Leading names honoured at Yorkshire Business Masters
REDMAYNE-BENTLEY senior partner Keith Loudon, stock market quoted Premier Farnell and thriving textile company Abraham Moon & Sons were among the winners at TheBusinessDesk.com’s Yorkshire Masters awards today.
Mr Loudon won the Ambassador award, sponsored by Leeds Metropolitan University.
The veteran stockbroker, who turned 80 earlier this year, has no plans to retire and his firm recently acquired £300m of assets from rival Fyshe Horton Finney.
He is a former Lord Mayor of Leeds and is a supporter of many charities and community projects.
Premier Farnell won the Exporter award, sponsored by BDO. The London Stock Exchange listed group distributes technology and electronics products across the globe and employs 1,000 staff across its Leeds distribution centre and sales and marketing operation and achieved sales last year of £952m.
Abraham Moon & Sons – which is the last ‘vertical’ mill in England with dyeing, blending, carding, spinning, weaving and finishing all taking place on one site – took the Grit award, sponsored by Sentio Corporate Finance.
The Guiseley business has bucked the trend in the tough textiles sector by growing sales across the world and supplying its high quality cloth to customers including Marks & Spencer.
Catering and events company Dine Events triumphed in the Pride category, sponsored by Journey9.
Leeds-based The Test People took the Innovator award, sponsored by Walker Morris. It was founded five years ago by young entrepreneur Gav Winter and now has turnover of almost £6m and provides one of the most innovative testing services for IT, cloud and mobile technology in the UK.
Another fast-growing young technology business is calls9, which won the Newcomer Award, sponsored by The P&A Partnership.
calls9 was launched by former Eversheds employees Pete Mills and Adam Roney 18 months ago and it specialises in mobile app development, website design and digital consultancy.
It now boasts a client list which includes Yorkshire law firm Gordons, Bradford Grammar School, Healthcare.co.uk and the Aagrah restaurant group.
More than 160 business leaders attended the awards at Aspire in Leeds.
Full details of the awards event, along with pictures from the event will be available on TheBusinessDesk.com tomorrow.
