Special feature: The Fab 500

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The phrase ‘turnover is vanity, profit is sanity’ is not lost on us!

Regardless of profit, the businesses in our Fab 500 are responsible for significant contributions to direct, indirect and supply-chain employment and to the general economic wellbeing of the county.

[/quote-content] [quote-author]Richard Slater, Publisher[/quote-author][/quote-block]

Mark Schofield, Haworths Chartered Accountants

With this survey we try to identify the economic drivers of Lancashire. We use the annual sales figure as the indicator and link the pre-tax profit and number of employees with that figure. We believe it is as important to know if a large business is struggling as it is to be reassured it is trading at a good profit. As you can see the number of employees whose own economic wellbeing is directly tied in with these companies is very large, to say nothing of all the people involved in the supply chain.

All that said we can see the Fab 500 are responsible for total sales of £27bn, (2012 £23bn), generate profit before tax of £1bn, (£1.1bn) and employ in the order of 150,000 people, (143,000). In other words sales seem to have increased by some £4bn, total profit before tax is similar and the number of employees is up by 7,000. We are told there is still an issue with productivity in the national economy and maybe these figures support that. We can see an increase in sales but total profits remain about the same despite an increase in the number of employees.

Sue Taylor, Accrington and Rossendale College

The Fab 500 is responsible for a turnover of almost £22bn and employs over 134,000 people throughout Lancashire, clearly displaying that they are economic drivers for the county despite the challenging climate.

Companies that invest in staff training and development and lead the way with apprenticeships and work-based learning, are the ones that have the flexibility and innovation to overcome and triumph through testing times.

We aim to reflect the needs of the community in the courses we offer to individuals and employers, and also build a strong future for our region by encouraging ambition, aspiration and achievement in all of our learners.

As principal of Accrington and Rossendale College, seeing the dedication of the businesses in the Fab 500 and our future workforce, I feel optimistic and enthusiastic about the future of Lancashire and its economy." [protected message="REGISTER FOR LBV HUB BELOW TO DOWNLOAD THE FAB 500"][cta link="http://www.lancashirebusinessview.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/LBV-54-Fab-500-full-list.pdf"]DOWNLOAD THE FAB 500[/cta][/protected]