Sunday Times Fast Track 100

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The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 is a list published annually in December in partnership with The Sunday Times newspaper in the UK. It ranks Britain's fastest growing privately held companies by sales growth over the last 3 years. The list is produced by Fast Track, an Oxford based research company, and sponsored by the Virgin Group.

The seventeenth Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 was published on 8 December 2013.

Video Sunday Times Fast Track 100

Limitations

The Fast Track 100 is generally promoted as the definitive guide to the fastest growing privately held companies in the UK. Richard Branson is quoted as saying "Fast Track has become the definitive barometer of growth companies" However a number of limitations exists which mean that the list may not contain information on many fast growing companies. Most important of these is the reliance on historical data. Because Fast Track only deals in publicly available information generally from published accounts, the league table refers to data that is sometimes as much as 10 months out of date.

On the other hand, this method ensures objectivity and has led to the early identification of a number of household names, including Carphone Warehouse, British Home Stores and Travelex.

Maps Sunday Times Fast Track 100

Entry criteria

For entry to the 2013 Fast Track 100 companies were required to be:

Unquoted
Registered in the UK
Non-subsidiary, independent
10 or more employees
Annualised sales of at least £250,000 in 2009/10
Annualised sales of at least £5m in 2012/13
An increase in sales from penultimate to latest year, and a forecast of further sales growth
Not a technology company