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Fast growth to retain top spot in Fast Track 100
By growing its sales from £1 million to over £106m in three years, the sales force at Reading- based Anesco moved to the top of the tree at Christmas. For the second year running the solar panel specialist secured the number one spot in the Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 table, which ranks Britain's private companies with the fastest- growing sales over three years.
Founders Adrian Pike and Tim Payne planned to build a substantial concern from the moment they spun the energy efficiency services company out of Scottish and Southern Energy in 2010. They were helped by £3m from SSE Ventures, which initially held a 40% stake, and a further £3m from Zouk Capital, which last year sold its stake to SEP and Hermes. Last month CBPE Capital acquired these stakes for an undisclosed amount.
With strong political, investor and public support for energy efficiency schemes, Anesco has been busy advising homeowners, local authorities and businesses on renewable energy and energy efficiency, and also sells energy efficiency monitoring services. Currently the majority of its revenues come from the installation and upkeep of domestic and commercial solar panels.
Having grown sales by 375% a year over the past three years to £106.7m, Anesco now employs nearly 100 people and expects to almost double sales again next year to £178m.
Only one other Thames Valley company managed to make the top 50 in the Fast Track table – The Gym based at Guildford coming in at 48th. This company currently has 57 clubs nationwide with plans to open a further 11 this year.
Former England squash player John Treharne founded this low-cost gym chain in 2007 and it now employs over 100 staff, offering membership without contracts.
Phoenix Equity Partners bought out original backer Bridges Ventures in June 2013, valuing the company at £90m. Turnover reached £36.2m last year (averaging over 71% for the past three years) when it opened eight new gyms and increased membership by 36% to 225,000.
Earlier this year the company attempted a merger with Pure Gym (No 18), but later aborted it.
Reading-based customer service provider Huntswood, which handles regulatory issues for the UK financial services industry, grew its sales to £190.4m in 2013 (average 67%) as financial services providers came under greater scrutiny from regulators and customers. It was good enough to put the group in 56th place in the national table.
Founded in 1996 by David Brownlow, it is led by chief executive Craig Coffield and still owned by Brownlow and management. It now has almost 1,700 staff.
Mint Velvet at High Wycombe (66th) has opened new stores in Dublin, York and Cambridge this year. It was founded five years ago by Liz Houghton, Stuart Grant, Lisa Agar-Rea, and Jane Rawlings, and sales reached £48.1m this year (average over 58% a year).
The company sells “relaxed but glamorous” clothing to women. Its range of clothing, accessories and footwear is available online, in its 22 shops and through department stores in the UK, Ireland and Singapore. The staff now totals 454.
Natural Balance Foods (68th), based at Worminghall near Oxford, boasts its entire product range is all-natural, vegan, gluten, additive free and produced in the UK.
Brothers Greg and Jamie Combs set it up in 2004 to make wholefood alternatives to processed foods. Its Trek energy bars, which contain oats, fruit and nuts, are designed as an alternative to sugary sports nutrition products, while its
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – FEBRUARY 2015
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compressed fruit and nut Nakd bars substitute for chocolate and other snacks.
Through a small staff of just 24, sales in the year to March were £13.3m (average 57% a year).
2 Heads (76th), an exhibition and event design specialist based at Bourne End near Maidenhead with just 31 staff, was one of four other Thames Valley companies in the lower reaches of the table. Windsor-based LA Micro UK (87th) has a staff of just 19, yet China, America and Europe are
key markets for this IT brokerage which was founded 10 years ago by managing director Dave Bell.
Original BTC at Oxford (89th) was founded 25 years ago by former cutlery designer Peter Bowles with the proceeds from the sale of his father’s lighting company. Nurture Landscapes (92nd), based at Windlesham near Bracknell, is a landscape gardening business under founder and managing director Peter Fane.
Fast Track 100 is compiled by Oxford-based Fast Track, sponsored by Virgin and published in The Sunday Times each December, with an awards event at Richard Branson's Oxfordshire family home and follow-up regional dinners.
In the March issue of The Business Magazine
• Law South East • Technology: Hosting & cloud • Marketing
• Focus on Slough • Motoring: New car, new plate
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