London Stock Exchange (LON:LSE) has published a list of 1,000 ‘inspiring’ British small companies that it says are responsible for the jobs created since the 2008 financial crash.
LSE chief Xavier Rolet said the project set out to “bring to life” what was known “instinctively” to be true, that smaller companies are the “lifeblood of the UK economy”.
“Our own research, and that of many other organisations, has shown that it is almost exclusively these companies that have generated new, net job creation in the UK since the financial crisis,” Rolet said.
To qualify, companies had to be over three years old, be incorporated in the United Kingdom (with certain exceptions) and had to have turned over between £6mln and £250mln last year.
“The public sector has shrunk and while large-caps are recovering, their hiring has not. ‘Gazelle companies’, post-2007, are proving to be the lifeblood of the UK economy.
“Celebrating the success of these SMEs is a shockingly under-reported story and we are determined to change that. Our report, 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain, seeks, for the first time, to identify 1,000 of the most exciting small and medium-sized companies in the UK.”
Among those mentioned in dispatches included Gemfields (LON:GEM), the AIM-quoted owner of mining operations in Zambia as well as the Faberge jewellery business, posh handbag maker Mulberry, Stevensons of Essex, a rail company, speciality niche drug group Clinigen (LON:CLIN) and Utilitywise (LON:UTW).