A record £220bn of combined sales for Britain’s top 100 private companies

Fast Track’s 18th annual Sunday Times HSBC Top Track 100 identified and ranked 100 private companies in Britain using data from Fame. 

See the league table

There are some familiar names in the top spot including chemicals manufacturer Ineos, which takes the top spot again this year with £26.9 billion in sales. Fast Track notes that these numbers were helped by investments in the past 2 years including Ineos’s purchase of both BP’s Forties pipeline for $250 million and Dong Energy’s oil and gas business for $1.05 billion.

The 5 biggest companies based on sales

The same 5 biggest companies made it to the top again this year. Swire, a conglomerate with interests including shipping, property and agriculture, dropped to the 4th slot as fueling station retailer EG group, which expanded into the US with 762 convenience stores and bought Australia’s Woolworth fueling stations for £900 million, moves up to the 3rd spot from 5th last year.

1. Ineos (chemicals manufacturer), £26.9 billion in sales
2. Greenergy (fuel supplier), £16.8 billion
3. EG Group (fuel forecourt operator), £10.6 billion
4. Swire (conglomerate), £10.6 billion 5
5. John Lewis Partnership, £10.3 billion

Who owns these companies?

The Top Track 100 identified the main ownership for all 100 companies on the list:

• 33 are owned by private equity
• 33 are entrepreneur and/or founder-owned
• 28 are family-owned
• 6 are owned directly by management and staff

Fame covers around 13 million companies within the UK and Ireland as well as information on individuals including directors, shareholders and department heads. Companies are searchable by criteria including size, industry and location.

“Our 18th annual Sunday Times HSBC Top Track 100 league table features the UK’s biggest private companies, ranked by their latest sales”, said Hamish Stevenson, founder and chief executive of Fast Track.

“This year, the country’s 100 biggest companies had record combined sales of £220 billion, up 14% on the year before, and record profits of £24.6 billion, up 15%. And they employ a total of 951,000 people, equivalent to 3% of the UK’s total workforce.”

How is the Top Track 100 compiled?

Fast Track’s 18th annual Sunday Times HSBC Top Track 100 identifies and ranks 100 private companies in Britain with total sales between £700 million to £20 billion. To be considered for the Top Track 100, businesses must be registered in the UK, be independent, unquoted and have a full-time staff of at least 100 employees.

Data from Bureau van Dijk's Fame database of companies in the UK and Ireland was used to compile the list, which was published in the Sunday Times HSBC Top Track 100 on 7 July.

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