Wales’ top 300 powerhouses of business set to be unveiled

THE definitive guide to the biggest companies in Wales will be revealed next week. This year’s Wales Top 300 once again ranks the biggest firms in Wales on turnover, but also provides key financial information such as pre-tax profit, profit margin and numbers of employees.

This year’s league table of the 300 biggest firms will be published in next Wednesday’s Western Mail in a 54-page magazine

The project’s main sponsor is again the University of South Wales, with the league table compiled by Professor Dylan Jones-Evans, drawing on latest audited accounts lodged with Companies House.

This year the combined turnover of the 300 firms on the list is £37.5bn, which is nearly a third of the total turnover generated by all businesses in Wales at £115.bn.

Prof Jones-Evans said: “The overall turnover of the top 300 businesses has increased by 10% over their last 12 months of trading, whereas employment has grown by only 6%, suggesting that these firms are becoming more productive.

“Within the list itself, we find that the top 10 firms, which account for 38% of total turnover and 20% of total employment, are more productive in terms of turnover/employee than the rest of the Top 300 firms and there are certainly lessons there for other firms as to how they have achieved this.

“By location, twothirds of all businesses are to be found in the Cardiff Capital Region which, given 10 of Wales’ local authorities are based there, is not surprising. This is followed by north and mid-Wales (19%) and Swansea Bay (14 %).

“Given that the Cardiff Capital region has 43% of Wales’ businesses, there is a clear predominance of larger firms in this part of Wales. In contrast, large firms are under-represented in the Swansea Bay region and this presents challenges for the city deals in both regions.”

Prof Jones-Evans said this year’s list will again show the resilience and importance of the manufacturing sec- tor to the Welsh economy.

He added: “The sectoral make-up of the Top 300 is fascinating and somewhat unexpected, given that 123 firms (44%) are based in manufacturing and engineering.

“The performance of the industry is also better than the average for the Top 300 in terms of both turnover and employment.

“This is not surprising, given that it remains a critical industry and has shown a remarkable renaissance since the recession of 2008. Whilst it had declined to 14.9% of the Welsh economy in 2009 – the lowest level recorded in modern times – it has since grown to account for 18% of the economy of Wales in 2016.

“In fact, during the period 200816, it has expanded by 49%, accounting for 16.6% of all Welsh economic growth over this period.”