Growth 500: The surprising stories behind Britain's fastest-growing businesses

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0:52Hello and welcome to the Business Leader Podcast. I'm Graeme Ruddick and for this episode of the podcast I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by Dougal Shaw, Sarah Vizard and Robert Watts, who has compiled the Growth 500 for Business Leader, the collection of the fastest growing companies in the UK. In this episode, we're going to talk about the Growth 500, why we did it, why it matters, and some of the extraordinary stories that we've uncovered about the fastest growing businesses in the UK. So Rob, I want to bring you in straight away to talk about the Growth 500, how we did it, the mythology that that we used and things that stood out to you as over the last few weeks and months you've pulled this extraordinary list together hi graham uh great to be here um yes often in life it's unglamorous uh boring tedious stuff that gets a really interesting stuff isn't it and the growth 500 is really built on um hours of trawling through companies house and looking at trying to decipher trying to find out who are britain's fastest growing 500 companies based on what was he's reported on public filings.

1:58So what we looked at is we looked at revenues over the past three years. And we looked across the economy, looked at loads of growth lists out there, many with different pros and cons. We looked across the economy, we didn't strip out any sectors at all. Everything's in there and trying to give us a really as complete picture of what's going on under the bonnet of the economy as possible. Looking at the list as a whole, what can you tell us about the types of businesses that emerged, both in terms of sectors and founders, and I guess also where they are in the country? It was a complete surprise.

2:37I mean, I didn't I had no sense really on starting this. You know, did we have 200 companies in the UK that had doubled turnover over the past two years? In fact, we found almost all of them, almost every single one of these companies had doubled their turnover in this two year period, which certainly surprised me. I think also this look does paint quite an interesting picture of the economy. Some surprises, something that we may not be so surprised about. A lot of the businesses do seem to be based in London, about 40 % are based in London, but we do find pockets of growth everywhere. And there's one Nottinghamshire town, not a big population, 36 ,000 population, something like that.

3:27It's got three growth 500 businesses, which was quite a surprise. But the greater, perhaps the greater thing, I think, really was just the sheer variety of businesses. I think a lot of people would think two things on thinking about a growth 500. They would think well this will all be dominated by certain sectors um actually we find everything here um so yes we find 20 roughly our financial services companies we find strong representations from sort of business services 14 of the growth 500 of business services about 13 travel and leisure something like that is a good strong showing for construction as as well about 12 percent but we're seeing every different type of business so yes you've got you know fast-growing fintech firms like Revolut but you've got egg farmers you've got film producers and just this concept you know almost surprising you know look at you know firms that often a very very low profile you know you look down the list and you will find household names you'll find octopus energy and ovo energy and easy jet but you'll find very very quiet um success stories um from the british economy set anywhere in the country from um lands lands enter john of groats it's it is it's a surprising list really i i find that that's probably one of the most heartening things i just kind of feel that it's got relevance for pretty much anyone really Whatever business you're running or whatever business you're working in, almost certainly there's a Grow 500 business that is doing what you're doing and growing at scale.

5:10Often when businesses are highlighted, it's in things like competitions and we see them all the time, you know, award shows and things on LinkedIn, people boasting about it and stuff. And if we're honest, there's a little bit of an inflation when it comes to that because there's so many of them and they are meticulously judged. It's great to win them. But often you are kind of you're put forward for it. And what I love about this list is there's a kind of honesty about it where it's been analyzed by you. Companies appear on this list and it's a complete surprise to them sometimes that they're on it.

5:40Yeah, so many of the lists are dominated by those who put themselves forward as nominations and submissions and with awards as well. And with I think the general media coverage, it's often dominated by those who want to have a voice. And what this list does is provide the most comprehensive and truest look at the fastest growing businesses in the UK. And that means we're shining a light on places where the light hasn't really been shone before. And also telling stories that haven't been told before. One of which is a fairly obvious story, but we all have seen on the list these collection of businesses that have bounced back from near annihilation during the COVID-19 crisis.

6:13And then gone on to post record results. and the fight back from the depths that they were at to where they've got to now is extraordinary the personal stories the the business stories and i'm going to talk about who's number one on the list in a second because that story is partly linked to this so there's many other things going on there as well but yes the tech giants are on there yes the likes of revolute are on there yes the likes of alica bank are on there all the glamorous names are on there but there's also all these other businesses who are far less glamorous in theory but actually i've got the most extraordinary stories.

6:46And also it's about the rate of growth. It's not necessarily the size of the company. Like I met someone a couple of weeks ago, heard about the list and they were saying, well, am I on the list? Am I on the list? They're quite a big company, but it's the ones who are high up on the list are the ones who've really got the trajectory who have been growing over this period of years. And often I think it's, it's, there's this assumption, isn't there, that to be a fast growing company, you have to have been founded within the last, you know, few, few years. I think the oldest company we found, I know this appeal to Sarah, she'll probably ask Sarah about this, but I think Horan Co, the private bank, were they founded in 1672, Sarah?

7:24Was it something like that? I mean, they're not the only old, you know, older company on the list at all, are they? Yeah, they were founded in 1672, which seems amazing. If you look into them, they're now on the, I think, the 13th generation of this family business, still got, yeah, I think eight members of the family working in it. So it's an amazing story. And actually, even when you dig into that, it becomes fascinating as well, because it started as a small shop just off Cheapside, turned into this bank. They've had clients like Samuel Peaks, Jane Austen, Lord Byron. If you read about the company, there's actually, I think they call it the disastrous seventh generation who almost took the firm down through affairs and debts and philandering and going off to Australia and things.

8:09So even within that, you know, there's fascinating stories. And I think there's three companies on the list that are more than 250 years old. So, you know, you don't have to have been founded in the last 15 years to still be growing strongly. It was amazing going through the list, particularly at the upper echelons. We obviously found these companies where nothing had really ever been written about them. The founders or CEOs had never done interviews before, certainly not with the business world. And we had to really dig into these stories to find the stories and find out more about these businesses, which kind of brings me nicely on to the very top of the list rob could you tell us a little bit about the business and the person who's at the top of the growth 500 well absolutely you're absolutely right greg talk about being people being quiet barry the badger he likes to be known as apparently barry the badger marshall who is behind the um beautifully named um music promoting firm, wait for it, Martial Arts.

9:03Love a pun, don't we? But he is a star music promoter, started out in that game in the 1960s. So he's a good age now. But he's acted for this array of stars over the year. Elton John, Paul McCartney, Pink, Led Zeppelin, Status Quo. I mean, what a contacts but best guy must have but he's very very quiet and and you know doesn't like seeking um the limelight at all um we had to really dig dig in um do quite a bit of research to get his his story so little has he spoken publicly and for good reason you know this is a guy who said look my my job is very much making the stars work um uh getting their getting their shows you know working for them, putting them forward, promoting them.

9:55And I don't want to take anything away from that. So why did that business do so well? Well, part of it was a COVID bounce back that, you know, we all remember what happened to music concerts, music gigs during the pandemic. That's part of the story. But also part of the story is, do you remember that amazingly long-running Elton John farewell tour that just seemed to go on and on and on? Well, he did very, very nicely out of that. But I mean, so many things to like about this story, really. I mean, I was a little bit surprised when he popped up at the highest ranking in the Grade 500 at the number one, top of the charts.

10:37Because this wasn't, you know, this wasn't a household name business, a household name story of all music promotion. Is that something that, you know, lots of readers are going to connect with? But there's so many great, so many great aspects to his story. One of my favourites is just he's a very nice, easy to deal with guy. And I think sometimes, you know, we're always talking about, you know, other aspects of business sometimes, but being straightforward, easy to work with. You see his you see these superstars, McCartney and others saying again and again and again, how decent, how fair and nice he is to work with.

11:14that's such a that's such a big aspect isn't it that often gets overlooked in business uh business commentary i think it's also worth saying that this isn't some small business um the turnover in the final year that we looked at was was over 68 million pounds this is a serious business that he took investment from aeg the owner of the o2 about 20 years ago and they have minority control of the business um he still has control of the business overall i think or or at least that the team do and the performance of the business is is well above just to put it into context it's bounced back from covid but the performance is still well above anything that it achieved pre covid so they would have made the list towards the top of the list anyway and it's an extraordinary uh it's an extraordinary business extraordinary um extraordinary growth so true graham i mean in fact that reminds me of one one point we haven't said yet that i think it's really important to get across actually is that yes martial arts turned over you know 68 plus million but one of the things about the growth list that's so striking is that it's it's businesses of all size and i think we had an opening threshold of three million turnover in that final year so you've got these recently founded often businesses that just just pipped over three million at the in some parts of a list and then you'll look up and the next the next business in the next company in the growth 500 is turning over multiple billions perhaps and you know three three of the businesses believe it or not in the in the list account for something like 40 percent of the of the total of the total turnover ovu octopus and easyjet but it's just such a diverse list in terms of size as well isn't it I think.

13:01Dougal you have actually interviewed one of the people in the top 10 of the growth 500s uh do you want to speak a little bit about Wendy Wu? Yeah I'll tell you something interesting about this one so I went I went to see her in her offices and um I did an interview with her and when I got home usually my wife doesn't take any interest in the stories that I do she's like a scientist and she sort of sees herself as above these things but I mentioned that I did Wendy Wu and she went what you met Wendy Wu that's unbelievable she's never been so impressed in her life by anything that I've done but she she's apparently very famous for anyone who likes you know investigating holidays and booking all these things that she was a very big star in her permanent but and interestingly speaking to Wendy one of the things I picked up is that and I sort of knew this but hadn't really occurred to me in stark terms that it's it really is an industry with a customer base is a majority female.

13:59It's mainly women that organize holidays, that book them. And even when it's the kind of guided tours that she does, it's women that tend to organize it. So that was interesting. I'm going to play a little clip now from the interview I did with her because this explains the really interesting story behind how the business came about. The Wendee tours started totally by accident. At that time, I designed a fabulous holiday to China for my ex-boyfriend. And about three weeks before we depart, he had the opportunity to become the acting manager of the business. Or that opportunity will go somewhere else.

14:43And he said, oh, I don't care. Let's go on holiday. I said, no, I am Chinese and I want you to do well. So you are not come on this holiday and I will go by myself. And then I was surprised. I couldn't get any money back at all. So therefore I put a little ad in the paper to say, this is my itinerary, 28 days, all these places. Who wants to come with me and I will be your free guide. And then so many people called and they all come, they said, gosh, this is a very good price. And this is a fantastic itinerary. Another thing I didn't realize actually was that she started the business in Australia.

15:28So she was born in China, moved to Australia. That's where the idea for the business came about, organizing tours to begin with to China and then Japan as well as Asia. And she still has today Wendy Wu in Australia, in New Zealand. but also in London. And she's on our list because of the London business. I think her revenues are 28 million. That's from the London part of the business. So she's kind of international. And if you added them all together, it would be over$100 million of revenue. The other thing I found from speaking to her was that it was pretty clear they had a kind of existential crisis during COVID, as you'd expect for the travel businesses.

16:06And I think she was quite worried about whether she would lose the business in that period. It was really difficult. She lost a lot of employees this has happened in other sectors as well they left because of covid and lockdowns and a lot of them you know don't necessarily come back to the business afterwards so she told me that she actually has slightly fewer employees now than she did before covid even though it's gone you know back up since the depth of covid but um her revenues and everything have gone up and the business is doing really well and the offices where i visited her she owns them out right now which is a sign you know of a business of a healthy balance sheet so she was a very inspiring entrepreneur and the other thing I'll say about her is that it's great I always find it quite humbling when you see someone who's not originally born in Britain but has you know made Britain their home and they're building a business here and they're proud to do it and they're proud to create jobs here that's a that's a wonderful thing to experience sometimes in this job.

16:58You've interviewed a lot of entrepreneurs and founders and and CEOs do you've been a business leader now for a year and I think you've gone through 50 of the My Business Leader Secret series when you were interviewing wendy woo did you see some of those characteristics that you've come across with all the other founders and ceos so interesting i ended up organ i ended up reporting about three different possible secrets for the interview with her because i wasn't sure how to focus it she had amazing energy the thing that really came across to me was her passion for the business but also her passion for her own employees and like a lot of other entrepreneurs actually she was very proud about the people who've been with her at the business for a very long time since the very beginning those real kind of people who stay with you from the start so that definitely came across just an amazing drive but I think you kind of need that especially if you've survived COVID and I did ask her about that and she thinks that the kind of hard-working almost kind of servant aspect to the company comes from her Chinese side and her parents really instilled that in her.

18:04But you definitely got the sense that she would, you know, this, this business was extremely important to her. It wasn't a kind of, you know, lifestyle business or a side project. It's, it's absolutely everything to her. And the other big thing we talked about was trust. She said with COVID, not only did they survive COVID, but I've seen this of other entrepreneurs as well. They actually, in a way you survive it and then you kind of improve the business because of things you learned from that experience. What they learned was that they specialize in trips to Asia, China and Japan, places like that.

18:34That's her background. She knew it well. She knew how the visa process works. She can speak the language and everything. But what they found in COVID is they couldn't travel there anymore. So they were wondering what to do. And what they ended up doing was offering holidays to Scotland where people, their UK customers could travel to. But they weren't sure if they should do that because they thought we're known for the Asia trips where people really want to come on a Scotland Christmas holiday. But they created that. And what they found was that it sold out many times over because people when they book a holiday it's not just about the destination that's not what you fall in love with you learn to trust the travel company to deliver you a great experience and they will kind of come with you anywhere if you organize that so that's something that she was saying kind of transformed the business they realized that they could diversify beyond what they did before Sarah what names and stories on the list stand out to you I mean there's so many it's really it's really hard to pick some out I was doing a little bit of research yesterday for the event that we're having on the 2nd of July.

19:33And one of the companies that came up there was Langley Holdings. And I hadn't really heard of them, didn't know what they did. They'd made alloys. I didn't really know what that meant, doing a bit of digging into them. And it turns out that, you know, they've made an alloy that was put into the first Spitfire aircraft and is now used in applications as varied as like aerospace and F1. They then developed another alloy that was used in construction of the Statue of Liberty. So you've got these companies that seem sort of innocuous on the surface and you just scratch below that a little bit and they've done all these things that are sort of amazing.

20:02I also think it's worth pulling out, and we've just spoken about Wendy Wu, but some of the females on this list because there aren't a lot of them, which is a reflection of the state of how difficult it is, I think, still for women to found and build companies. But if you look across the list, there are actually some amazing stories on there. We've got celebrities, we've got Victoria Beckham and her fashion label, which I think, you know, didn't have the best start, was, you know, quite loss making, but has actually really bounced back. And she sort of really found her niche there. She's got 118 % revenue increase over the three years and 89 million in revenues now.

20:36So that's, you know, an amazing business from someone who started off as a pop star, obviously, in the Spice Girls, and has gone on to actually, you know, really build a successful fashion business. You've also got Sister, the independent production company. So that's founded by three women, which is very unusual uh quite a lot of the businesses on the list where they were founded by females were founded with a brother or a husband or a male partner so this one three women founded it um the list of shows that they've produced is you know it's a list of the greatest hits of the last sort of five ten years you've got the split genoble black doves this is going to hurt broad church for a huge array of of broadcasters everyone from netflix to amazon to the bbc and itv and you know the three women behind the company are just so impressive real heavyweights of the industry you've got Jane Featherstone the chief executive of QDOS and co-chair of Shine UK Elizabeth Murdoch I'm sure everyone knows who her her father is but she was obviously one of the founders as well and then Stacey Snyder who was previously chair and CEO of 20th Century Fox chair of Universal Pictures and co-chair and CEO of DreamWorks so that's a that's quite the impressive CV and then just another one to pull out is a woman called Sophie Horne, who I had never heard of with a company called Seabird Technologies.

21:54Again, I had never heard of them, but it turns out, you know, she's a boat designer. She sort of got into yacht design as a bit of a side hustle at school, won a few awards, wasn't sure it was the right career for her. So went into banking, decided ranking definitely wasn't for her, went back into boat design. And actually she had Lyme disease and was sort of started a couple of companies, one, a platform where people could hire boats. And what she wanted to do was to be able to hire electric foil boats, but she couldn't find any. So she just thought, well, I'll just design one of them myself.

22:28So she went off and did that. And I just think that sort of courage and entrepreneurial spirit is fascinating. And I mean, she's doing so well that she's now behind the boat that is used in the E1 World Championships. So, I mean, that's an amazing story of entrepreneurship and really having to make it in a man's world, I think, in yachting. yeah extraordinary stories there's a couple of i wanted to pick out as well on locations you're going through the top 100 and there's a few there's a lot of london there's a lot of big cities and there's a few sort of locations that you go what you'd have to do a double take if you're going through the top 100 number number 100 i have to do a bit of a double take because the location on that is is kendall which is a small town in cumbria but also happens to be the very town that i grew up in which made that company particularly interesting to me so that company is kendall NutriCare, who is the company behind Kendermill, which is organic baby milk, launched in 2015.

23:22And I think what is particularly fascinating about that story is it's a great example of entrepreneurship and also the evolution of British business. So that factory was an old Heinz factory. It was at risk of closure. And the Kendal NutriCare took over that factory and launched the business from there. Kendaville has got all sorts of attention. The sales have grown rapidly and it's managed to attract high profile customers such as the Prince and Princess of Wales. A remarkable story for a business and it's number 100 on the Growth 500 and just at the start of the story. The other businesses that I wanted to pick out are businesses that actually sometimes don't get the focus of growth lists because we tend to think of growth lists of those who are enjoying like explosive growth at the start of their journey i guess those are still finding their product market fit as the venture capital world would say but what our list shows up is a collection of businesses who have been around for 10 years and are at the next stage of that growth and they're going from medium to large company and the growth list highlights those businesses who are effectively going from good to great and i think it's really interesting to look at those businesses and to see why they're still growing because it's not just product market fit for them anymore they've had their product market fit but they're still growing and they are on a journey the journey that the uk needs to do more of of going from a promising company into a large company so a few of the businesses in that bracket who i'd pick up include alica bank who has seemed to have made growth lists now in the uk for the last five years they've been the fastest growing company one of the fastest growing companies in the uk consistently since they fully launched in 2020.

25:03Monzo, who under the leadership of TS Analyst's chief executive, has really taken everything it does up a notch. As you may have read, it's potentially looking at a float that could value the business at more than£5 billion. It's on the growth list, despite the fact it's a business now that was founded well over 10 years ago. Another business founded over 10 years ago that we know well is Castor and Tom Behan and his brother Phil. They're on the growth list with Castor and what's really interesting about this is we asked Tom to do a piece for us about why Castor is on the growth list and how he as CEO of this big company still thinks about growth.

25:42This is a business that is now turning over I think well over 200 million pounds and he talks about growth within Castor as grow or die and that you have to make an active decision within the business to focus on growth and that actually it's not an accident it is something that has to be really sort of embedded into your strategy so i'm just going to read something that he put in the words that he sent to us because i think it's really fascinating he says when i've spoken to people outside of castor about the grow or die mentality i'm often met with skepticism probably not coincidentally far more so in the uk than the us people often roll their eyes and put castor's success down to youthful ignorance benefiting from a market cycle or my personal favorite dumb luck i like to respond by saying that very few uk businesses have scaled the way castor have and it's certainly not down to my intellect.

26:31So maybe our grow or die philosophy really is worth considering. When you take away all other options, it's amazing how simple decision making becomes. Even more important than the philosophy itself is the ability to stay true to it during difficult times. Every business textbook in the world will tell you to slow down, cut costs, refocus, and rein in investments on R &D, product development, or innovation when the economy or your business is suffering. Whilst individual investment decisions of course need to be viewed on their merits and an overzealous commitment to spending without rigorous analysis or stress testing is never advisable.

27:03Leaders who have a clear vision for where they want their business to be in 20 years and the courage to stay the course during difficult times are those who will create the real value for all stakeholders. Steady as she goes has its place for large corporations but for small enterprises a commitment to innovation should be seen as a necessity not a nicety. Start Start every board or exec meeting with growth priorities and you will be astonished at how quickly this changes the dynamic of your organisation. So that was an amazing insight into that growth mentality. And that, I think, really encapsulates what it takes to be on the growth list and also what it takes for a more established company to be on the on the growth list.

27:42And it is fascinating, isn't it? I mean, it's just almost it's great for myth busting all this, isn't it? It's not about the age of your company. It's not about the sector that you're in. I think what the Behan shows and comes through screens from the Growth 500 is that it's a state of mind. It's an appetite, hunger, desire, positivity. And it must be, you know, it's very, very interesting looking and talking about these companies. But it must be pretty damn fascinating being on the inside as well. And pretty positive to be in these spaces, to be in these companies. Yeah, and it's hard work. And I think we're hosting an event on July 2nd to celebrate these businesses in London.

28:27And it's going to be a great pleasure to be around the founders and chief executives. But I think for them, they also get to take a moment where they enjoy being together and sort of celebrating their success. But what I would say is it's very clear a lot of them sort of consider growth to be something that's already happened and they need to focus on growing in the future, if that makes sense. There is a resilience and a determination, but also an optimism about what's required. That means the growth they've already had. Yes, they maybe will enjoy it for a second, but they're already thinking about the next thing.

28:55So it's like that mentality you see in sport quite a lot. You're off the pitch, you collect the trophy and then straight away you're thinking about the match next week. But again, that's something I've heard from lots of entrepreneurs when they look back on their career and maybe they've had successful exits or they've been in multiple companies. They say, looking back, I really wish I'd taken a bit more time to celebrate with the team those moments of success. Because a lot of the time you are preoccupied with firefighting and the things aren't quite going right and agonizing over decisions. But there are moments where you've got something to celebrate together as a team.

29:27So, yeah, hopefully a lot of them can do that at our event. Yeah, I like your sporting analogy, Graham. I listed a bit of distance running back in the day and the chat was always, you're only as good as your last race. And that's absolutely true with so many of what these founders say. We interviewed Oliver Kent-Braham for the magazine, a marshmallow, the digital car insurer. A turnover of 184 million over the past year, just outside the top 100 for the growth 500. But one of the things he was very keen to impress on me was we're still pretty small. We may be a unicorn. We may be worth a billion pounds plus, but we're still pretty small.

30:13This is just the start of things. So Multiverse and Ewan Blair and other businesses on the list. What was it he said to you at the summit, Sarah? He said he wants to build a$50 billion multi-generational company. Yeah, we had him on stage at the summit. And I think, yeah, he, you know, I think things have been spoken about because that company, yes, it's a unicorn. It's worth more than a billion pounds. Yes, it's generating, I think, between like sort of 30 and 40 million pounds. It's quite loss making, but that's not the focus. The focus for him is not the short term. It's not the short term.

30:42It's investment and really building a company that can be multi-generational, that will survive him, his kids, his kids, and really building something that can change the way that companies train up their workforces that can really bring in new technologies and help companies to be more efficient and more effective. And that's a big job. That's not something you can do in two or three years of quick growth and trying to get to break even. And I think that's one of the interesting things on the list as well. Some others, they don't include non-profitable companies. They only look at the profitable.

31:11but I think that excludes businesses that are really trying to build something big that aren't focused on that or we need to just get to this little point let's get to profitability with just the growth no matter what sort of mentality that I think Castor has but also multiverse and you and Blair is we really want to build something big something multi-generational something that can change the face of the sector that we're in and that's a you know that's an ambition for many businesses. Sarah, Rob, Dougal thank you very much for your time and for all your work on the Growth 500, the definitive and most comprehensive ever collection put together of the fastest growing businesses in the UK.

31:46You can find it in the latest edition of the Business Leader magazine and our online hub where we'll go through all the 500 companies will be available online from July the 2nd. Thank you very much for listening to the Business Leader podcast.

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