Six Yorkshire entrants join rankings of fast-growing profit companies

Seven Yorkshire companies have made the Sunday Times BDO Profit Track 100 league table this year, with six of those being new entrants.

Together the Yorkshire companies featured employ more than 4,000 staff with combined profits of £59m.

New entrants include Leeds’ Pure Gym, which announced revenue growth to £160m this morning, and has reported profits of £15.4m.

It operates 174 gyms and has more than 800,000 members after acquiring 43 LA Fitness gyms in a £74m deal. Profits grew by an average of 74% a year to £14m in 2015, on which they are ranked.

Yorkshire Business Masters 2017 shortlisted company The Right Fuelcard Company also made the list. The company acquired Total’s fuelcard division in partnership with fuel forecourt operator Rontec in 2012.

Huddersfield-based brand implementation agency Principle joins the league table after seeing profits grow by an average of 68% a year to £6m in 2015, when it added operations in Mexico and France.

Also listed are Barnsley furniture supplier Symphony, the only one to have made the list last year, with average annual profit growth of 91% over the past three years, making £12m last year.

Another Barnsley-based business and new entrant Haywood & Padgett, which produces 4.5m scones every week and supplies most large UK supermarkets

Howarth Timber Group also made the list, with annual profit growth over three years of 133%. It employs 915 staff and made £9m in profits last year.

Strata Homes is the highest ranking Yorkshire business in the table, coming in in 20th position. Doncaster-based Strata made profits of £10m last year.

Terry Jones, partner in Yorkshire at BDO, the title sponsor of the profit track league table, commented: “High-growth, mid-sized businesses played a leading role in the UK economic recovery after the global financial crisis. With Brexit and more uncertainty looming, it is companies like these with their natural energy, ambition and entrepreneurial spirit that will help the UK economy thrive. By supporting their growth, government would also be helping to achieve a more regionally balanced economy that ‘works for all’.”