100 Famous Entrepreneurs

top 100 EntrEprEnEurs Britain’s In association with: 2007 From a modest Cockney background, MT ’s Entrepreneur of the Year Peter Cruddas now runs a financial trading firm set for an £800m flotation MT ’s latest ranking of the UK’s most prolific business creators reflects the energy of City dealmaking, but PHILIP BERESFORD’s research uncovers other pockets of dynamism W ith the City of London roaring ahead, the financial services sector dominates this year’s MT ranking of the Top 100 British entrepreneurs. This is the fourth MT 100 but the first in which a single industry has dominated the upper reaches. Four of our top five entrepreneurs run financial services businesses in areas such as broking, investment management and financial trading. Peter Cruddas, who heads this year’s MT100 as Entrepreneur of the Year, is typical of the new breed of financier-entrepreneur that has emerged in the City since the Big Bang swept away the ancien régime of blue-blooded privilege 20 years ago. From a modest background, Cruddas left Shoreditch Comprehensive School in London’s East End at 15 to help support his family. His mother was a cleaner and his father a porter at London’s Smithfield meat market. He started out as a Western Union telex operator, did odd jobs in banks and brokerages, and launched his CMC operation in 1989 with £10,000. With an £800 million flotation in the offing, CMC has enjoyed spectacular growth as a financial trading operation. The money men and women may dominate the MT 100, but the good news for Britain is that all one hundred of them have played a role in providing new jobs. Over the past five years, they have collectively created more than 56,000 of them, taking their total employment from 53,553 to very nearly 110,000 (more than the British Army). This is a 105% increase over that period, and although it is a slowdown on last year’s MT 100 – when the increase in jobs was an unprecedented 130% – it’s a very good showing in a year where, outside the City, consumer confidence has waned and unemployment is on the rise. Virtually all these increases are due to organ- ic growth – not fancy financial engineering and takeovers, which do not generally increase the pool of employment in Britain as a whole. The only real rival to these entrepreneurs in job creation is the public sector. An extra 550,000 public-sector workers have been taken on in the past five years. Our entrepreneurs are at least doing their bit to redress the balance for the private sector. Employment growth is one of our three criteria in ranking the MT Top 100. Another key indicator is turnover growth. In this regard, the top 100 have raised their game sharply over the past five years, with sales up from £6.9 billion to more than £16.3 billion – a huge amount of economic activity by any standards. At 136%, turnover growth is a lot higher than employment growth – and this may well be one of the reasons for their success in the Top 100. By keeping their employment growth below the growth in sales, they raise both productivity and their competitive position. A rough-andready guide maybe, but no entrepreneur worth his or her salt ignores the head-count. Our third measure comes from a valuation of their stake in the business and other assets, based on the stock market values (if quoted) or in line with those values if any of the Top 100 run a private company. Such valuations come with many caveats, of course, but serve as a useful indicator. Collectively, the Top 100 are, by our reckoning, worth about £11.1 billion. Our runner-up Simon Nixon, co-founder of moneysupermarket.com, justifies our faith in him with a high placing for the third year running. His Chester-based firm is now actively looking at a float, which will value it at up to £1 billion. At 39, Nixon is one of the youngest in our top 100. There are 15 who are under 40, a record haul. Youngest are 30-year-old Mark Fitzgerald and, at 28, Thomas O’Donohoe, co-founders of MX Telecom. In the vanguard of wireless technology, they run a business that would have been hard to envisage just a decade ago. Although 17 of our list are in computer, software, internet and telecoms businesses (the biggest sector, larger even than financial services with nine), the diversity of our Top 100 reflects the strength of Britain’s enterprise culture. Fifteen are from industry and 14 from retailing. We also have entrepreneurs in food production, gambling, plant hire and demolition. But we don’t have any in property, as our criteria do not fit the world of real estate, which is all about growth in asset values rather than driving up sales or developing employment. This year, we have a record 24 women in the list, up from 20 last year, and some of them are invading traditional macho territory. Elena Ambrosiadou, for example, one of London’s top hedge fund managers, built her business from scratch; and Jane Cavanagh, Britain’s most successful computer games entrepreneur, thrives while many of her male rivals struggle. Britain’s burgeoning Asian enterprise culture is highly evident, with five representatives drawn from all over Britain, in industries ranging from food production to ski-wear and currency dealing. But what’s missing is any sudden growth in new young entrepreneurs drawn from Muslim backgrounds. It would be encouraging to find many more entrepreneurs drawn from some of the northern and Midlands towns and cities, where they might be seen as role models for disaffected youth in their communities. The element that unites all our Top 100 – veterans and young ’uns alike – is a demonstrable record of success. But with storm clouds gathering over the world economy, they’ll need to draw on all their resilience and experience. mt Money does 28 mt January 2007 Lesley Anne Churchill the talking The league table Rank Name Age Company Activity Wealth (£m) 800 480 85 248 140 110 136 126 78 92 260 1,000 90 100 33 33 30 40 40 20 20 50 185 140 83 50 75 50 90 634 82 50 32 57 32 22 105 95 75 22 67 60 105 40 20 120 720 20 30 385 130 614 35 100 Latest turnover (£m) 76 68 798 86 19.5 327 147 605 24 225 800 905 67 80 44 44 179 40 78 35 35 730 273 45 102 14 59 483 178 1,609 190 74 25 92 73 57 86 401 73 36 163 64 118 72 62 48 137 81 36 1,670 88 919 24 31 5yr % rise in turnover 322 400 675 330 1,200 280 297 565 1,100 462 275 178 262 176 2,100 2,100 894 344 290 1,066 1,066 176 133 147 176 180 111 258 187 81 90 270 733 124 192 850 153 136 170 200 143 237 90 188 417 109 99 170 260 70 69 74 140 107 No. of employees 374 306 3,045 541 30 2,771 644 769 16 1,594 2,188 9,394 181 649 32 32 700 350 3,686 550 550 64 2,732 587 530 73 291 312 2310 16,587 4,436 1,666 150 776 307 481 160 3,071 291 2,718 361 81 1,286 543 568 298 52 273 257 7,318 1,135 3,070 77 251 5yr % rise in employment 523 171 852 191 131 399 201 127 167 147 99 114 151 181 433 433 1,389 644 965 1,386 1,386 700 117 113 135 329 420 160 95 118 227 111 146 235 332 155 63 81 94 231 98 69 86 98 103 52 37 197 96 57 71 44 114 44 Score** Rank Name Age Company Activity 1 Peter Cruddas 2 Simon Nixon 3 Terry Smith 4 Andrew Turner 5 Elena Ambrosiadou =6 Allen Timpany 8 Peter and Denise Coates* 9 Judy Craymer 10 Anthony Langley =11 Fred and Peter Done =11 Mike Ashley 14 Gary Dutton =15 Thomas O’Donohoe* =15 Mark Fitzgerald* 17 Jane Cavanagh 18 Christian Rucker 19 Matthew Brown =20 Matthew Burge =20 Marc Winchester 22 Mayank Patel =23 Tom Morris =23 David Reiss 25 Johnny Boden 26 Christopher Bradbury* =27 Penny Streeter =27 Joe Hemani 29 Alan Dick* 30 Sir Ian Wood 31 Guy Shropshire =32 Mark and Mo Constantine =32 Andrew McGee =35 Brendan Kerr =35 John Williams =37 William Ives =37 Eric Herd 39 Harvey Jacobson 40 Chey Garland* 41 Tom Dalrymple 42 Julian Robbins 43 Ray Kelvin 45 John Hays 46 Harold Martin =47 Mark Coombs* =47 James Clarke 49 Edwina Dunn and Clive Humby 50 Sir Arnold Clark 51 John Robinson =52 Michael Spencer =52 Lord Bilimoria 54 Neil McRoberts 79 59 51 45 63 Arnold Clark Automobiles Robinson Webster (Holdings) Icap Cobra Beer Moorcroft Group Car sales Retailing Finance Leisure Debt collection 155 156 158 158 159 53 39 53 48 48 50 68/39 49 52 63/59 42 57 28 30 49 38 43 37 38 39 52 63 45 45 39 56 68 64 51 54/53 43 41 47 63 49 50 49 61 59 51 57 71 46 55 48/51 CMC Group Moneysupermarket.com Collins Stewart Tullett Central Trust Ikos (UK) Boparan Holdings Vanco BET Group Littlestar Services Langley Holdings Done Brothers (Cash Betting) Sports World International Harron Group Synseal Holdings MX Telecom MX Telecom SCi Entertainment Group The White Co (UK) Giant Group Communications Direct Communications Direct Currencies Direct TJ Morris Reiss (Holdings) JP Boden & Co 4D Interactive Westcoast (Holdings) Alan Dick & Co (Holdings) John Wood Group GS Shropshire Holdings Lush Cosmetics Euro Dismantling Services Mamas and Papas Keltbray Group (Holdings) Maritime Group Rainham Steel Group Farmfoods (Aberdeen) D Jacobson & Sons CJ Garland & Co The Globespan Group Steel Plate & Sections Ted Baker Natures Way Foods Hays Travel HW Martin Holdings Ashmore Group Clarke Energy Holdings Dunnhumby Finance Internet Finance Finance Finance Food Computers Online gaming Music Industry Leisure Retailing Construction Industry Computers Computers Computers Retailing Accountancy Computers Computers Finance Retailing Retailing Retailing Computers Computers Computers Industry Food Retailing Construction Retailing Construction Transport Industry Food Industry Call centres Leisure Industry Retailing Food Leisure Industry Finance Industry Data mining 28 46 47 48 50 53 53 64 67 71 75 75 81 82 85 85 87 88 89 95 95 98 99 99 102 104 108 108 110 112 117 119 119 119 121 121 130 130 131 132 136 137 140 142 144 147 148 148 153 =55 Andre Serruys* =55 Sarah Tremellen* 57 Kirit Patel 58 Nick Robinson =59 Stephen Telling =59 Andrew Nisbet 61 Emma Harrison 62 Mark Harrod* 63 John Timpson 64 Michael Browne 66 Sir Paul Smith 67 Tim and Kit Kemp 68 Julian Tyacke 69 Afzal and Akmal Khushi =70 Iain Liddell =70 Willie Paterson =72 Tim Williams 74 James Murray =75 John Bloor =75 John Randall =77 Elizabeth Gooch* =77 Malcolm Denmark 79 Brian and Alan Stannah =80 Stephen Lansdown =80 Peter Hargreaves 82 Sam Rayner 83 Ian Scarr-Hall 84 Jeremy Pilkington 85 Dawn Gibbins 86 Mary Holleran 87 Julie Davey* 88 John Guest 89 Dame Margaret Barbour 90 David Wernick 91 George Materna 92 Richard Smith =93 Michael Gregory =93 Jimmy Mulville 95 Michael Tracey 96 Anthony Robinson 97 Suzanne Marshall 98 Shelagh Elkins 99 Chris Kidger 50 40 57 47 58 46 43 43 63 60 60 60/– 48 51/50 43 61 47 36 63 77 45 51 71/67 54 60 53 68 55 48 41 50 79 66 49 53 58 62 51 45 52 42 54 58 SPC Holdings Bravissimo Day Lewis Phoenix IT Group Tellings Golden Miller Group Nisbets A4E Lifecrown Timpson SCS Upholstery Gap Holdings Paul Smith Firmdale Hotels Petroleum Pipe Group Jacobs & Turner Uniserve Holdings Patersons Quarries Cellhire (Holdings) Thomson Intermedia Alternative Networks Bloor Holdings Kanes Foods EG Solutions Mediaforce (Holdings) Stannah Family Holdings Hargeaves Lansdown Hargreaves Lansdown Lakeland GSH Group VP Flowcrete M Holleran Angel Group John Guest International J Barbour & Sons Wernick Group (Holdings) Matchtech Holdings PCMS Holdings Cromwell Group (Holdings) Hat Trick Productions William Tracey Autointermediates Phoenix Software Tectrade Computers Friday-Ad (Holdings) Construction Retailing Chemists Computers Transport Catering Employment Food Retailing Retailing Britain’s top 100 EntrEprEnEurs 2007 Wealth (£m) 45 13 48 44 13 79 55 40 53 48 80 230 88 45 95 62 35 20 28 19 525 48 12 62 118 79 79 68 57 73 10 12 35 58 67 40 36 78 52 25 30 17 28 13 38 Latest turnover (£m) 63 25 79 109 41 70 76 94 85 158 69 100 35 160 40 88 39 23 11 46 546 68 6 115 137 48 48 119 119 99 26 38 33 85 54 47 124 30 143 26 24 18 52 20 20 5yr % rise in turnover 200 127 132 114 156 89 35 840 102 119 103 46 67 162 25 80 86 187 267 155 38 74 100 95 49 37 37 40 80 48 86 90 120 44 50 62 63 20 40 100 71 80 44 25 25 No. of employees 346 294 722 1,275 984 386 1,394 518 1,724 1,027 738 610 543 58 221 154 639 171 168 285 1,724 1,069 40 235 1,594 431 431 1,282 1,597 1,209 199 312 194 1,195 537 378 173 348 1,333 34 202 118 137 57 336 5yr % rise in employment 52 242 86 98 150 64 181 16 76 74 41 45 62 49 69 59 102 58 37 93 21 85 150 38 20 47 47 53 34 28 95 73 10 25 4 33 36 5 17 21 29 33 36 54 13 22 Score** 162 162 163 165 167 167 169 170 171 172 173 174 176 177 183 185 185 188 188 189 190 190 191 191 198 202 202 203 208 217 219 223 224 227 228 234 236 237 239 239 245 253 254 262 265 269 =6 Ranjit and Baljinder Singh 40/39 65 Douglas and Iain Anderson 51/48 Equipment hire Retailing Leisure Industry Industry Transport Construction Computers Media Computers Construction Food Computers Media Industry Finance Finance Retailing Construction Construction Construction Construction Property Industry Industry Construction Recruitment Computers Industry Media Waste & recycling Media Computers Computers Media 13 Stephen and Paul Harrison* 37/35 =72 Stephen and Sarah Thomson*35/40 Ambition Recruitment Services Recruitment =32 David and Luisa Scacchetti 55/55 44 David and Robert Langmead 44/38 100 ChristopherDuncan 67 Numatic International Industry 29 78 32 869 *Figures may be for less than five years **Total score is the sum of rankings for wealth, five-year percentage rise in turnover and five-year percentage rise in employment. The lower, the better. Figures for turnover and employee numbers are drawn from latest accounts filed at Companies House or supplied by the company. Methodology 1 The Top 100 are ranked firstly on their asset wealth, which we identify from their holdings in private or public companies, plus any other assets that they have revealed to us. 2 They are also ranked on the percentage growth in turnover of their business(es) over the past five years (or less if figures do not go back five years). We use percentage growth rather than actual growth, as this allows a level playing field for companies large and small. We do not measure profits growth, as private and public companies have different approaches to declaring profits. Public companies will try to maximise their profits to please shareholders, whereas private companies often keep their profits low to minimise tax liability. But we keep a careful eye on profits and avoid companies that may be building turnover at the expense of profits. 3 The third measure is the percentage growth in the number of jobs that the entrepreneur has created over the fiveyear period. This is designed to highlight the vital role that our Top 100 entrepreneurs play as leading job creators in the private sector. 4 Finally, we add up the figures for their rankings in the wealth, turnover and employment columns. The lowest score (which could theoretically be 3 for a company ranked first in all three) is the winner, and so on down the list. We have selected our 100 using a variety of criteria to get a good geographical spread, to include female entrepreneurs and those who are making good profits, and to avoid any companies exhibiting signs of a deteriorating performance. Where a family owns a company, we have focused on the name of the leading family member – the entrepreneur – who has built up the business. 30 mt January 2007 January 2007 mt 31 britain’s toP 100 entrePreneurs 2007 Premier league Our top-notch wealth creators this year are led by five moneymeisters, mostly from modest backgrounds. Behind them, though, the field widens… 1 Peter Cruddas CMC Group If it moves, City slicker Peter Cruddas trades it. Equities, indices, derivatives, commodities, oil, currencies – these are CMC’s business. The only thing he leaves to others is sport betting. The cash is pouring in, enabling owner and founder Cruddas to take a £31m salary in 200405. With offices in Europe and Asia, CMC is a market leader in internet financial spread-betting, contracts for difference and foreign exchange. It is also an online market-maker, and runs a share service for private investors. Cruddas employs some very bright techies, who have built software that gives CMC a competitive edge on pricing – technology that he now sells to other financial groups. In 2005-06, CMC made £36.7m operating profits, and last summer’s delayed flotation is back on track with a valuation of at least £800m. Yet Cruddas comes from a very modest background – he left Shoreditch Comprehensive School in the East End of London at 15 to help support his family. Mum was a cleaner and dad a Smithfield market meat porter. After starting out as a Western Union telex operator and doing odd jobs in banks and brokerages, he launched CMC in 1989 with his savings of £10,000. Until the flotation, Cruddas has a stake worth around £738m. His past salaries, his Monaco home and other property take him to around £800m. on £100m sales. His first business was a service called Mortgage 2000, founded with Duncan Cameron. It provided mortgage brokers with weekly product updates, and evolved into a trade magazine, Broker Update. The explosive growth of the internet posed ‘massive threats to our business – but also huge opportunities’ he recalls. , Nixon and Cameron (who has since left the company but remains a shareholder) set up their own site for surfers to compare quotes for mortgages, credit cards, personal loans and savings accounts. It was a phenomenal success. The Chester-based operation sells 7,000 personal loans a day, 6,000 credit cards and more than 1,000 savings accounts. New sister site travelsupermarket.com covers flights and will shortly offer car hire and hotels, too. But Nixon is pretty tight with his own money. He bakes his own bread and, although he loves Ferraris, won’t own more than one: ‘I’m dead tight and I hate paying tax and insurance on two cars,’ he says. The recent sale of uSwitch (a comparable business) prompted Nixon to claim that Moneysupermarket.com now has a ‘valuation in the region of £1 billion’ We can’t argue with that. His . stake is now worth £474m. We add £6m for past dividends and other assets. terry sMith Collins stewart tullett The son of an East End bus driver, Terry Smith is well known in the City as the combative chief executive of the Collins Stewart Tullett stockbroking operation. Smith first came to prominence as a City analyst in 1992 for writing a controversial book showing how companies fiddle their profits. He also took on the FT and forced a grovelling apology out of the Pink ‘Un at the beginning of last year. A boxing fan who lives in Essex, Smith led the management buyout of the business in May 2000 for £122m. The company floated on the stock market in October 2000 and has grown since by taking over smaller rivals in the City and moving into new markets. In recent times, it has itself been the subject of intense takeover speculation, which has further boosted Smith’s bank balance. His stake is now worth more than £77m since shares rose to a record high in late 2006. Salaries, property and bonuses take him to at least £85m. andrew turner Central trust In April 2006, Andrew Turner of Central Trust announced ambitious plans to boost his turnover to £1bn by 2010, and recruit up to 1,500 new staff in the process. An accountant by trade, Turner had set up the firm in 1987 in a small London office as a broker and lender of secured loans in the consumer finance sector. Now based in Norwich, Central Trust has a principal subsidiary that is one of the largest independent finance brokers offering loans to UK homeowners; other subsidiaries operate in the loan packaging, mortgage packaging and telemarketing sectors. Central Trust profits and sales have surged on the back of the consumer borrowing spree and in 2005 it made a record £27.1m profit on £86.1m sales. On these figures, it’s worth about £240m. Turner recently launched a new computer system that he reckons will give Central Trust even more competitive advantage. His goal is to make the company (which he owns in its entirety) Britain’s leading independent supplier of personal finance products. It’s a demanding target, but few would bet against this low-key numbers man pulling it off. elena aMbrosiadou ikos (uK) This will be the last appearance in the MT 100 for one of Britain’s most successful female entrepreneurs. Greek- 4 born Elena Ambrosiadou is moving her entire hedge fund operation, Ikos (UK), to Cyprus, where she reckons to have a better chance of growing the business. Ikos (UK) was started in 1992 by Ambrosiadou after she left BP, having risen to become its youngest-ever senior executive at the age of 27. As a private experiment, she put $100,000 of her own money into an account that would trade foreign exchange based on a computer program she had designed. When the fund went up 50% in two years, she decided to call it Ikos (‘home’ in Greek) and work on it full-time. Ikos now has $2.8bn under management and one of its flagship funds has reported returns of 25.8% in the first half of a very tough 2005 for the industry. Ikos should easily be worth £120m, given the values ascribed to good hedge funds in the current climate. In 2004, she took a salary and dividends of nearly £15.9m, making her the best-paid female executive in Britain. Ambrosiadou has a five-year plan to grow the assets under management to $10bn by 2010. ranjit and baljinder sinGh boparan holdings Expansion is in the air – along with chicken feathers – at Two Sisters, the Singh’s West Midlands-based poultry processor. A £6m investment at its Scunthorpe plant was the biggest ever in the history of the facility and was described as a ‘serious commitment to the future of the town’ by chief executive Ranjit Singh, who with his wife Baljinder wholly owns parent company Boparan Holdings. Boparan also recently acquired John Rannoch in Suffolk, an operation producing premium-quality roast and breaded chicken products for the retail and food-service markets. With more than seven sites around Britain, Smethwick-based Boparan is best known for its Buxted chickens =6 3 2 siMon nixon Moneysupermarket.com Personal finance information website Moneysupermarket.com is one of the few real Brit.com success stories. For co-founder Simon Nixon, dropping out of university was his passport to a fortune, as 2005’s profits prove – up to £17.1m from £15.8m on sales of £68m. In 2006, his company expects to do even better, forecasting profits of £30m 5 Simon Nixon’s personal finance website is a rare Brit.com success story. Dropping out of university was his passport to a fortune 2 nixon 3 smiTh 4 Turner January 2007 mt 33 britain’s toP 100 entrePreneurs 2007 brand. In the year to July 2004, profits soared from £3.4m to £18.8m on sales up £40m at £326.8m. Processed chicken may be unfashionable among the chattering classes these days, but it’s clearly still highly profitable. On these figures, we value the company at about £100m. Ranjit and Baljinder Singh have taken more than £22.7m in dividends since 2000, so we value the couple at around £110m after tax and including other assets such as farms. Peter and denise Coates bet Group Potteries-based Peter Coates is an unsentimental success story. He opened three bookie’s shops in 1974, eventually building up the Provincial racing chain to 49 branches. But when Bet365, the online betting website masterminded by daughter Denise seven years ago, started to take off, he didn’t hesitate to flog the shops to concentrate on the internet side. The sale of the chain in 2005 netted a useful £40m. Founded with an initial £12m investment, Bet365 made £3.8m profit on sales of £608m in 2004-05 and, now valued at £110m, it has developed into a leading gambling website. Although it is bookmaking that has made him a wealthy man, Coates père made his first foray into business in 1968 with Stadia Catering, providing food and drink to football clubs up and down the country. A lifelong Stoke City fan, in May 2006 he spent £10m to take over the club for the second time, buying out the Icelandic consortium to whom he sold his 66% stake first time round in 1998. ‘I’m 68 years old and have all the money I need. I don’t need to be making a £10m-plus investment into a football club which is losing money. It’s clearly not a sensible financial investment,’ he said at the time. With assets in Bet365 and proceeds from the sale of other businesses, the Coates family should easily be worth £126m after tax. judy CrayMer littlestar services Judy Craymer was working as an assistant to theatre producer Sir Tim Rice in the 1980s when she met the men who were to spark her obsession: Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of Swedish pop supergroup Abba. They were writing for Rice’s musical Chess. ‘I was never a huge Abba fan as a teenager but, after meeting Björn and Benny, I became hooked. I thought, bloody hell, these are the men who wrote Dancing Queen,’ she recalls. 8 =6 allen tiMPany Vanco Telecom group Vanco recently unveiled a new service that allows its customers to check quickly the availability and pricing of broadband connections on a global basis. Middlesex-based Vanco works with more than 650 network partners to deliver those connections, and the new offer should sharply increase the firm’s sales and reach in the highly competitive telecom market. But this is par for the course for Vanco’s CEO, Allen Timpany. A serial entrepreneur, his first business was Guestel, an Apple Computer dealer, in 1980. He sold it four years later and went on to launch and sell several other high-tech businesses. His best deal was to respond to an ad in the FT in 1989 to buy Vanco, then a loss-making data services company, for just £1. A virtual network operator (it’s not itself a carrier but resells bandwidth and services supplied by other carriers), Vanco provides communications networking services to corporate customers around the world, including Avis, Ford and Siemens. It recently bought the assets of Chicago-based network services provider Universal Access Global Holdings, which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2004, for about $22m. Timpany floated Vanco on the stock market in late 2001 – the first successful flotation after 9/11. Its value has soared and that £1 purchase has been turned into a stake worth more than £133m. He sold £1.9m worth of shares in September 2004. Timpany is easily worth £136m. In 1995, she hit on the idea of a musical and, after years of hard work and persuasion, got the Abba boys’ approval, on the condition that she’d find someone to write a decent script. ‘All my friends thought I was crazy,’ she says. ‘They said Abba was so passé and I should get over it. But I knew everyone would want to see the musical.’ Mamma Mia! opened in 1999 and has since been seen by 24 million people worldwide. For Littlestar Services, the company behind the phenomenally successful show, profits hit £8m on sales of £24.3m in 2004-05, as new productions of the musical opened on Broadway and Stockholm (Moscow is the latest city to fall for its discotastic appeal). Craymer’s stake in Littlestar is now worth £60m and we add £18m for other assets, past salaries and dividends. anthony lanGley langley holdings Tony Langley seems intent on proving wrong the doom-mongers who lament the fading of British industry. In 2005, engineering group Langley Holdings made a healthy £14m profit on £224.5m sales, its 25 subsidiary companies doing everything from making cement cooling machines and dockside cranes to building houses. In 1976, aged 22, Langley resurrected what is now Retford-based Langley Holdings from the ashes of his grandfather’s engineering business. Originally, it provided services to the coal industry, but with the demise of that sector, Langley became the multi-disciplinary group it is today. Tony has expanded rapidly in ‘old economy’ markets such as steel, rail and electricity, proving his tremendous eye for identifying and acquiring unwanted divisions of larger corporates. In late 2000, he took over Clarke Chapman, the materials-handling business of RollsRoyce, nearly tripling the size of his firm overnight. Twelve months later, Langley bought Hamburg-based Claudius Peters Group, followed by BMH Americas, both acquired from Babcock. In January 2005, the company bought RWE Pillar, a German supplier of uninterruptible power supplies to industry. MiKe ashley sportsworld international Britain’s most reclusive tycoon just loves brands. Mike Ashley, founder and owner of the Sportsworld International group, already owns the Dunlop Slazenger, Karrimor and Lonsdale brands, as well as the Sportsworld chain and the iconic Lillywhite’s store in central London. Now he is buying up shares in Blacks Leisure, which owns the Blacks, Milletts, Free Spirit, Mambo and O’Neill chains. With a stake of nearly 30% as MT went to press, he is reckoned by City analysts to be preparing a full bid for Blacks that could cost him £200m. But who is Britain’s answer to Howard Hughes? After leaving school at 16, Ashley began trading on the high street, opening sports shops in and around London. By 1990, he had three outlets, trading under the Sports Soccer name. He opened 100 or so more over the next 10 years. He acquired Lillywhites in 2002, turning a genteel store into a pileit-high, sell-it-cheap bazaar. He picks up cheap the rights to hasbeen labels such as tennis and golf brand Donnay and boxing label Lonsdale and revives them. He snapped up Dunlop Slazenger and hiking brand Karrimor in 2004. He likes to scare rivals such as JJB Sports and JD Sports by taking stakes, which he later sells. At Sportsworld, he pulls in shoppers with big discounts on prestige brands like Reebok, Adidas and Nike. Customers then spend on Ashley’s own brands – which have been stretched so far that the Lonsdale label now adorns toddlers’ tracksuits in pink velour. But they generate high profit margins. In 2004-05, profits at Dunstable-based Sportsworld rose to £74.4m on sales of £905.4m. =11 10 9 =11 Fred & Peter done done brothers (Cash betting) and Peninsular business services See Family Fortunes, overleaf Timpany’s best deal was to respond to an ad in the FT in 1989 to buy a loss-making data company for just £1, a stake now worth £133 million =6 Timpany 8 CoaTes 9 Craymer January 2007 mt 35 britain’s toP 100 entrePreneurs 2007 Family FOrTuNeS Five brotherly partnerships and four husband-and-wife teams from our table show you don’t have to be an eccentric loner to drive a successful Sme =11 Fred & Peter done done brothers (Cash betting) & Peninsular business services Fred Done put a £250,000 bet on England winning the World Cup last year at odds of 10-1. ‘In 1966, I was earning £25 a week and put a bet on for £200. England did the business for me then.’ This time he could afford to lose. With his brother Peter, Fred was raised on Salford’s tough Ordsall estate in the 1950s. They started out as bookie’s runners for their father. From a single shop, the pair now own Britain’s sixth-largest bookie’s chain. Fred’s Betfred online gambling operation is growing at breakneck speed on the back of online (and real world) poker tournaments. It was brother Peter, though, who 20 years ago started up lucrative Peninsular Business Services as a legal advice sideline. The Dones’ main betting operation has a parent company called Lightcatch, which in 2004-05 made just £1.2m profit on £751m sales. But adding in the brothers’ salaries of £10.8m takes the bottom line to £12m. Leaguename, Peninsular’s parent, made a good £5.6m profit on £45.19m sales in 2004-05. Add the £3.3m directors’ pay and the profit is nearly £9m. Done operations should be worth £230m. With about £45m in salaries and dividends over 10 years, we add £30m to take the brothers’ worth to £260m. stePhen & Paul harrison harron Group Run by brothers Paul and Stephen Harrison, Harron Homes is so lowprofile that many in the industry haven’t heard of it. Yet it has already expanded beyond its own North Yorkshire turf, with developments in the north-west and the north Midlands. The firm builds about 350 homes each year, including apartments and social housing, in line with current government quotas. Strong demand and rising house prices have helped profits at Northallerton-based Harron leap from £9.3m profit to nearly £17m on sales of £67.3m in the year to June 2005. On these results, it’s easily worth £90m. them. The Mamas and Papas business is run and owned by Scacchetti and her husband, David. daVid & robert lanGMead natures way Foods As the newest functional food fashion, vitamin and mineral-rich seeds and pulses could take the prepared fresh produce sector by storm. And Natures Way Foods and Langmead Farms are leading the charge. The Langmead family, led by David and Robert, has extensive farming interests in the Chichester area, supplying prepared salads and fresh produce. It counts Tesco, Sainsbury and Morrisons among its customers. Natures Way Foods made £2.8m profit on £72.5m sales in 2004-05. douGlas & iain anderson GaP holdings Glasgow-based tool- and plant-hire outfit GAP Group has made its first acquisition in a long time: Lincoln-based J&S Plant provides GAP with its 56th depot. But the move doesn’t signal a change of policy: GAP’s focus remains largely on developing greenfield sites, with two more openings (Swansea and south London) in prospect this financial year. The group, employing 700-plus and now the UK’s biggest independent tooland plant-hire concern, was founded in 1969 by the late Gordon Anderson. It’s now run and largely owned by his sons Douglas and Iain. In the year to March, GAP increased its profits from £7.6m to £8.1m on sales up £12m at £69m. tiM & Kit KeMP Firmdale hotels Over the past two decades, Tim and Kit Kemp have built themselves a tidy portfolio of six boutique hotels in central London. The latest – the Soho Hotel, on the site of an old NCP car park – opened in 2004 to rave reviews. Kit is the design brains, while husband Tim does the =32 MarK & Mo Constantine lush Cosmetics With its ‘handmade’ strapline, focus on fresh, natural ingredients and wackily named products like Buffy the Backside Slayer, Lush Cosmetics stores have won a strong high street presence. Lush was the brainchild of Mark Constantine and his wife Mo, the name apparently suggested by a customer. Mark cut his teeth in the business supplying Body Shop, and set up his own shop in Poole. Until 1995, this was the only outlet, but today there are 379 scattered across the globe, including more than 20 in the US. The manufacturing base in Poole looks more like a hotel kitchen than a factory, with racks of giant saucepans hanging above steel worktops, while giant blenders whisk up organic ingredients into bath and beauty products. The Constantines own half the business, which made £9.7m profit on £74.4m sales in the year to June 2005. 44 property deals, spotting promising sites as he cycles around the capital. Tackling their projects one at a time, they supervise every detail, growing steadily, with the rare luxury of maintaining full control of the firm. The Kemps started with student accommodation in east London, launching their first hotel, Dorset Square, in 1985. Their seventh, the 58-room Haymarket, is due to open this spring. Net assets at their main company, Firmdale Holdings, leapt from £65.5m to £84.9m in 2005-06. aFzal & aKMal Khushi jacobs & turner In June 2006, Afzal Khushi, MD of Jacobs & Turner, received a CBE for services to business in Scotland. It’s easy to see why. With his brother Akmal, he has made the Glasgow-based ski and sportswear manufacturer and wholesaler into a world beater. Trading under the Trespass brand name, the business (owned by the family since 1966) has expanded from winterwear into sportswear, summer clothing and skiwear. The brothers now have 24 retail outlets in the UK, plus franchises covering Holland, Spain and Denmark. Trespass gear is exported to 50 countries. J&T made £11.3m profit on £40m sales in the year to June ’05. stePhen & sarah thoMson thomson intermedia Founded in 1997 with just £30,000 by ex-Mintel directors Stephen Thomson and his wife Sarah, Bromley-based Thomson Intermedia floated on AIM in 2000 with a £30m valuation. The firm provides media intelligence and ad tracking services to 300 clients, including Diageo, the BBC, Cahoot and other bluechips. A recent tie-up with a subsidiary of Martin Sorrell’s giant WPP ad group was seen as a breakthrough by the City; shares have soared as a result and the company is now worth nearly £78m. 69 65 =32 daVid & luisa sCaCChetti Mamas and Papas With 32 stores in Britain and products that sell worldwide, Huddersfield-based pram and buggy business Mamas and Papas goes from strength to strength. It has now opened a London design studio to help new product development and maintain its position as the leading nursery brand in the UK. In 2004-05, it turned in £5.1m profit on £92.5m sales, having diversified into baby clothes, toys and furniture as well as prams and buggies. The business was started in 1980 after Luisa Scacchetti’s vain search in the UK for a stylish pram. She tried her native Italy; the pram she brought back was such a hit with friends and neighbours that she opened a shop to sell =72 13 67 =32 ConsTanTine 44 langmead broThers 36 mt January 2007 lesley anne Churchill David and luisa Scacchetti (right) have opened a london studio to help maintain mamas and Papas as leading nursery brand in the uK britain’s toP 100 entrePreneurs 2007 wiNNiNg wOmeN The distaff side of our list proves that females and computers can mix profitably – from games to high finance. There’s a compassionate thread here too jane CaVanaGh sCi entertainment Group After its agreed £106m takeover of archrival Eidos in April 2005, Jane Cavanagh’s SCi is now the UK’s largest computer games publisher, with a stock market value of £395m and 17 new releases planned for 2007. The London-based group best known for Lawnmower Man, Conflict and Kingdom O Magic games, was founded by ex-BT executive Cavanagh in 1988. Now one of the nation’s wealthiest women, she’s a rare female success in a male-dominated industry. SCi sold 11.5m units in the year to June 2006 and made a profit of £8.1m on sales of £179.1m. With shares buoyant on takeover hopes, her stake is worth £25mplus. Share sales take her to circa £30m. Christian ruCKer the white Company Christian Rucker studied fashion first, and then journalism at Cambridge, landing a job at Harpers & Queen. But wanting to run her own show, she started The White Company in 1994, selling bedlinen and homewares via mail-order and online; she now has shops in many of Britain’s cities and out-of-town malls. She appointed Patricia Burnett as MD in July. Those luxury cotton sheets have insulated the firm from the retail downturn (sales up £11m in 2004-05 to nearly £40m) and proved a goldmine for Rucker: her salary rose from £1.5m to over £2m. Husband Nick Wheeler is the founder of successful shirt retailer Charles Tyrwhitt. 17 friend’s office. Her big break came when she was asked to supply care assistants for a nursing home. She started training and supplying staff, often driving them to work herself. The Croydon-based operation (founded in 1996), was soon meeting a strong demand for qualified nursing staff. Having diversified into social care, Streeter runs a locum service for doctors and plans a move into private healthcare. She and her family own all the business, which made £6.8m profit on £59.1m sales in 2004-05. Chey Garland Cj Garland & Co Chey Garland is doing her bit to stem the flow of call-centre business to India. In October, her business, CJ Garland, created more than 80 new jobs on Teesside after winning a customer service contract from easyJet. Three months earlier, it took on 250 staff to provide call-centre services for Carphone’s TalkTalk packages. The firm has contracts with Vodafone and Virgin Mobile too. Garland, who left school at 16, started her first business at 23 with £600. Hartlepool-based CJ Garland was set up in 1997. She uses a variety of novel initiatives to motivate staff, including sculptures, water features, plasma screens, chill-out zones and Radio GaGa, the firm’s own radio station. Then there are themed events and the Heaven and Hell days (don’t ask). It works – in 2005, profits came in at £1.4m on £36.3m sales. astonishing degree. Dunnhumby crossreferences all of Tesco’s customer statistics with census data and a raft of other sources so it can work out whether, say, single white mothers in Hackney prefer Pampers to Huggies. Tesco then adjusts its local stocks and promotions accordingly. In 2004-05, West London-based Dunnhumby’s profits came in at £8.4m on sales of £36.4m and it’s on course to make £13m in 2005-06. Tesco has now increased its stake from 53% to 83% by buying shares from both founders. sarah treMellen bravissimo Set up in 1995 as a mail-order company operating from founder Sarah Tremellen’s sitting room, lingerie supplier Bravissimo is now a multi-million pound awardwinning business, with retail mail order, online shopping and 11 high street stores. A former marketing professional, Tremellen founded the firm in Leamington Spa after failing to find stylish, comfortable bras in big enough sizes when she was pregnant. Owned by Tremellen and her family, the firm reported a £1.1m profit on sales of £24.8m in 2004-05. eMMa harrison a4e Having spent 15 years helping the unemployed to find work, Emma Harrison is now looking to start a bank aimed at poor and disadvantaged communities. The founder of A4E (formerly Action For Employment) hopes to have three trial branches operating within 18 months. The venture could cost up to £100m, and Harrison aims to have a million customers within six years. She has earned her success the hard way. After messing up her A-levels, she had a brief stint in the NHS before graduating as an engineer in 1987 and running her father’s business training engineers. Having built it into a £1m operation, Harrison left in 1991 to start A4E. She owns most of the Sheffield-based firm, which made £3.9m in profit on £75.7m sales in 2004-05. elizabeth GooCh eG solutions Staffordshire software services business EG Solutions was founded by Elizabeth Gooch in 1988. Working as a bank consultant to manufacturing firms, she hit on the idea of applying lean production techniques to the financial services market. Clients such as HBOS, Morgan Stanley and Scottish Equitable use EG’s software to reorganise their back offices. Having increased revenues by more than 36% in first-half 2006-07, EG Solutions is tackling export markets in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, US and South Africa. In June 2005, EG Solutions floated on AIM at £13.5m. It’s now worth £20.5m-plus. suzanne Marshall Phoenix software The software operation co-founded by Suzanne Marshall in 1990 has built a profitable niche in volume software licensing for local government, corporates, the voluntary sector and education. As regulatory burdens increase, demand for Phoenix’s services should wax. Profits at its parent were £1.9m on £51.8m sales in the year to October 2005, making it a force to be reckoned with in the York region: the firm recently moved to a new site in Pocklington, east of the city. shelaGh elKins tectrade Computers Shelagh Elkins founded Godalmingbased Tectrade in 1991 as a mainframe and mid-range server reseller, but in ’97 it branched out into data and storage management. The UK business focuses on backup and recovery, archiving and data storage infrastructure. Clients include Toyota GB, AmEx, Powergen and several police forces. Elkins chairs the burgeoning firm, which made £750,000 profit on £19.6m sales in 2005-06. =77 40 =55 18 97 61 97 =27 Penny streeter ambition recruitment services Last year, Penny Streeter relocated part of her Ambition 24 recruitment operation to South Africa. But she remains committed to the UK, with 19 offices here and 13,000 clients on her books. Her first enterprise went bust in 1991, leaving her homeless. Second time around, she was more frugal, taking a desk in a 49 edwina dunn (with Clive Humby) dunnhumby Most people have never heard of Edwina Dunn, but she’s heard of you. If you shop at Tesco she probably knows where you live, your favourite brand of tomato soup and how often you go on holiday. She and her mathematician husband Clive Humby are the brains behind Tesco’s highly successful Clubcard, a scheme that tracks customer behaviour to an 17 Cavanagh 49 dunn 40 garland =77 gooCh 38 mt January 2007 lesley anne Churchill Spotting a market gap in the mid-’90s, Sarah Tremellen (right) set about building a multi-million retail concern britain’s toP 100 entrePreneurs 2007 SOaraway SilverTOPS Pardon our ageism, but this is our salute to grey power: the older hands who, far from retiring, keep pushing their enterprises to new heights alan diCK, 68 alan dick & Co This is the man who makes those mobile phone base stations that look like trees. He founded Alan Dick & Co in 1971, initially erecting TV transmitters for the BBC. But the firm really got going in the 1990s mobile phone boom, when demand soared for its commercial antennae. Dick developed a range of specialised structures with a low environmental impact. Rumours that a sale was in the offing a couple of years ago, based on a £200m valuation, have so far proved unfounded. Meanwhile, Dick is refocusing on overseas expansion with a £46m war chest, as his British business has hit a downturn. Yet he still made £2.5m profit on £178m sales in 2004-05. harold Martin, 71 hw Martin holdings Crawling along past lines of traffic cones in motorway jams is no fun, but when it happens to Harold Martin, he can afford to smile – they’re probably his own. This low-key entrepreneur makes a fortune from roadworks; his traffic management division handles everything from motorway contraflows to urban road closures and city festivals. Similarly lucrative lines include safety fencing, plant hire and maintenance, and recycling and waste management. His Derbyshire-based company, HW Martin Holdings, founded in 1976, is headquartered on a 13-acre site beside the M1. Clients include the Highways Agency, HM Prison Service and the MOD. In the year to July 2005, sales of £47.8m (up nearly £4m) yielded profits of £5.7m. sir arnold ClarK, 79 arnold Clark automobiles He may be pushing 80 but car salesman extraordinaire Sir Arnold Clark shows no signs of taking his foot off the gas. His Arnold Clark Autos pushed profits up by 25% in the first half of 2006. Clark brian stannah photograph by paul Carter 29 opened his first car dealership in Glasgow’s Kelvinside in 1955 and his firm is now the largest independent car dealer in the UK, with more than 100 branches in Scotland and at least 30 in England. Clark has invested heavily in the regeneration of Glasgow’s West End and in the Glasgow Training Group, which runs a sales exec course called Arnold’s Academy. His racing yacht Drum is a common sight on the Clyde, and when he’s not sailing it, he lets it out for hire. In 2005 Clark’s business turned in profits of £54m on £1.7bn sales. Stannah founded the business in 1860, trialling hand-operated lifts. Nearly 150 years on, Stannah remains a family business, run and owned by the fourth generation. It has subsidiaries in Holland, Italy and North America and operates in more than 50 countries. In 2005, profits hit a record £11.17m on sales of £137.5m. ian sCarr-hall, 68 Gsh Group In 1895, George Hall set up a small company in Stoke-on-Trent to look after the boilers and kilns of the numerous factories of the Potteries. He had just five employees. Today, the kilns have gone, but the business – now called GSH – remains, controlled by his descendants. GSH provides facilities management services to large corporate clients, including HBOS, Ikea and M&S. Ian Scarr-Hall is president of the firm, which floated on the stock market in May 2005, valued at £40m. Two years earlier, he’d made Scottish headlines when he joined forces with the inhabitants of the Hebridean island of Harris to buy the Amhuinnsuidhe estate for £2m. He took over the castle, grounds and fishing rights and left the rest of the 55,000acre estate to be run by the locals. john Guest, 79 john Guest international A generation of DIY enthusiasts has come to thank John Guest for its most famous innovation – the plastic push-in pipe fitting. The Speedfit fittings have proved popular with the trade, too, and the firm won a Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2005 as a result. The West Drayton-based business was started by John Guest in 1961, and is now one of the world’s biggest makers of plastic pipe fittings for the plumbing and car industries. The family-owned operation is chaired by Guest, and his three sons are directors. In 2005, it made £5.9m profit on £85.4m sales. The business has operations worldwide, including the US, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. About 60% of production is exported and the firm spends roughly 10% of its sales figure on capital investment. daMe MarGaret barbour, 66 j barbour & sons Margaret Barbour has managed to keep the waxed cotton jacket – first produced by her forebear John in 1909 for motorcyclists, submariners and outdoorsmen – at the forefront of county fashion. When another Dame, Helen Mirren, wore a Barbour for her title role in the movie The Queen last year, she helped sales of the famous waxed jacket to soar round the world, particularly in America. When her husband John died tragically young, Margaret Barbour took over the reins at the South Shields business and has overseen huge expansion since. In the year to December 2005, profits soared to £4.8m on sales of £54m. Results for 2006 should be even better. ChristoPher dunCan, 67 numatic international Christopher Duncan owns Numatic International, best known for its Henry range of domestic vacuum cleaners, cheery machines that are liked by many in the trade, too. Somerset-based Numatic, founded in 1969, also produces industrial cleaners and floor polishers. In the early days the firm employed six, the factory was tiny and its most sophisticated piece of equipment was a drill. The first designs, knocked together like something from Scrapheap Challenge, incorporated oil drums, suitcase handles, furniture castors and washing-up bowls. With steady profits and a strong balance sheet, Numatic is the sort of industrial business the nation could do with more of. In 2005 it made a profit of £3.2m on sales of nearly £78m and showed net assets of £27m. mt 89 83 =75 john randall, 77 Kanes Foods John Randall bought Kanes Foods from the quoted Hazlewood Foods for £3m in 1990. It proved a shrewd investment; in 2004-05, Kanes’ parent KF Investments made £6.4m profit on sales of £67.4m. Randall still owns all the shares. Success has not been without its trials, though, for the Vale of Evesham-based producer of chilled salads, stir-fry vegetables and sauces and coleslaw. Kanes has run into local protest over plans to expand a 20acre production and distribution site. The current boom in the popularity of functional foods should help to keep Randall’s business going strong for a while yet. 46 100 88 79 brian & alan stannah, 71 and 67 stannah Family holdings As the owners of Stannah Holdings, brothers Brian and Alan Stannah know all about grey power. The demographic shift is accelerating demand for the Andover-based firm’s products engineered expressly for the chronologically challenged. The company makes and maintains lifts, stairlifts and powered chairs for the elderly, as well as all types of passenger and goods lifts. It recently invested £3.5m to build a new 64,500 sq ft factory in Newcastle. Joseph 50 Car salesman extraordinaire Sir arnold Clark, 79, has invested heavily in the regeneration of glasgow’s west end 50 Clark 79 sTannah 89 barbour January 2007 mt 41