Member Article

22 Yorkshire and Humberside businesses make Sunday Times Top Track 250

Twenty-two companies from the Yorkshire and Humberside region have earned places on the latest Sunday Times Grant Thornton Top Track 250, the league table of Britain’s leading private mid-market companies published for a ninth year this weekend.

Despite a weak domestic economy, the 28 companies all increased sales or profits by at least 10% year-on-year, achieving combined sales of £6.2bn and employing more than 39,000 people.

There are 11 new entrants to the table from Yorkshire and Humberside this year.

They include Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate, the well-known owner of the Yorkshire Tea brand, which also runs six Bettys tearooms in Yorkshire (the flagship Harrogate store pictured above), an online store and a cookery school. Sales grew 11% to reach an annualised £131m in 2012.

The company is joined by ghd, based in Leeds, which makes hair straighteners and other hair products.

The company was sold by Montagu Private Equity to Lion Capital in February in a £300m deal, having grown its profits 32% to reach £28.5m on sales of £150m in 2012.

The companies in Yorkshire and Humberside feature on the league table alongside national household names such as Boden, Nando’s, Selfridges, Virgin Active, Warburtons and Yeo Valley.

The Top Track 250 is sponsored by Grant Thornton and Barclays, and compiled by Fast Track, the Oxford-based networking events and research company.

David Maxwell, partner at Grant Thornton, the title sponsor of the league table, praised the region’s mid-market stars: “It is great to see private mid-sized businesses – including many which Grant Thornton has helped support – making such a positive contribution to the UK economy.”

The Top Track 250 complements the Top Track 100, which features Britain’s biggest private companies. It ranks the next 250-biggest companies by sales, provided either sales or profits have increased by at least 10% year-on-year.

The 250 companies generated combined sales of £68bn, operating profits of £5bn and employed a total of 410,000 staff.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mark Lane .