Sosandar, Gymashark among fashion and retail names on first Growth Index list

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
May 27, 2022

A new ‘Growth Index’ for the UK shows that fashion and retail businesses rank prominently among the top 100 British companies in terms of growth rates.

In fact, retail is the second-largest group on the list (behind technology), occupying 16% of the positions, although it’s interesting and significant that only 12.5% of them have a physical store.

And a third of the retail and fashion businesses on the list are run by women, even though only 17% of the total list of 100 companies is female-led.

Marcia Gilmore, founder of Beauty Pie is the only woman to make the top 10 list in the inaugural ranking.

As far as the retailers are concerned, fast-growth companies making the ranking operate in areas such as gymwear, alcohol, pets, luxury fashion, cards, flowers, jewellery, computers, beauty and food.

The fashion companies on the list are Fashion UK, Sosandar, Gymshark, Threads Styling, and Sweaty Betty (now owned by Wolverine).

And the retail companies include Beauty Pie, Bloom & Wild, Gousto, Chilly’s Bottles, SMI, Moonpig, Tropic Skincare, BOX, Beavertown Brewery, Vashi, Technoworld, Affinity Fragrances, Easy Bathrooms, Net World Sports, Maze, and Lintbells. 

Growth Index founder Orlando Martins of executive search practice Oresa said: “Growth is more effective than any other economic force at improving lives. Alongside the pandemic, technological and geopolitical shifts have shown that we need to adapt our ways of thinking about, being in and doing business. This isn’t simply about achieving higher levels of turnover. It’s also, and equally, about being profitable, ethical, sustainable and socially conscious in the way we do business.”