Published this weekend, the 16th annual Sunday Times BDO Profit Track 100 league table ranks Britain’s private companies with the fastest-growing profits over the last three years.
The 11 companies headquartered in the northwest (compared with 14 last year) have made a strong contribution to the local economy, together achieving combined profits of £98m and employing 5,000 staff, having added 1,200 jobs in the last three years.
The region’s highest ranked company is Cheshire-based online retailer The Hut Group, which features in the top 3 nationally. The group principally sells branded and own-brand health and beauty products through websites that include Lookfantastic, Myprotein and Exante Diet. It grew profits an average of 217% a year to £16m in 2014, before exceptional costs, on £248m of sales.
New entrants to the league table include office furniture manufacturer Dams International, which fell on hard times in 2009, but has been turned around by a management team led by Christopher Scott, 39, the son of the founder. Lancashire-based Ainscough Crane Hire regains a place after a 10 year absence. Oaktree Capital Management acquired the business from Goldman Sachs and private equity firm TPG for an undisclosed sum last month.
The companies in the northwest appear alongside businesses from around the UK, including bicycle manufacturer Brompton Bicycle, travel search engine Skyscanner, biscuit and cake maker Tunnock’s, and home accessories retailer The White Company.
The Profit Track 100 is sponsored by BDO, Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking and UBS Wealth Management. It is compiled by Fast Track, the Oxford-based research and networking events firm.
Tim Entwistle, partner and head of the northwest at BDO, the title sponsor of the league table, commented on the region’s success stories:
“Medium-sized businesses in the northwest and across the UK are thriving. Our newly-named ‘Brittelstand’ has outgrown the German ‘Mittelstand’ with mid-market businesses across all sectors seizing the opportunities a growing economy presents. The northwest’s most profitable companies have remained focused on sustainable growth by making intelligent investment decisions in innovation and overseas expansion.”
The national picture
The 100 companies on this year’s league table grew their profits over the last three years by an average of 68% a year to combined profits of £1.4bn in their latest available accounts. Together they employed 76,200 staff, having added 24,500 employees to their workforce during this time, some as a result of acquisitions.
Just under half of the companies on the league table are headquartered in London (26) and the Southeast (19). Of the remainder, 11 are based in the Northwest, 11 in Scotland, 10 in Yorkshire, 6 in the Southwest, 6 in the West Midlands, 3 in the East of England, 3 in Northern Ireland, 3 in Wales, 1 in the East Midlands, and 1 in the Northeast.
