A YORK-based veterinary group has made its debut in a league table of Britain’s private companies with the fastest-growing profits.

VetPartners which provides centralised finance and IT functions for its 500-plus clinics, freeing vets to focus on treating animals, has seen profits rise by an average of 77 per cent a year over three years, reaching £45m in the year to June 2020. Ranked 20th, VetPartners employs 5,236 people.

It is one of ten Yorkshire-headquartered companies included in the Sunday Times BDO Profit Track 100 - largely before Covid-19 struck. Others include G H Brooks, a building supplies retailer in Harrogate, which has 40 staff and recorded a 40 per cent rise in profits over three years by September 2019.

Tyre wholesale Bond International, Pocklington, was in 99th place, having recorded an average 34 per cent rise in profits over three years, reaching £8m in the year to December 2019. With 400 employees, it plans to open two new UK depots this year. Drinks manufacturer Corinthian Brands, Knaresborough, was in 81st place, with profits rising by an average of 41 per cent over three years, reaching £3.3m in the year to December 2019.

The region’s top-ranked company is Leeds-based Fullers Foods, a family business operating 120 factories in 12 countries to supply own-brand frozen, chilled and ambient prepared foods. It generated record profits of £9.2m in the year to January 2020.

The companies in Yorkshire appear alongside well-known British brands across the UK including Thatchers Cider, the Somerset cider-maker, and Brompton, the London-based bicycle manufacturer.

Past star alumni include Dyson, which featured in 2000 with profits of £24m, and saw these rise to £711m in 2019, and global technology platform THG, which ranked No 1 in 2014, with profits of £11m; it floated last year valued at £5.4bn and is now worth £6.3bn.

The Profit Track 100 league table is compiled by Fast Track, the Oxford-based research and networking events firm.