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A New Year, a new government, and a new future for the UK in the international arena, following our exit from the European Union


2020 is a special year – it will be a leap year and is the first year of the 2020s decade. What that decade will bring is anyone’s guess, but we have to hope that, through at least part of that 10 years, the UK will prosper.


There is an acknowledgment that Britain has been treading water in the past three years, lost in a Brexit maze, and falling behind its competitors in productivity and innovation. That has probably been overstated. The UK is a fruitful landscape for the entrepreneur, and there are many areas where we come first.


For the Thames Valley and Solent regions – where our readers live and work – there are advantages that other parts of Britain can only dream of. It may be that the new Boris government will turn its attention to the Midlands and the North, to keep faith with its new ex-Labour followers, but strategists would be unwise to ignore those businesses in the central South that are the exciting, dynamic wealth creators of tomorrow.


Let’s embrace 2020 and the opportunities it will present. With a stable government, and a political roadmap that is more certain, we can be positive about the prospects for growth, while hopefully focusing on achieving a fairer society and a sensible environmental agenda.


David Murray Publisher


Coming up the Top Track Thames Valley


The Thame-based budget hotel group Travelodge has chalked up another honour by taking second place in the table which offers an annual guide to Britain’s mid- market private companies by sales growth. Founded in 1985 with its first hotel in Staffordshire, the chain now operates more than 580 hotels in Britain, Ireland and Spain.


It is owned 50-50 by institutional investors and management, and in May chief executive Peter Gowers revealed plans to open a further 17 venues this year, including Winchester. These establishments, to be developed by third-party investors, will have an estimated value of £115 million.


Now with a staff over 7,000, it recorded a profit of £61m from sales of £693m in the past financial year. The only company to beat the Travelodge figures in the whole of the UK was Holland & Barrett, the Midlands- based health food retailer which has a similar sized staff but pipped their sales total by just £4m.


The Travelodge sales figure was enough to put it in the top 10 in the Sunday Times Grant Thornton Top Track 250 table – which ranks Britain’s private mid-market growth companies – for the third year running.


Only three other companies from the Thames Valley made the top 100 of the latest table, led by Heathrow-based Arora Group (68th). Comprising property, construction and hotel companies, this business was founded in 1999 by chairman Surinder Arora, who had been running bed and breakfast services for Heathrow’s airline staff. He still retains 100% ownership.


Witney-based Audley Travel (70th) was founded 23 years ago and began by running guided visits to Vietnam. It has since expanded to offer tailor-made trips to more than 80 countries and has offices in London and the USA, where it has seen a four-fold increase in bookings in the past three years


CH & Co Group (73rd), the Reading company that provides catering for workplaces, schools, functions and livery halls, and holds a royal warrant for its services to the Queen.


Other companies from the region who made the list were:


Happy New Year


Huntswood (113th), the Reading customer services provider, Solventis (114th), Guildford solvent distributor; The Entertainer (127th), Amersham toy retailer; James Walker Group (132nd), Woking sealing and railway systems


4 businessmag.co.uk


The Sunday Times Grant Thornton Top Track 250


specialist; InHealth (167th), High Wycombe diagnostic services provider; IRIS Software Group (172nd), Datchet business software developer; Consolidated Timber Holdings (174th), Shepperton lumber wholesaler; Medequip Assistive Technology (177th), West Drayton homecare medical equipment company; EBB Paper (192nd), Farnborough paper and board merchant; Bewley Homes (218th), Tadley housebuilder; Shorterm Group (235th), West Drayton recruitment consultancy; and Grundon (245th), Wallingford waste management services provider.


Among the 10 companies named under the ‘Ones to Watch’ label was Farol, the agricultural and groundcare dealer based near Thame.


Solent


After just failing to make the 100 listing in the Top Track table over the past two years, the Havant-based clothing retailer Fat Face managed to squeeze into the top section at number 98 this year.


Fat Face’s sales in the past year totalled £238.1m with the operating profit topping the £30m mark.


A black run ski slope in the French resort of Val d’Isère, called La Face, inspired the name of the company, which was launched in 1988 by Jules Leaver and Tim Slade to fund their skiing activities. They planned to print sweatshirts and t-shirts.


The idea took off and they opened their first store in Fulham in 1992, mailing out an extended catalogue the following year. Now with more than 240 shops, it is led by chief executive Liz Evans, who joined the business in March.


The firm has continued to expand in America, opening 18 stores since 2015 and seeing the worldwide staff grow to some 2,700. It is now 89% owned by Bridgepoint and its syndicates, with current and previous management owning an 11% share.


Only two other companies based in the Solent area made the 250 chart, both headquartered in Southampton:


Millbrook Healthcare (205th), founded in 1946 as a re-upholsterer before moving into the manufacture of beds and mattresses; CLC Group (207th), a national property maintenance provider with 14 bases across Britain.


The Fast Track 250 table is compiled by Oxford-based Fast Track and published annually in the Sunday Times.


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020


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