Fast movers ready to step into the limelight in fourth awards

The awards, organised with top 100 UK law firm Ward Hadaway, champion and celebrate the fastest-growing companies from across the region.

The Yorkshire Fastest 50 highlights the privately-owned Yorkshire companies that have done the most to grow their businesses.

The programme celebrates the region’s success stories by picking the profitable companies that have seen the biggest annual growth rate in their turnover in recent years.

A definitive list of the 50 fastest-growing businesses, with information on their activities, will be published in the Yorkshire Post next month.

Awards will then be handed out to the fastest-growing small, medium and large businesses at a prestigious awards ceremony in March with one of those three winners then receiving the ultimate accolade of being crowned Yorkshire’s overall fastest-growing business.

Past winners include Wage Day Advance, the payday loans company based in Skipton, Transglobal Fuels, the Batley-based oil distributor, and Abbey Business Contracts of Wetherby, a distressed pub management company.

This is the fourth year that the Yorkshire Fastest 50 has been held and the event has become a leading fixture in the region’s business calendar.

The Fastest 50 has been developed with law firm Ward Hadaway, which has reported “considerable growth” in its Yorkshire operations since it opened in Leeds in 2008.

Martin Hulls, head of office in Leeds, said: “We are delighted to once again be staging the Yorkshire Fastest 50.

“When we started out with the event, we hoped it would help to highlight the fantastic work being done by companies right across the region in growing their businesses against what was a very challenging economic back- drop.

“The Yorkshire Fastest 50 has gone on to really capture the business community’s imagination and the award ceremonies have been fantastic celebrations of all that is best in Yorkshire ambition, determination and achievement.

“With the economic picture improving, competition to appear in the final 50 is even fiercer and this year’s winners will have had to demonstrate truly exceptional performance.”

The Yorkshire Fastest 50 2014 is being compiled by independent economic researchers at Bradford University School of Management using publicly available data from Companies House.

The data will then be verified before the list is published in the Yorkshire Post next month.

Ward Hadaway, which also has offices in Newcastle and Manchester, has been running a similar awards scheme for companies in the North East every year since 1998.

Jamie Martin, managing partner, said: “The Yorkshire Fastest 50 is already making its presence felt as a major showcase for business endeavour and achievement across the region. Since the awards were started, we have seen some tremendous examples of companies making major strides in growing their businesses, creating jobs and attracting investment into Yorkshire.

“For example, the companies in last year’s Fastest 50 boosted their combined turnovers by almost £1.4bn in the three years to 2013, during a time of serious economic difficulty.

“The challenge is now on for others to follow suit as we look to see which businesses and which industries and sectors are making the running in 2014.”

Bernard Ginns, Business Editor of the Yorkshire Post, will introduce the Yorkshire Fastest 50 Awards 2014 ceremony in March.

He said: “As Yorkshire’s leading media brand, we have always believed in celebrating everything that is best about this region.

“The Yorkshire Fastest 50 enables us to do exactly that and to send a message about the resilience, capabilities and can-do attitude of Yorkshire companies.

“These are businesses which have progressed despite difficult times and as we look forward to an improving economic situation in 2014, what better way to herald that than to champion our pace-setting companies?”

The event will feature a high-profile speaker. Past luminaries include Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls and Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire.