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Keeping the region’s profit on track


The demolition, haulage and skip hire business Collard Group, based at Eversley near Camberley, is the highest-placed business from the Thames Valley region in this year’s national Profit Track 100 league table.


The Sunday Times BDO listing ranks Britain’s 100 private companies with the fastest-growing profits over their latest three years; it placed Collard at 69th nationally after it chalked up profits of £4.7 million to give an average annual growth of 71%.


Founder and managing director Rob Collard last year acquired the waste management business started by his father Mick in 1994. Carrying out demolitions — such as the former Unilever building in Slough — as well as its skip hire and haulage services, it totalled sales of £26.3m in 2015 while employing some 160 people.


The group has also received consecutive nominations for Construction Recycler of the Year in the MRW National Recycling Awards. It follows the implementation of a number of initiatives which consolidated investments to transform the company into a major player in the construction waste sector of the South of England.


Collard also announced recently it will be opening a metal recycling facility in Wokingham which will complement its existing waste recycling operation. “These new facilities bring the processing of metal waste in-house, giving the company


greater control of the process,” said Collard. “It is our first step into the world of metal recycling. It is a fantastic opportunity.”


Although his day job involves low-loaders and demolition lorries, 48-year-old Collard also owns Collard Racing and is a regular race winner in the British Touring Car Championships. In the racing business he is following in the footsteps of his father Mick, a former Hot Rods world champion.


Harvey Water Softeners (87th in the table) based at Old Woking was the second- highest company from the region in the listing. Plumber Harvey Bowden started selling water softeners in the 1970s but it wasn’t until he designed his own compact model that the business took off.


He has since been joined by son Casey as chairman and Martin Hurworth as managing director, the latter joining in 2014 to oversee a multi-million-pound investment programme that helped sales total £23.7m in 2015. With a staff of nearly 100, profits more than tripled to £5.8m to give an average annual profit growth of 63%.


The third Thames Valley entry in the national table is Mobile Phones Direct based at Newbury, which crept in at number 91.


Chairman Karl Borges founded this online phone retailer in 2011 after starting with a bricks-and-mortar shop of the same name. The firm is led by chief executive Richard Baxendale, who joined this year.


A new sponsor joins the 2017 WiB campaign Audit, tax and advisory services firm KPMG


has joined the line-up of sponsors for this year’s Women in Business campaign.


Now in its fourth year the Women in Business campaign is much more than an awards ceremony. The campaign incorporates a series of roundtables, seminars, interviews and regular Women in Business news through a dedicated website and social media stream on Twitter.


The Awards night is being held at Oakley Hall Hotel, near Basingstoke on Thursday September 21 and is currently open for entries and nominations.


Contact Libby Sharp at libby@elcot.co.uk for more details or visit the website to download a nomination form.


For sponsorship opportunities contact Tamsin Napier-Munn at tamsin@elcot.co.uk.


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MAY 2017 businessmag.co.uk 5


womeninbusiness.biz @Women_in_B


Now with a staff of some 100, the group sells handsets from manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung and Sony, as well as contracts from providers EE, Vodafone, Three and Talkmobile.


Investment in its systems and customer service processes helped sales to £79.2m last year with profits at £6.4m, giving an average growth of 61%. The company has also been named Best Online Retailer at the What Mobile Awards for the past two years, following a similar honour at the uSwitch. com Mobile Awards.


The Hungerford specialist flour miller Doves Farm Foods featured in the Profit Track “Ones to Recognise” top 10, which represents the best of the rest of the companies whose profit growth fell just short of the main league table but who have shown good profit growth in the past and are set to grow rapidly in the future.


One of the largest producers of organic and gluten-free flour in the UK, Doves Farm mills more than 10,000 tonnes of flour every year. It is led by chief executive Clare Marriage, who started the firm in 1978 with husband Michael.


Now with a staff of some 80, it has benefited from growth in the popularity of baking and increased demand for free- from products, to grow sales to £17.2m and profits to £2.9m.


The Profit Track 100 table is compiled by Oxford-based Fast Track


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