prior
Jane Woodhead
4
30
Seven Publishing
Magazine publisher
Josephine Sandilands
5
31
Danbro
Helen Broughton
5
59
Maria Mallaband
Care home operator
Maria Twarowski
7
65
Net-a-porter.com
Natalie Massenet
8
71
Go Ape!
Rebecca Mayhew
8
82
Lucy Wernick
Clothing wholesaler
Lucy Wernick
83
Tonic Life Comms
PR consultancy
Moira Gitsham
9
92
1927 London
Clothing distributor
Paloma Perez
11
95
GGR-Unic
Gillian Riley
11
Pipeline engineer
Lorraine Porter
11
2
100 Stats Group
Plant HirerNET-A-PORTER.COM 114.24%
65
67.32%
WOMEN looking for the latest offerings
from top designers such as Fendi, Miu
Miu and Halston swear by this online
boutique. Founder Natalie Massenet could
barely navigate the internet when she
founded the business eight years ago;
today Net-a-porter’s website includes an
online fashion magazine, Notes Weekly,
which the company claims is viewed by
more than 1.8m women a month. The
London firm has recently launched a new
lingerie range and it now has a fleet of
branded delivery vans. Sales have grown
67% a year from £11.8m in 2005 to £55.2m
in 2008.
Plant HirerHEALTH MANAGEMENT
114.24%
66
Online fashion: Natalie Massenet of Net-a-porter.com offers designer labels such as Fendi, Miu Miu and Halston
Plant HirerSAVANT
60
114.24%
70.84%
CONSTRUCTION projects across Russia,
Kazakhstan, Ukraine and other former
Soviet territories account for about
three-quarters of this London company’s
annual turnover. Savant provides project
management and construction services
from offices in 12 countries and was
founded by David Whitehouse and
Chris Hartfield in 2002 to serve
emerging markets. Today it works on
manufacturing plants, hotels and office
blocks for clients such as General Motors
and Radisson Hotels. The company has
also started offering design services in
former Soviet territories. Its sales have
£21.7m in 2007.
Plant HirerMcCLAREN CONSTRUCTION
114.24%
61
Building contractor
and its expertise in eco-sustainable
construction projects has kept its client
base growing. Regional expansion,
including new offices in Birmingham and
Leeds, has helped founders Kevin Taylor
and Philip Pringle grow sales 71% a year
from £26.9m in 2004 to £133.8m in 2007.
Plant HirerPEOPLE SOURCE CONSULTING
114.24%
62
IT recruitment firm
68.40%
A GRANT from the Prince’s Trust in 2002
helped managing director Jason Baker
set up this IT and executive recruitment
company. It now has a core base of 60
customers — most of which, it says,
provide repeat business — including
household names such as Nokia, Clarks,
Tiscali and Fitness First. Located in Bristol
and attributing its success to investment
in training and retaining its staff, the
company has grown its sales 68% a year
from £1.1m in 2005 to £5.4m in 2008.
70.75%
ESSEX-BASED McLaren Construction
designs and builds industrial, leisure,
retail and commercial premises and has
recently completed a £31m mixed-use
development in Nottingham for British
Land. Firms such as Land Securities and
Gazeley also use the company’s services,
Plant HirerEDGE RECRUITS
63
114.24%
67.95%
THIS virtual recruitment agency supplies
candidates throughout southwest
England from its online hub in Totnes.
Edge Recruits was founded by Chris
Leonard and Jonathan Ross in 2004 and
run for two years out of Leonard’s home.
The company says that it now places up
to 700 temporary workers each day and
undertakes recruitment for businesses
such as Rok Construction and Ginsters,
the Cornish pasty company. It has
recently been testing its video booth
Job Pods to attract undergraduates at
Exeter University. Sales at the company
have increased 68% a year from £1.3m in
2005 to £6.1m in 2008.
Plant HirerTEN LIFESTYLE MGT 114.24%
64
Concierge service
67.71%
FROM finding reliable plumbers to
booking hard-to-come-by restaurant
tables and obtaining tickets for big sports
events, this London company offers
concierge and lifestyle management
services to both individuals and corporate
customers such as Coutts. Ten Lifestyle
Management was founded by Alex
Cheatle and Andrew Long in 1999 to cater
for those who have cash but little time to
spare. Adding new offerings, such as a
green concierge service to advise clients
on environmentally-friendly lifestyle
choices, has helped sales to grow 68% a
year from £2.1m in 2005 to £10m in 2008.
Occupational health adviser 66.77%
EMPLOYERS looking to reduce
absenteeism can find a team of
occupational health specialists able to
dispense advice and manage employee
cases at this East Sussex company.
Catering to a blue-chip clientele of FTSE
250 companies and large government
agencies, its services include
pre-employment testing, medical advice
and consulting related to employee
sickness and work-related illnesses.
Founders Andrew Noble, Richard and
Alasdair Emslie have expanded their
business northward, opening offices in
Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool
this year. Sales have grown 67% a year
from £1.6m in 2004 to £7.6m in 2007.
Plant HirerSPRUE AEGIS
67
Page
9
mainly in Germany and the Benelux
region. The company specialises in
mid-level and senior IT and telecoms
contract staff and also works in the
finance and supply-chain sectors. Its
clients include IBM and the Fortis
banking and insurance group. Founders
Paul Flynn and Mark Znowski have
grown sales 66% a year from £2.9m in
2005 to £13.2m in 2008.
Plant HirerINSTANT OFFICES
69
Office supplier
114.24%
64.98%
IN 1999, Robert Hamilton founded
Instant Offices to provide a consolidated
directory of international office space. In
2006 the business expanded its services,
renting offices and providing property
services to clients, and says it now deals
with 70,000 new customers each year.
The London company has offices in
Britain, France, Germany, America and
Australia, renting space from suppliers
and managing sites including locations
in Hollywood’s Century City, Dubai’s
Silicon Oasis and downtown Sydney.
Last year the company launched a
partnership with Sir Stelios
Haji-loannou’s Easy Group to provide
start-up entrepreneurs with cheap and
flexible office space. Easy Office provides
a directory of business rooms that users
book and pay for online. Sales grew 65% a
year from £1.2m in 2005 to an annualised
£5.3m in 2008.
Plant HirerFAST & FRESH RESTAURANTS
114.24%
70
Subway sandwich franchiser 64.55%
THIS Preston company, which owns and
operates 39 Subway stores in Lancashire
and Merseyside, is profiting from the
growing demand for convenient lunches.
In the past four and half years, Fast &
Fresh Restaurants has expanded from
four outlets to 39 and now employs about
500 people. It plans to continue this
growth over the next three years. The
company is led by managing director
Stephen Richards, and its sales have
grown 65% a year from £1.5m in 2004
to £6.5m in 2007.
Plant HirerGO APE!
71
114.24%
63.67%
FOUNDED in Suffolk in 2002 after an
inspirational holiday in the Auvergne
National Forest in France, Go Ape! is the
brainchild of Tristram and Rebecca
Mayhew, who gave up their jobs to set up
this tree-top activity venture. The
company attracts visitors as young as 10,
though most are 18-35, and many come in
groups such as corporate outings and stag
and hen parties. The company has 17
courses offering physically and mentally
challenging fun high up in the trees with
the aim of also developing life skills. The
concept is paying off: sales grew 64% a
114.24%
Safety product manufacturer 66.72%
THIS Coventry company claims to make
more than a million smoke and carbon
monoxide alarms sold annually under the
Fire Angel brand by retailers including
Tesco, B&Q, Boots and the fire and rescue
services. Chief executive Graham
Whitworth helped to fund engineering
students Sam Tate and Nick Rutter’s
business in 2000, and its supplier QSA
Hong Kong took a £1m stake in 2006.
The Plus-listed company was a founding
sponsor of the 2007 Wake Up campaign,
aimed at increasing awareness of the
dangers of smoke and carbon monoxide
for the deaf and blind. Sales have grown
in 2007.
Plant HirerEUROSTAFF GROUP 114.24%
68
65.75%
FOUNDED in a basement office in 2003,
London-based Eurostaff Group claims to
have placed job seekers in more than 400
companies in 19 countries across Europe,
Making children’s playgrounds more fun: Edward Webb of Playforce
The postman can deliver
many more customers
Ambitious firms are still using
good postal services to cement
relationships with their clients,
says Royal Mail’s Tim Rivett
collection of contemporary car seats and
high chairs has boosted sales at Silver
Cross, the maker of
traditional prams that counts
celebrity mums Angelina Jolie,
Cate Blanchett and Charlotte
Church among its clients.
The company, founded more
than 130 years ago and famed for
its hand-built baby carriages, has
introduced a range of modern
babycare equipment — including
nappy-changing stations and
booster seats — since Alan Halsall
bought the business from the
receiver in 2002.
Between 2004 and 2007, sales
climbed from an annualised
£696,000 to £15.2m, catapulting
Silver Cross to No 3 in this year’s
Fast Track 100.
The Yorkshire company’s recovery has hinged on finding new
customers for its growing roster
of products by using direct mail
and other marketing tools. For
example, the firm uses Royal Mail
to distribute The Little Book of
Silver Cross, which offers hints
and tips for new parents as well as
A
Silver Cross’s Alan Halsall uses direct mail to help find new customers
information on its growing portfolio of products.
“Royal Mail has been helping
us communicate our up-to-theminute combination of cuttingedge design and traditional brand
values to stockists, customers and
potential customers alike,” said
the company’s head of marketing, Andrew Tarbett.
Silver Cross uses Royal Mail’s
Printed Postage Impressions service to package the books in stylish
silver envelopes that are pre-printed with postage. The firm despatches the packets using Royal
Mail’s Customer Collections service, which picks up parcels from
the sender, avoiding the need to
take them to a post office.
“I’ve had a lot of positive feedback about the envelopes,” said
Tarbett. “We created them ourselves via the Royal Mail website.
It was very straightforward: you
set up an account and Royal Mail
provides you with all the information and templates you need
to do the job yourself.”
Despite the rise of online communications, Royal Mail believes
that effective postal services still
have an important part to play in
the success of emerging businesses. E-mail may be the right solution for companies that want to
communicate instant offers, but
more complicated propositions
still need to be set out on paper.
What’s more, packages may need
to be delivered to remote corners
of the UK that many other couriers are reluctant to visit.
This is why Royal Mail has
launched a year-long “Partner for
Growth” campaign to highlight a
huge range of services that are
already helping ambitious companies like Silver Cross improve the
quality, cost and reputation of
their operations. Our aim is to
help Britain’s 4.4m small and
medium-sized businesses to find
and keep customers, improve
their sales and create jobs and
wealth. As part of our initiative,
100 fast-growing firms and other
outstanding organisations are
sharing their tips for success on
our website.
We have also launched a webbased service that creates tailored
business advice and product recommendations, based on
answers to a questionnaire,
designed to help firms connect
with customers and save time
and money.
For example, we recently
advised the direct-mail specialist
Motivation Marketing to use our
Cleanmail service, which offers
discounts of up to 10% depending
on how accurately sorting
machines read addresses and postcodes on letters.
The Royal Mail website also
offers a comprehensive list of services that can help growing firms
become more cost-effective. But
more than that, we want to support our business customers.
Our biggest 4,000 clients have
dedicated account managers,
while our Nursery team will work
closely with firms as they use our
services for the first time. Our
business helpline can then offer
instant support and advice.
Hotel Chocolat Stores, the No 1
company in this year’s Fast
Track 100, has a sister company
that works closely with Royal
Mail to create an efficient and
cost-effective delivery service.
The business, which sells luxury chocolates through an
expanding chain of 30 retail outlets, has a separate mail-order
section that posts about a million
packages of chocolates a year to
members of its Tasting Club who
rate them for a monthly survey.
The firm uses Royal Mail’s Packetpost service, which saves time
and money by applying charges
based on the average weight and
format of the items that are sent.
“Royal Mail helped us design
our products to go through standard letter boxes because there’s
no point having packets going to
a depot when nobody is at home
to receive them,” said co-founder
Angus Thirlwell. “They also
offered us a late pick-up to maximise our working time and ensure
the chocolates are ultra-fresh
when they arrive.
“The universality of the delivery is important, too. We have
club members who live in the
Orkneys and other very remote
places,” he said. “For many of our
customers it’s a big part of their
week so it’s important to get the
delivery right.”
Feedback from the Tasting
Club provides valuable market
research that has helped Hotel
Chocolat Stores to grow by keeping pace with customer demand.
“If they rave about peanut butter
and jelly ganache, we will accelerate work on that combination
and make a product out of it,” said
Thirlwell.
We estimate that Royal Mail
has daily contact with 88% of the
UK’s small and medium-sized
firms.
Whether they are small, lifestyle ventures or ambitious, fastgrowing firms like those in the
Fast Track 100, we urge them to
take a fresh look at how we can
offer support.
n Tim Rivett, Royal Mail’s head of
small business (media), was talking to
Catherine Wheatley
10 FAST TRACK 100: Britain’s fastest-growing private companies
Plant HirerPINESOLUTIONS.CO.UK114.24%
86
Wood furniture retailer
57.69%
BUYING solid oak and pine furniture
from this national retailer may boost your
green credentials — PineSolutions.co.uk
claims to be “the carbon-neutral online
furniture shop” thanks to taking part in
a certified carbon offsetting scheme.
Founded in Norwich by Kevin Johnson in
2003 and specialising in furniture made
from natural timber, the company claims
to fill 2,000 orders a month and achieve
speedy delivery due to its well-stocked
warehouse. Tapping into the demand for
oak furniture has helped sales rise 58% a
Plant HirerSIMPLY BIZ
87
Support services provider
114.24%
57.53%
HUDDERSFIELD rugby and football
chairman Ken Davy had already sold one
network of independent financial
advisers (IFAs) for £75m when he founded
Simply Biz in 2002. Providing compliance
and business support services, including
business development and regulatory
advice, the company says it has more
than 2,000 small to medium IFA firms as
clients. In 2006 Standard Life took a 10%
stake. Last year Simply Biz acquired two
compliance service providers and this
year it launched a non-profit business
academy. Sales have grown 58% a year
from £2.7m in 2004 to £10.7m in 2007.
Plant HirerINK PUBLISHING
88
Airline magazine publisher
114.24%
57.52%
PASSENGERS on 29 airlines from Easyjet
to Gulf Air read the in-flight magazines
produced by Ink Publishing, which has a
growing portfolio of 32 magazines in 17
languages. Since it was founded in 1994,
directors Jeffrey O’Rourke, Hugh Godsal,
Simon Leslie and Michael Keating have
built up a global enterprise with offices in
London, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York
and Atlanta. New contracts with Ryanair,
Jet Star, Air Macau and China Airlines
have helped drive up sales 58% a year
from £6.5m in 2005 to £25.3m in 2008.
Plant HirerDRIVETECH
89
Driver trainer
114.24%
56.82%
DRIVERS facing points and a fine for
traffic violations can opt instead to attend
one of the training and awareness courses
offered by this Berkshire company.
DriveTech claims that more than 15,000
customers enrol in its speed awareness
workshops every month, and it has more
than 300,000 graduates across Britain. It
also offers courses for beginners, along
Teaching motorists: Jim Kirkwood,
managing director of Drive Tech
with fleet training for the likes of
Sainsbury’s and a dozen British police
forces. Founded by former policeman
Chris Howell, the company acquired
Liverpool-based Driving Services in 2007
for an undisclosed sum. Its sales have
£10.1m in 2008.
Plant HirerHENRY HOWARD FINANCE
114.24%
90
56.74%
THIS south Wales company helps
businesses finance purchases of assets
such as telephone systems, CCTV and
software. It works with equipment
suppliers that pass on customers who are
seeking finance. Henry Howard Finance
says it has more than 12,000 clients who
have signed on for its lease rentals, with a
typical deal averaging £14,000 over five
Going places with in-flight magazines: Ink Publishing’s Michael Keating
years. Interest earnings on the leases provide its revenue, while online processing
and the ability to make quick decisions
keep business coming in. Managing
director Howard Ross and sales director
Mark Crook have grown sales 57% a year
from £7.7m in 2004 to £29.8m in 2007.
Plant HirerPARASOL
91
Payroll services operator
114.24%
56.36%
FREELANCERS and short-term contract
staff can get this Warrington company to
deal with their invoices and tax. Parasol
COMPANIES THAT HAVE APPEARED IN THE TABLE IN CONSECUTIVE YEARS
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Name
Activity
3
Fruit drinks maker
Training course provider
Business loan provider
Exhaust component supplier
Building contractor
Civil engineering contractor
Organic produce retailer
Projector lamp supplier
21
44
61
67
29
48
51
32
14
50
7
17
40
62
25
28
27
78
66
68
44
84
36
77
14
35
50
61
79
81
85
97
Innocent
7city Learning
CSG
Cornwallis Elt
SPI (Materials)
McLaren Construction
Dawnus Construction
Abel & Cole
Just Lamps
Tyrrells Potato Chips
Annual sales growth
over last three years
Page
89.14%
61.76%
133.12%
90.09%
77.98%
70.75%
61.16%
60.49%
57.92%
53.61%
6
9
4
5
7
8
9
9
9
11
THE SUNDAY TIMES
takes on the timesheet, invoicing and
national insurance paperwork of
freelancers in the IT, engineering and
telecoms sectors. It has also won
recruitment consultancy clients such as
Hays, for which it manages the payrolls
of contract staff. In 2006 Inflexion backed
a £24m management buyout led by
founder Rob Crossland. The firm’s sales
have grown 56% a year from an annualised £65.1m in 2004 to £249m in 2007.
Plant Hirer1927 LONDON
92
Plant HirerJOULES
98
Clothing retailer
114.24%
55.25%
Plant HirerCREATIVEVENTS
Catering services provider
Design and construction
ADRIAN SHERRATT
114.24%
53.45%
WHEN the likes of Google, Foxtons and
Smollensky need to refurbish their offices
they may come to this London firm.
Cameron Black handles about 40
contracts like this a year for customers
mainly in and around London. It started
out doing office fit-outs and has since
expanded into refurbishment projects. A
high rate of repeat business has helped
sales to grow 53% a year from £2.8m in
2005 to £10.3m in 2008.
114.24%
“WHERE country meets fashion” is the
motto of this Leicestershire clothing
retailer. While its polo shirts, wellies and
sweaters are now sold by the likes of
Harrods and John Lewis, it also sells
through Countrywide Farmers and at
local country shows. Founder Tom Joule
started off with £500 and a small business
selling other branded clothing at country
shows, and has since launched a retail
website and catalogue business selling
clothing to customers in Europe and
America. Opening six new retail stores
this year has helped to grow sales 55% a
94
Plant HirerCAMERON BLACK
Designer clothing distributor 55.65%
THE FASHION label created by Sienna
Miller and her designer sister Savannah
is one of the newest additions to this
London company’s portfolio of brands. It
also has the exclusive European rights for
Juicy Couture and has branched out into
menswear, footwear and baby items. Its
new lines include See by Chloe, Castaner
footwear and Rock Star Baby — the baby
lifestyle brand launched by Bon Jovi’s
drummer Tico Torres. Managing director
Paloma Perez has expanded the company
into Russia and eastern Europe, presiding
over sales growth of 56% a year from
£6.1m in 2004 to £23.1m in 2007.
93
reported £40m. Sales have grown 54% a
Rising on the trend for
traditional furniture:
James Birtwhistle
and Kevin Johnson
of PineSolutions.co.uk
07.12.08 11
Plant HirerFELICINI
99
heritage sites. Sales rose 55% a year from
£2.8m in 2004 to £10.2m in 2007.
Plant HirerGGR-UNIC
95
114.24%
53.92%
THIS Oldham company, founded in 1994
by brother and sister Graeme and Gillian
Riley, sells spider cranes made by the
Japanese firm Unic, and hires out
vacuum lifting equipment for positioning
glass, stone and cladding on building
sites. St Pancras railway station, Balfour
Beatty and Westfields, the developer of
White City, are among its 1,700
customers, along with clients in Poland,
Kenya and Ukraine. Its sales have grown
in 2007.
Plant HirerPORTFOLIO PAYROLL 114.24%
96
53.64%
ESTABLISHED in 1988, Portfolio Payroll
was bought in 2003 by Betfred co-founder
Peter Done for £350,000, and since then
his son Danny has driven the business
forward. The London company recruits
temporary, permanent and contract
payroll staff nationwide on behalf of
clients such as HMV, Moss Bros, Citibank,
Barclays Capital, Saatchi and Sony. Its
bespoke executive division specialises in
senior appointments. Sales have grown
54% a year from an annualised £2m in
2004 to £7.4m in 2007.
Restaurant chain
114.24%
53.26%
THIS chain of restaurants claims to offer
a range of fresh Italian dishes in comfortable, modern settings. Felicini has nine
sites in the Manchester and Sheffield
areas, with the most recent, in West
Bridgford, Nottingham, being the first
designed and built by the company itself.
Founded in 2003 by restaurateurs Ged
Lynch and Neil Lawrence, the company
claims to serve 10,000 customers each
week. Sales have grown 53% a year from
£1.9m in 2004 to £6.8m in 2007.
Plant HirerTYRRELLS POTATO CHIPS
114.24%
97
53.61%
THIS company’s newest flavour is an
ale and cheese potato chip made with ale
from a local Wye valley brewery. Farmer
William Chase abandoned selling
potatoes to supermarkets to make
upmarket hand-cooked potato chips and
hasn’t looked back — Tyrrells products are
now exported to 30 countries, and recent
ventures include a premium potato-based
vodka. Selling to customers such as
Selfridges, Waitrose and the American
chain Wholefoods has attracted attention
from investors. Langholm Capital took
a majority stake in April, investing a
Plant HirerSTATS GROUP
100 Pipeline engineer
114.24%
52.83%
IN the late 1990s when oil was
languishing at $11 a barrel, co-founder
Peter Duguid overcame the unwillingness
of banks to invest in his company by
obtaining a local-government grant.
Ten years later, his Aberdeen company,
which maintains and repairs pipelines
and oil platforms for customers including
BP and Shell, employs 170 staff with
branches in Canada, Houston and the
UAE. Sales have grown 53% a year from
£2.5m in 2004 to £8.8m in 2007.
114.24%
54.93%
VISITORS to the Cornbury Music Festival,
T4 on the Beach and Fatboy Slim’s Big
Beach Boutique may have enjoyed the bar
and catering services supplied by this
London company. It provides services to
venues such as the NEC, Earls Court and
Olympia, but also does catering at
high-society events such as the Henley
Royal Regatta and Royal Ascot. This year
it secured a catering contract at Excel
London worth more than £30m over 15
years. The company’s founders, Adrian
and Ian Willson, are now keen to win
new clients at concert venues and
The Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100
THIS supplement is compiled by Fast
Track, the Oxford-based networking
events and research company that
ranks Britain’s top-performing private
companies. Fast Track is run by Dr
Hamish Stevenson, who has held an
associate fellowship at Oxford University
for the past 12 years. It publishes six
annual league tables with associated
dinners that provide a network for
their owners and directors to meet.
Fast Track’s sole source of revenue is
from sponsors. We would therefore like
to thank Virgin Group for its title
sponsorship for all 12 years. We would
also like to thank our main sponsors
HSBC for its sponsorship for the past five
years, and KPMG and Royal Mail for the
first year of their sponsorship.
Nominations for next year’s Fast
Track 100 can be made through our
website fasttrack.co.uk or can be sent
to Fast Track at:
Angel Court
81 St Clements
Oxford OX4 1AW
Phone: 01865 297100
Fax: 01865 297001
E-mail: [email protected]
Potato farmer turns into maker of posh crisps: William Chase of Tyrrells
THE SUNDAY TIMES
07.12.08 12
3
Chocolate firm enjoys the taste of success
Plant HirerHOTEL CHOCOLAT STORES
114.24%
1
Chocolate retailer
225.53%
A MONTHLY chocolate-tasting club and
marketing designs taken from the
London fashion scene have won
Hotel Chocolat its status as one of
Britain’s cool brands.
The Hertfordshire company was set up
in 2003 by Peter Harris and Angus
Thirlwell, building on their previous
decade of experience as mail-order
catalogue-based chocolatiers, and they
opened their first shop in 2004. Today the
company has 30 shops across Britain —
five of them were opened this year — and
has ambitious plans to have 60 retail
In store: style and innovation
Plant HirerTORFX
2
114.24%
217.12%
IF TorFX founder Jon Beddell has his way,
traveller’s cheques will one day be
replaced by a pre-paid travel debit card
carrying different currencies like the one
his company offers in partnership with
Mastercard. TorFX handles large
foreign-currency transactions of £5,000
and above from its base in Cornwall.
It claims to register more than 500
individual and corporate clients monthly,
including Ginsters and Mitsubishi
Carbide. The firm says its competitive
pricing has pushed up sales — measured
by gross transaction value — 217% a year
£265.4m in 2008.
Plant HirerSILVER CROSS
3
Pram maker
114.24%
179.46%
THE Heritage prams hand-made to the
specifications of its 1877 original have
earned Silver Cross a place among the
baby brands of the rich and famous,
outlets by 2011. The mail-order business
is run as a separate sister company.
Founders Harris and Thirlwell have
long experience of the confectionery
sector, having started off in 1988 selling
peppermints for the corporate market
before moving on to chocolate.
With motifs and typefaces inspired by
fashion trends, originality and
innovation are part of the company ethos.
The company’s 500g “chocolate slabs”
include flavours such as roast Italian
coffee and triple chocolate wham bam.
Other offerings include chilli and almond
chocolate “canapés” and a range of “cocoa
cuisine” products such as chocolate pasta
and cocoa nib balsamic vinegar.
The founders emphasise that ethical
standards are integral to the company
philosophy as well. Its chocolates are
made with no artificial additives or
hydrogenated fats.
Hotel Chocolat runs a 140-acre cocoa
plantation on the Caribbean island of
St Lucia. The estate dates back to around
1745 and the company had to restore it.
Hotel Chocolat has also established an
“engaged ethics” programme on the
island, buying cocoa from other local
growers and guaranteeing to take their
crop at 30%-40% above the market price.
The company’s efforts to rejuvenate
the cocoa-growing industry through a
model of sustainable production and fair
standards for suppliers have won at least
one high-profile supporter: in March
Prince Charles cut the first ground for
a chocolate factory to be built on the
St Lucia estate.
A cool image and an ethos of corporate
responsibility have helped the company
to grow. Harris and Thirlwell have
ambitious plans, from opening their
St Lucia chocolate factory to tourists,
to upcoming plans to build a real Hotel
Chocolat for visitors on the estate.
The company’s sales have soared 226%
2005 to £18.4m in 2008.
including Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez
and Cate Blanchett. Chairman Alan
Halsall and his brother Graham took over
the Skipton company in a £4m buyout
deal in 2006, and will soon be offering
the Doodle, a new patented convertible
highchair. Sales have grown 179% yearly
an annualised £15.2m in 2007.
Plant HirerJJ FOX
4
114.24%
165.59%
FOUNDED in Bristol in 2004 with five
employees, this recruitment consultancy
now has 82 consultants across offices in
Manchester, Richmond, Newcastle,
Bournemouth and Truro. Its recruits are
placed in the IT, manufacturing, finance,
education, construction and healthcare
sectors. Founders Adam Smith,
Robert Tillett and Dominic Smith were
directors at recruitment companies who
joined forces with former City lawyer
Daniel Smith to create their business.
JJ Fox’s sales have grown 166% a year
£9m in 2007.
JUSTIN WILLIAMS
Business is sweet: Angus Thirlwell, co-founder of the company that now has 30 shops across Britain and plans to double the number by 2011
Plant HirerTHE BOOK DEPOSITORY
114.24%
5
160.15%
ANDREW CRAWFORD, the founder of
this Gloucester firm, was part of the team
that helped to launch Amazon.com in
Britain. He set up the Book Depository
in 2004 to fill an online niche for
hard-to-find books. Today it has 1.8m
titles that can be dispatched from its
warehouse in 48 hours. The company
offers free worldwide delivery and has
a custom-built system that determines
the cheapest and most efficient way of
getting a book to a customer. The
website’s publishing arm issues 150
out-of-copyright titles a week. Sales at the
Book Depository have grown 160% a year
from £2.3m in 2005 to £40.2m in 2008.
Plant HirerBURGOPAK
6
Packaging designer
114.24%
147.73%
BURGO WHARTON invented and
patented his sliding tray packaging in
1998. Ten years later his firm Burgopak
has used the design to produce a reported
22m mobile-phone boxes for Motorola.
The London company’s packaging is used
in the telecoms, media and
pharmaceutical industries, as well as for
special-edition items such as Rugby
World Cup ticket packs and the Scissor
Sisters’ latest album. The company has
invested £2.5m in a custom-designed
machine to mass-produce its packaging
for pharmaceuticals. Sales have surged
148% a year from an annualised £346,000
in 2005 to £5.3m in 2008.
Plant HirerPALADIN GROUP
7
114.24%
Plant HirerMANPOWER DIRECT 114.24%
8
143.99%
THIS Essex company was founded in 2003
to supply security guards to the public
and private sectors. Set up by university
friends Muhammad Alam, Omer Malik
and Kashif and Sharjeel Bhatti, it has
grown from 10 employees to a pool of
more than 500. It now supplies security
and car-parking enforcement services to
clients that include local councils, the
NHS and large retail outlets. Sales at the
company have swelled 144% a year from
£383,000 in 2004 to £5.6m in 2007.
147.34%
THIS property support-services group was
founded by Tim Saunders in 2000, and has
grown through acquisitions. The Paladin
Group is made up of four subsidiaries,
which provide property management,
inspection, testing and maintenance
services. The company is backed by NVM
Private Equity, which helped fund the
£2.7m acquisition of Phoenix Precision
Electric this year. Sales at the Bath firm
have grown 147% a year from an
annualised £1m in 2005 to £15.7m in 2008.
Plant HirerMEDICARE FIRST
9
114.24%
142.72%
THIS recruitment consultancy says it
has worked with every local authority in
London, placing temporary social workers
to councils within the M25. Medicare
First also provides occupational therapists
and physiotherapists for private clinics,
and claims to place up to 90 of its recruits
a month. High demand in the London
area for qualified social workers has
meant lots of repeat customers, and
co-founders Andrew Yetzes, Karl
Chatterjee, Robert Beaman and Elliott
Barrett have presided over strong
performance. Sales at the firm have
grown 143% a year from an annualised
£737,000 in 2005 to £10.5m in 2008.
Plant HirerPROBUILD BIRMINGHAM
114.24%
10
142.08%
REFITTING shops for Tesco, the Co-op
and Iceland accounts for 75% of the
business carried out by this Birmingham
company. Probuild completes about 50
big refits a year, and is involved with
another 100 refits of smaller shops and
offices. It also carries out maintenance
and repair work. Founder Anthony
Sherlock incorporated Probuild as a
limited company in 2003, and in 2004 had
just one big customer. Then Nigel Ford
joined as operations director and together
the two men have grown sales 142% a year
from £666,000 in 2005 to £9.4m in 2008.
Probuild is now branching out into work
on schools and council buildings.
Pockets of health
glow amid gloom
Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson
salutes the brave entrepreneurs
who are seizing opportunities
even as the economy slumps
he publication of this
year’s Sunday Times
Virgin Fast Track 100
comes at a time of
great uncertainty in
both the British and world economies. More than a decade of
global growth has come to a
halt and consumers and businesses are under pressure.
The banking troubles — foreshadowed by Northern Rock’s
troubles late last year — have
now affected many of our main
high-street banks. The Bank of
England has stepped in to save
Northern Rock and Bradford &
Bingley, HBOS is being bought
by Lloyds TSB and interest rates
have been cut to the lowest level for more than a generation to
stimulate the economy.
Against this backdrop, it is
even more remarkable, that in
its 12th year, the Fast Track 100
list continues to power ahead
and its leading companies
maintain such a strong rate of
growth. On average, these companies have almost doubled
their sales each year over the
past three years.
It is a reassuring sign in
these times that Britain’s entrepreneurs are still finding interesting niches — this year’s list
has pram makers, chocolate
shop owners, playground builders and suppliers of healthy
food to balance the usual
recruiters and business service
companies.
All have sustained a healthy
T
growth in sales and profits and
have generated employment.
In fact, the 100 companies created more than 18,000 jobs in the
past three years, an achievement that underlines the dynamism of the private sector.
Hamish Stevenson and his
team at Fast Track came to me
in 1996 with the idea of sponsoring the first proper analysis of
Britain’s fastest-growing companies. Since then the size and
make-up of the list and the profile of the entrepreneurs has
changed a great deal — but it
has always been a good reflection of the focus and the health
of the British economy.
The 2008 list is no exception.
It reveals the clear shift
towards service businesses and
away from manufacturing that
has happened over the past 20
years.
More than two-thirds of the
companies and half of the top
10 are involved in services.
Recruitment again tops the list,
with 24 companies out of the
100. I often wonder whether
Virgin missed an opportunity
in recruitment.
It will be interesting to
assess the list next year and see
how differing economic conditions may alter the make-up
and whether the focus of the
top 100 companies will reflect
further expansion overseas, as
growth is maintained by
exports and new markets.
At Virgin this has already
been the case. Our performance
in the past year has been driven
by a combination of resilient
growth among our big UK companies — such as Atlantic,
Active, Media, Money and
Trains — and continued international expansion across the
mobile, health clubs and airline
businesses.
Many of our companies are
now well established and
appear in some of Fast Track’s
other lists of Britain’s top-performing private companies. So
far the strength of our brand
and product has stood Virgin in
good stead and our businesses
have been performing well.
Money and Trains recently
reported strong profits for last
year; Atlantic posted a substantial rise in its half-year profits,
while Active goes from
strength to strength.
Virgin Atlantic and Holidays
have been remarkably resilient
performers this year. Atlantic
has benefited from the investment in its fast-track channel
at Heathrow’s Terminal 3. New
routes were limited to the
revived service to Kenya and a
second flight to Hong Kong.
On the international side we
launched Virgin Mobile in
India, together with our partner Tata Group. We launched
radio stations in Dubai and Canada and have new gyms opening in Australia and Dubai at
the start of next year.
We continue to look for new
areas to open up and are keen to
break back into the city-centre
hotel market when the time is
right and also continue to
assess the health sector to find
the right business model and
entry point.
It is this opportunism and
sensible risk-taking that marks
out many of the Fast Track 100
companies and the entrepreneurs behind them. In my
recent book Business Stripped
Bare, I said: “The brave may not
live forever — but the cautious
do not live at all.”
Being brave and making decisions is a key characteristic of
all entrepreneurs. It is not
about taking crazy risk but
about analysing the opportunity, the competition, protecting
your downside and then going
for it.
As the Fast Track 100
research shows, the leading
company in this year’s list —
Hotel Chocolat Stores — is a
perfect example of sensible
risk-taking. Founded by Peter
Harris and Angus Thirwell in
1993 as a traditional cataloguebased chocolatier, the company
made its breakthrough by
rebranding in 2003 and setting
up a separate retail business
under the name Hotel Chocolat. The first store opened in
2004 and since then the company has opened 30 stores and its
designs for its slabs of chocolate
have won it status as one of Britain’s cool brands.
In contrast, Silver Cross (No 3)
was founded in 1877 and is the
oldest business on the list. Its
management has revived the
business and remodelled it for
the 21st century, with the
prams designed in Britain but
made in China. A host of celebrity customers have helped to
propel it from No 12 on the list
last year to the No 3 this year.
Growing by promoting a healthier lifestyle: Keith Abel and Ella Heeks of the organic produce retailer Abel & Cole
The number of companies
returning to the list is particularly pleasing; with 39 of last
year’s list making a second
appearance this year. Of those,
10 are in the list for a third time
in a row, two are making their
fourth appearance and Innocent (No 36), the fresh fruit
smoothie maker, is in the list
for a remarkable fifth straight
year (see table on page 10).
In the same vein as Innocent, it is good to see compa-
nies such as Abel & Cole (No 81),
the organic produce retailer,
maintaining their strong sales
growth through promoting a
healthier lifestyle and that businesses focused on renewable
energy and improved sustainability are making a breakthrough into the list.
One of those is Geothermal
International (No 41), which
harnesses the power of natural
heat to produce its efficient
heating and cooling systems. It
was founded in 2000 and has
won clients such as B&Q, Unilever and the NHS.
The need to generate growth
in a sustainable way is exercising all businesses. Hotel Chocolat has had an innovative way
of dealing with this both from a
production angle — its chocolate has no artificial additives
— and in environmental terms.
It runs a 140 acre cocoa plantation in St Lucia that aims to
rejuvenate the cocoa growing
industry and build a chocolate
factory and hotel on the St
Lucia site. Thus proving business can grow fast and in a sustainable way.
I look forward to seeing
whether more businesses will
promote such innovative
schemes and hope that many
of these will shape the list of
Fast Track 100 companies for
years to come.
n Sir Richard Branson is founder
and chairman of the Virgin Group

Britain`s fastest growing private companies

Transcription

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