From toilets to AIM, Nanoco had a humble beginning

Rss |

Homepage |

E-mail this article |

3:28 pm, July 27, 2009
From toilets to AIM, Nanoco had a humble beginning

Technology, recruitment, insurance, transport and finance sectors figure strongly among fastest growers

By Steve Brauner

Exclusive reprint

Fast growing companies can emerge from unlikely places. Collecting the trophy at our celebratory lunch last week, operations manager Torsten Schanze recalled how Nanoco Technologies began life in a converted gents toilet in the University of Manchester’s Department of Chemistry. “The tiles were still there but the urinals had been removed,” he noted.

Nanoco, ranked top of our list, increased its turnover by 269 per cent in the three years to 2008 and this year floated on AIM by means of a reverse takeover. It now has a market capitalisation of £87m. It holds patents related to industrial-scale production of quantum dots, which are used in fluorescent labelling, solar cells, and LED displays.

Technology companies are always likely to feature strongly in a list of this kind. At number four is Wilmslow-based mxData, whose TrafficTV map-based mobile phone app helps match day crowds get to and from Old Trafford, where our Fast 50 lunch was held. It has seen 154 per cent growth in three years.

Other sectors well represented are recruitment, insurance, transport and finance. Quoted IT security consultancy NCC and insurance firms Bollington Group and CBG Group have grown by acquisition while private equity firms have backed the expansion strategies of nursery operator Kidsunlimited and moneylender Jerrold Holdings.

Opal Property and Townson Estates are continuing to defy the gloom in the property sector for reasons explained in the profiles which follow, but the current climate may prevent others from making the cut next year. Jonathan Boyers, northern head of corporate finance at KPMG, said: “There are a few firms which I suspect won’t be in your next list and a few which clearly aren’t trading as well as they were. The number of property and construction companies might not be as high the next time.” Peter Terry, Manchester-based corporate finance partner at BDO Stoy Hayward, said the strong showing by recruitment sector — NES Global, Fircroft and Morson — was driven by the strong growth in the underlying sectors in which they operate, notably oil and gas and nuclear.

Profiled on the following pages are Fast 50 businesses whose stories are less well known.

comments?manchesternews@crain.com