What a win can do for a North East company

Sep 1 2010 by Iain Laing, The Journal

AS the countdown continues to the Fastest 50 North East companies of 2010, Business Editor Iain Laing looks back at last year’s winners.

IT WAS a case of back to the future for Soil Machine Dynamics last year when it was crowned the fastest growing company in the North East for 2009.

In a previous incarnation as Bywell Holdings, the company won the fastest growing large business award in the very first Fastest 50 Awards, back in 1998.

In 2009, the subsea engineering specialist was named fastest growing overall business as well as fastest growing large business at the Ward Hadaway Fastest 50 Awards.

Soil Machine Dynamics – or SMD as it is known – is one of the world’s leading specialists in designing and manufacturing remotely-operated subsea vehicles. The Wallsend- based company’s products are used across the globe in the offshore oil and gas industries, submarine telecoms sector and oceanographic research.

SMD was bought out by its management team in April 2008 in a deal backed by private equity specialist Inflexion.

Andrew Hodgson, chief executive officer of SMD, said: “Winning the Fastest 50 awards last year was an excellent thing for the company.

“First of all, it was real recognition for our existing employees for all the excellent hard work which they had put into the company.

“Secondly, it helps us to recruit the best candidates from the local market.

“Thirdly, it gave us a higher profile which we have used to promote the business nationally and internationally.”

Since winning the awards in October last year, SMD has gone from strength to strength, highlighting the Ward Hadaway Fastest 50’s ability to pick out the region’s pace-setting businesses.

In January of this year, the company announced plans to create 75 jobs at its Wallsend headquarters by the end of 2010, taking its total workforce to 250. In April, SMD revealed it had won £60m worth of contracts and in July it announced a £40m contract win from Norwegian oil giant Subsea 7.

SMD was not the only company in the limelight at the 2009 Fastest 50 Awards. Other winners were temperature and pressure sensor specialist Controle Mesure Regulation (UK) Ltd from New York, North Tyneside, which won the fastest growing medium business award, and electrical contractor Waymid Ltd, from Stockton, which was named fastest growing small business.

The winning companies were revealed before an audience of 150 business leaders at Six Restaurant on the top floor of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead.

David Laws, chief executive of Newcastle International Airport, was the keynote speaker at the prestigious event, which rewards profit-making privately-owned companies and organisations in the region which have shown the strongest sales growth over recent years.

The winners of the 2010 awards – backed by The Journal and sponsored by leading North law firm Ward Hadaway – will be revealed at a ceremony next month.

Researchers from Durham Business School are currently running the rule over the potential entrants for the list, which will be published in The Journal later this month.

Colin Hewitt, head of commercial law at Ward Hadaway, said: “Getting into the Fastest 50 has become a coveted accolade for companies in the North-East and competition for places on this year’s list is again fierce, despite the challenges which have faced every business over the past 12 months.”