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Private companies right on track
A Surrey company founded in 2000 by a husband-and-wife team was the top Thames Valley-based concern in the latest league table that identified Britain’s top private companies according to their sales.
State Oil, founded at Weybridge by Sanjeev and Arani Soosaipillai, increased sales 60% to £419.7 milion in 2011 as a result of rising oil prices. The business imports fuel from oil companies, then stores and blends it before selling fuel wholesale under the Prax Petroleum brand to clients including Royal Mail and Stagecoach Bus. It uses the State Oil name at its 22 service stations, some of which it manages for bigger oil companies.
The league table, the annual Top Track 250 sponsored by HSBC, is the sister publication of Top Track 100, which earlier this year identified Britain’s 100 private companies with the biggest sales. The 250 table, in which State Oil came in at 34, rates the next biggest private companies.
One other company in the region made the top 50 – Airwave, the Slough emergency communications provider. It provides a secure, digital radio- communications system for Britain’s public-safety services, with its network covering more than 99% of mainland Britain. The company is providing a radio service for the 2012 Olympic Games that will cover 12,500 organisers across all the event’s venues. Under chief executive Richard Bobbett 2011 sales fell to £386m but profits rose to £52m.
Two Reading companies were just outside the top 50. Contract caterer WSH offers catering services under brands such as Baxter Storey, Benugo, Cater Link and Holroyd
Howe to clients including Cisco, the BBC and Barclays. Over the past few years the company has expanded across Europe, and recent contract wins include catering for the media centre at the 2012 Olympics. Under chairman and chief executive Alastair Storey, sales reached £362.4m in 2010.
Direct Wines was started by Tony Laithwaite in 1969; he used to drive his van to France, fill it with Bordeaux and sell it from a railway arch in Windsor. The firm grew after teaming up with The Sunday Times in 1973 to create the paper’s wine club, and it now sells wine direct to the consumer under the brands Laithwaites Wine, Virgin Wines and Averys as well as through 11 Laithwaites Wine shops. The company, which owns vineyards and wineries in France and Australia, saw sales reach £343.9m in 2011.
Travelodge, the Thame-based chain which offers rooms from as little as £19 per night, was at 67 in the table. The group now operates more than 480 hotels and aims to have 1,100 by 2025. Last year 70 new sites were opened, helping 2010 sales grow 13% to £335.1m and profits double to £7.2m.
Guy Parsons, who joined the company in 2004 from TGI Friday’s, became chief executive last year, taking over from Grant Hearn who is now executive chairman.
The Newbury IT services provider 2e2 made sixth position in the Thames Valley section of the table. Last year it bought rival Morse for £70m and boosted sales to £327m in 2010 compared with £200.8m in 2009.
The company was the subject of a £130m secondary buyout in 2006 led by co-founders Terry Burt and
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – DECEMBER 11/JANUARY 12 Business T H E M A G A Z I N E
Read these stories in full in the current issue of The Business Magazine:Digital at
www.businessmag.co.uk
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Mark McVeigh. Recent initiatives include a joint venture with O2 that offers businesses the option to outsource both IT and telecoms to a single provider.
Just a few places down the table was Talaris, the Basingstoke cash management provider which helps businesses in the financial, retail and gaming sectors to manage the cash they handle. It designs and manufactures banknote and coin counters, sorters and recyclers as well as self-service machines such as ATMs.
The company, which now has more than 2,000 staff in 20 countries, was formed in 2008 after a £360m buyout of the majority of the cash systems business of banknote printer De La Rue. Tim Robinson joined the
company as chief executive in September last year and has seen sales rise to £321.5m.
Four other companies in the region made the top 100 in the national table – Leatherhead- based Petrochem Carless, the petrochemical refiner and distributor; Ridgeway Group, the Newbury car dealer; Kaspersky Lab, the Abingdon anti-virus software developer; and McLaren Group, the Woking-based racing team and sports car maker.
Another dozen companies from the Thames Valley, headed by Chertsey housebuilder Crest Nicholson, made the lower reaches of the 250 table, which was published in The Sunday Times and compiled by Oxford-based Fast Track.
www.businessmag.co.uk TM
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