Posted on 11/05/2018 by Richard Davies
Yesterday we were delighted to attend the Grant Thornton East Midlands Top 200 presentation at the spectacular Vijay Patel building at De Montfort University in Leicester. The report highlights the financial performance of 200 businesses which have delivered the greatest sustained growth in profit over a three-year period between 2014 and 2017.
The Top 200 excludes companies which are part of overseas groups or subsidiaries of companies within the rest of the UK. It’s a testament to the strength of the regional economy that so many companies qualified to be considered. The region is comprised of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire. The report uses publicly available data and Grant Thornton have worked hard to ensure the report is as accurate a picture as possible.
The key findings:
The average profit growth over the period was 35% and 31 of the 200 showed a minimum average growth of 50%. The top three sectors by profit growth were transport & logistics, property & construction and agricultural, food & drink.
The top three sectors by turnover growth were property & construction, business support services and retail & leisure. In the top three sectors by employment growth, retail & leisure lead the way followed by business support services and then property & construction. Across the region the average employee wage grew by 2.4%, with employment growth at 8%.
Leicestershire:
The county has 60 companies in the top 200.
The top three sectors in the county by number of firms were business support services, industrial & manufacturing followed by property & construction. The region presents an average salary £26,100 per year (only Lincolnshire has lower) with the average pay increasing by just over 1% per annum (the lowest of the four counties). The Leicestershire average profit growth rate for the businesses stood at 36.7%, the highest of the four.
The turnover for those 60 businesses in Leicestershire stands at £6.7 Billion, employing just under 17,000 people and showing an adjusted EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) of £1.189 Billion, which accounts for around half of the regions EBIT.
The top five performing companies in Leicestershire were C3 Construction, Celfone Trading, Shield Engineering, IST Power and Adept Care Homes.
The biggest change in the counties top 200 population is in property & construction sector where only 4 companies from the sector featured in 2017 whereas there are now 11 on the list in Leicestershire, with C3 Construction being the top performing business in the county.
Barrier to growth:
During the presentation, all attendees were asked to vote on various questions put to the audience. One interesting and perhaps not unsurprising result was on the question of what will stop businesses growing in the future. Now while all the options available were applicable, the option that outscored all others was hiring of people. Therefore, if hiring quality people is holding back the growth of your company then please pick up the phone and call us for a confidential conversation. As specialist finance and accountancy recruiters servicing the region, we have access to the very best talent available. Feel free to call me on 01926 290117 or email me at richarddavies@addingtonball.com
To conclude, it is great to see the region performing well and thank to Mark Pashley, Tom Copson and everyone at Grant Thornton involved in producing a great event.
If you would like to receive a copy of the full report, please email Mayuri Dhanak at Mayuri.Dhanak@uk.gt.com