Top 100: It was one man and a garage, now turnover's just jumped nearly £20m
Top 100: It was one man and a garage, now turnover's just jumped nearly £20m
It all began with one man’s decision to buy a Vauxhall garage in Gloucester. Today it is an empire stretching across three county’s and into Wales, with a turnover that is pushing towards £130m.
Dear Readers,
A bit of a round-up of business news today, rather than our usual original big read to see you through the weekend.
The bulk of the email is a series of short stories that make up our elongated briefing notes; the pick of a host of stories we’ve spotted.
At the foot of the edition you’ll also find another addition to our Top 100 series, this time telling the latest chapter in a business that started when one man bought himself a Vauxhall garage in Gloucester - a business that today is an empire knocking on the door of a £130 million turnover.
But before all that we have a bit of fun with a piece about a social event planned by two well-known county firms, for reasons which will be obvious to anyone who knows who supports The Raikes Journal.
As is our habit on a Thursday and Friday, to give value for money to those subscribers who pay to help support what we do you’ll find most of the edition below is paywalled.
We hope you have a great weekend.
Willans solicitors and Randall & Payne set to do battle
The above picture led to ‘controversy’ on Linkedin this morning, with Alasdair Garbutt, of opposition team Willans LLP, accusing (in a good-natured way, of course) Randall & Payne of daring to get some practice in ahead of a forthcoming almighty clash between the two firms (that’s ‘clash’ as in ‘rounders match’). It was a slight immediately and strenuously denied by the accountant’s Fiona Hughes, who was adamant her team’s performance in the forthcoming match - the centrepiece of Tuesday’s social event - would more than prove that no one had done any such thing! These are two of the Founding Partners of The Raikes Journal - the firms that help make this website possible - but we also wanted to flag it because it looks like damn good fun. It’s not for charity or for PR, it’s just because – and for the bragging rights for the winner, of course! For those of you who crave live sport, and we guess if there really is nothing else on anywhere else to watch, the teams take to the pitch between 5pm and 7pm on Tuesday at Hatherley & Reddings Cricket Club. All we can say is good luck!
* Everything you read on The Raikes Journal is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College, Merrell People and Randall & Payne, our sponsors Hartpury University and Hartpury College, our Founding Members and wonderful paying subscribers.
If you upgrade to paid, you’ll be part of this community interest company too. In an era when local journalism is all but gone, we are dedicated to delivering quality journalism for Gloucestershire, to championing the county, in particular its businesses, charities, education and training providers, to defending it, challenging those who need to be held to account and to helping create an even stronger community. If you upgrade to paid you will be able to see past the paywalls on our second and third email editions of the week, that lock all our archive after two weeks and lock our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire, the series that follows the financial fortunes of our biggest firms by turnover. You will be able to comment on our stories too. You’ll be helping make this CIC sustainable. Please do join us.
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