Fast Track To Growth

The fastest growing UK privately owned companies announced.....

On Sunday 4 December 2011, the 15^th annual Fast Track 100 league table was published in the business section of The Sunday Times. The table ranks Britain’s fastest growing privately owned companies by their sales growth over a three year period.

BDO is delighted to be the main sponsor of the Fast Track 100 for second year running and to be celebrating the success of our clients and contacts – new and old. 

Despite the downturn, the league table identifies many innovative and ambitious businesses from a wide range of sectors – all of who have achieved significant growth over the last three years.

Please click here to view the Fast Track 100 league.

The table highlights some positive indicators, for example:

• The average compound annual growth rate of Fast Track 100 companies over the last 3 years was 86%
• The companies on this year’s league table employed a total of 18,200 staff in 2010/11, with 13,000 jobs being created in the last three years.
• The largest employers among the 100 are contract caterer Waterfall Services (ranked 71) with 2,231 staff, followed by fashion retailer Jack Wills (63) with 1,870 staff across 73 stores, concessions and outlets.
• The most profitable companies are financial information provider Markit (49) with £87m in operating profits, and online bike retailer Chain Reaction Cycles (58) with £13m.

Ownership and Funding

• 72 of the companies are majority-owned by an entrepreneur and/or founders.
• 20 companies are financed by venture capital or private equity compared to 16 last year.
• Some 14 companies have grown through acquisition.
• 23 companies have female founders or shareholders holding stakes in the business of 20 per cent or greater.

Industry breakdown

• The best represented sector on the league table is services, with 50 companies including recruitment agencies, payroll providers and home care service providers.
• The second biggest sector is retail, with 27 companies selling products including furniture, clothing, sports gear, food, drink and beauty products.
• The largest industry group, making up more than a fifth of the league table, is consumer goods, containing 23 companies such as online, sports goods, gift and clothing retailers.
• Food and drink is another notable industry group, with 15 companies including restaurant and pub operators, p a fine wine exchange and premium drink mixer company, Fever-Tree which is served in the best restaurants in the world.

It has been an interesting and rewarding year for the BDO Team and we are pleased that a number of the businesses we had the opportunity to meet last year have, once again, appeared in this year’s league table.  We’re looking forward to meeting the new entrants and, of course, would like to congratulate our clients who appear in this year’s league.

If you are a growing business and think you face similar challenges to the Fast Track 100 winners and would like to discuss this with us in more detail, please contact your usual BDO contact, or Alex White, Partner.

If you missed us in The Sunday Times and would like a copy of the supplement please contact samantha.craven@bdo.co.uk.