Pendine Park Care Organisation
Mario Kreft, Managing director, 52
Type of business: Residential and daycare services
Location: Wrexham
Employees: 450
Turnover: £9m
Investment plans: Pendine cares for about 280 people and Kreft - who says he
inherited his work ethic from his parents, who were circus artists -
emphasises the importance of improving standards and training. “We’ve tried
to take an innovative approach,” he says, “while making the business
community-based so we can reach a lot more people.” The company provides
respite care and 24-hour nursing, and tailors its services to individual
patients.
Kreft, who runs Pendine with his wife Gill, plans to extend its involvement in
the community by providing more support for families as well as those
directly affected by dementia and brain trauma.
TheHut.com
John Gallemore and Matthew Moulding, Founders, 39 and 36
Type of business: Online entertainment retailer
Location: Northwich, Cheshire
Employees: 71
Turnover: £27m
Investment plans: This e-commerce company was founded in 2004 and is
one of the UK’s largest online entertainment retailers, selling DVDs, CDs
and computer games. However, its rapid growth hasn’t come about just from
selling directly to customers: it also runs websites for large retail brands
including Asda, PC World and the Coop. “We allow people to plug the gaps in
their internet strategy,” says Moulding.
He is trialling a new retail idea that lets customers visit a TheHut.com shop
to buy online from terminals on the premises, still getting the benefit of
cheaper internet prices. It is also expanding the range of products it
stocks to include lingerie, perfume and flowers.
ANS Group
Chris Malthouse and Scott Fletcher, Commercial director and CEO, 39 and
35
Type of business: IT infrastructure
Location: Manchester
Employees: 65
Turnover: £10.2m
Investment plans: Like many technology companies, ANS Group was founded
in a spare bedroom. Within three years, the internet infrastructure provider
had a million-pound turnover, counted the NHS as one of its customers and
was preparing for a successful float on the Plus stock exchange.
Now the company , which is based at Manchester Science Park, is investing in
providing what are known as “virtualised servers”, where one server - the
physical equipment that stores and manages computer information - can act as
many servers, saving power, time and cost. Malthouse calls it a “ much more
efficient way of storing data”.
ANS is also busy developing “unified communication”, based on the convergence
of devices such as computers, PDAs and telephones. “Businesses will be able
to access stored data anywhere in the world however they want to,” says
Malthouse.
Myprotein.co.uk
Oliver Cookson, Founder, 29
Type of business: Online sports nutrition retailer
Location: Cheadle, Cheshire
Employees: 46
Turnover: £4.8m
Investment plans: Cookson left school at 16 with one GCSE to his name.
After teaching himself web design from a book and working as a web
developer, he founded MyProtein.co.uk with a £500 overdraft facility in
2004.
“I’m an avid gym-goer and I saw an opportunity for people not only to buy
products directly online for a cheaper price, but for them to customise
their products, from the ingredients to what kind of packaging it comes in,”
he says. Business has grown rapidly, more than doubling in size each year,
and the company is about to move to a larger warehouse facility near
Manchester airport.
MyProtein.co.uk claims to be the largest
site of its kind in Europe and Cookson expects turnover to jump to £10m this
financial year. Having recently strengthened his management team, Cookson’s
2009 plans include expanding the product range and increasing brand
awareness.
National Tyres and Autocare
John Taylor, Alan Revie and John Caldwell, Partner, chairman and partner,
44, 49 and 52
Type of business: Fast-fit tyre specialist
Location: Stockport
Employees: 1,350
Turnover: £150m
Investment plans: Although National Tyres and Autocare has more than
200 retail outlets across the UK, Taylor has plans for a lot more. The
company expects to open another 100 high-street sites over the next four or
five years to go alongside its other operations, which include warehouses
and training facilities for its employees, who carry out MOTs as well as
fitting tyres.
Taylor and his other partners led a management buyout from Continental seven
years ago and have transformed the business, refinancing, increasing its
advertising budget and selling unprofitable divisions such as commercial
trucking. “It’s been a big turnaround in a short space of time,” he says.
The company intends to cope with the economic downturn by concentrating on a
keen pricing strategy, reinforced by its website, as well as its customer
service. “Training our staff is a huge part of how we remain competitive,”
adds Taylor.
