The UK's top growth companies
Article Date: Sep 21 2009
Our rising stars show stellar growth
21. The Foundry
Turnover: £4.6m (+88%)
Pre-tax profits: £1.2m (+1,726%)
Sector: Media Based: London
Established in 1996, The Foundry’s software is behind special effects sequences in the Harry Potter films, Speed Racer, Australia, Iron Man, and BAFTA award-winning The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The company announced a management buy-out in June led by CEO Bill Collis and the original founders and backed by Advent Venture Partners, and expects to report sales of £7.1 million and EBITDA of £1.7 million this year. Headquartered in London with offices in Los Angeles, The Foundry has ‘invested aggressively’ in its development since it acquired LA-developed compositing system Nuke in 2007.
22. Immunodiagnostic Systems
Turnover: £24.9m (+51%)
Pre-tax profits: £4.8m (+27%)
Sector: Health Based: Tyne & Wear
Ensconced in an obscure niche of the medical diagnostics sector – it provides a range of laboratory tests for vitamin D as well as other compounds – it seems that IDS is poised for big things. It recently launched a new automated testing product, iSYS, which is set to be rolled out over the coming months in the US, where the company enjoyed 80 per cent growth with its older product last year.
23. Cybit
Turnover: £25.5m (+30%)
Pre-tax profits: £2.1m (+27%)
Sector: Support services Based: Cambridgeshire
Fish lovers still enjoying Cornish cod in 20 years’ time should have telematics expert Cybit to thank, as its technology helps government environment agency Defra to stop sneaky Spanish trawlers from pinching stocks from UK waters. The company’s bread and butter, however, is in tracking trucks, vans, boats and staff – “mobile assets” as it calls them – in order to deliver tasty efficiencies for its clients.
24. Health Management
Turnover: £12.2m (+61%)
Pre-tax profits: £1.8m (+75%)
Sector: Health Based: East Sussex
Providing medical advice to large employers as well as government departments, the police force, NHS trusts and councils, Health Management shows no sign of slowing down. ‘It’s much cheaper than running medical centres and we are counter cyclical, as we allow employers to manage their employee base more actively,’ says MD Andrew Noble.
25. Lydonford
Turnover: £16.2m (+34%)
Pre-tax profits: £1.4m (+131%)
Sector: Consumer Based: West Midlands
Cutting a lonely figure among retailers in this year’s Rising Stars, sportswear wholesaler Lydonford appears to have hit a winning formula. It is specialising in value-for-money merchandise and going against received wisdom by concentrating on supplying a handful of clients. So maybe it is better to put all your eggs in one basket after all.
26. Mainstay
Turnover: £7.7m (+32%)
Pre-tax profits: £1.3m (+56%)
Sector: Support services Based: Worcestershire
‘We spend an awful lot of time doing strategic thinking,’ says Mainstay’s MD, David Clark. That meant reducing the property manager’s portfolio of urban rental clients and taking on more staff to focus on its key areas, such as the student accommodation market. ‘Our biggest concern is not having a future pipeline, so we’ve really invested to protect it,’ says Clark.
27. Bordeaux Index
Turnover: £47.4m (+94%)
Pre-tax profits: £3.0m (+118%)
Sector: Consumer Based: London
Despite alcohol sales sinking, fine wine trader Bordeaux Index has reason to raise a glass over the past year. ‘The key to our strength has been the Asian market. Although revenue has tailed off [in the UK], in China it has consistently increased,’ says FD Geraint Carter.
28. Cohort
Turnover: £78.6m (+38%)
Pre-tax profits: £6.5m (+16%)
Sector: Support services Based: Oxfordshire
Independent technology specialist Cohort, whose impressive client roster includes the Ministry of Defence, is an acquisitive business driving healthy levels of organic growth. It is uniquely placed, according to MoD man and chief executive Andy Thomis, to profitably consolidate its chosen (and robust) defence, government and security markets.
29. Parcel2GO
Turnover: £8.5m (+42%)
Pre-tax profits: £340,000 (+28%)
Sector: Support services Based: Lancashire
The turning point for this online parcel delivery site came during the national postal strike in 2007. ‘The business doubled in a week to a run rate of £500,000 and we kept the customers too,’ says business development director Richard Adams-Mercer. With Royal Mail in disarray, it seems the only way is up for this family business.
30. BTC Activewear
Turnover: £25.1m (+15%)
Pre-tax profits: £501,000 (+86%)
Sector: Consumer Based: West Midlands
This clothing distributor, which operates in the UK and Ireland, has decided to go on the offensive by ordering more stock for its new 106,000 sq ft warehouse (up from 40,000). ‘In our business, stock is king,’ says joint MD Glenn Hyams. Retail distribution is undoubtedly a punishing sector to be operating in and that won’t be helped by competitors promising the world to win contracts. Hyams is undeterred: ‘There are companies that do succeed in a recession: not everyone suffers,’ he says.
31. Pimlico Plumbers
Turnover: £14.7m (+10%)
Pre-tax profits: £750,000 (+81%)
Sector: Support services Based: London
Steered by Charlie Mullins, this family business keeps on growing. ‘The jobs are smaller at the moment,’ he says. ‘Rather than buy a new boiler, customers will have it repaired four times.’ Mullins says that he ‘doesn’t like banks’ and this antipathy appears to be working in his favour: ‘One of the things to get through a recession is to not owe anyone anything. We don’t even have an overdraft. I’ve never seen my bank manager and I never will.’
32. The Rare Art Group
Turnover: £18m (+35%)
Pre-tax profits: £1.3m (+103%)
Sector: Media Based: London
‘Nothing is recession-proof, but when you’ve got something of a limited supply and high quality, there’s always going to be a demand,’ says Lewis Smith of antique dealer The Rare Art Group. Smith says antiques appeal to buyers in all economic conditions as they represent assets ‘not in the banker’s control’. The company has remained debt-free, he adds.
33. Quadrille Publishing
Turnover: £11.5m (+42%)
Pre-tax profits: £1.0m (+63%)
Sector: Media Based: London
Alison Cathie, managing director, says the company’s performance is down to its vibrant portfolio of work, which has proved popular both the UK and US markets. ‘In order to weather the recession, we have been even more rigorous in the selection of the publishing projects we have taken on, while still taking some calculated risks,’ adds Cathie.
34. Blackout
Turnover: £4.1m (+17%)
Pre-tax profits: £675,000 (+67%)
Sector: Media Based: London
Starting from scratch from his kitchen table in 1990, Steve Tuck has built a business that now handles events such as the G20 summit and the Film4 screenings at Somerset House in London. It’s all about drapes – ‘our job is to get anything to hang in the air’, says Tuck – and though growth has slowed, the company is ‘cutting its cloth to fit’ in the recession.
35. Liberty Wines
Turnover: £22.3m (+24%)
Pre-tax profits: £1.1m (+35%)
Sector: Consumer Based: London
Wholesaler Liberty Wines supplies independent shops and restaurants and its wines rarely retail for less than £6 a bottle. Chief operating officer Gary Wyatt says the company does no above-the-line marketing but is adept at winning industry awards as well as coverage in the trade press.
36. Zytronic
Turnover: £14.7m (+30%)
Pre-tax profits: £1.7m (+155%)
Sector: Electronics Based: Tyne & Wear
The global demand for Zytronic’s durable touch sensors and optical filters, used everywhere from jukeboxes to shop windows, shows no sign of letting up.
37. Driver
Turnover: £18.2m (+44%)
Pre-tax profits: £2.0m (+90%)
Sector: Support Services Based: Lancashire
CEO Steve Driver flags up healthy growth in the UK, where London and the South led growth for this dispute resolution specialist, as well as in the Middle East.
38. Media Initiatives Group
Turnover: £22.9m (+21%)
Pre-tax profits: £2.1m (+23%)
Sector: Media Based: London
Video is a major source of growth for advertising agency Media Initiatives Group, according to CEO Alan Greaney, who says convergence is becoming a business reality.
39. Benoy
Turnover: £35.9m (+25%)
Pre-tax profits: £4.4m (+538%)
Sector: Support services Based: London
Designer of the Bullring development in Birmingham (left) and London’s Westfield
centre, Benoy has completed projects in the Middle East and China.
40. IS Pharma
Turnover: £12.2m (+73%)
Pre-tax profits: £2.0m (+70%)
Sector: Health Based: Cheshire
Nurtured by informed CEO Tim Wright, IS Pharma acquires and commercialises late-stage drugs and devices focused on critical care, oncology and neurology.
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