Wiltshire is a firm favourite in list (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Wiltshire is a firm favourite in list

WILTSHIRE firms have been named as some of the biggest and most successful companies in the south west.

Tomorrow the Sunday Times announces its Top Track 250 mid-market private firms in terms of sales. It is equivalent to the numbers 101 to 350 in the Sunday Times Top Track 100 league table of Britain's biggest private companies, which has been published for the last four years.

Top of the pile in the south west is Dyson, the vacuum cleaner maker from Malmesbury. Dyson, which is owned entirely by founder James Dyson and his family, had sales of £277.1m last year and a profit of £43m.

Although the company faced criticism when it moved its production from Malmesbury to the Far East, it still employs a large research and development team in Wiltshire and has seen massive success this year as it overtook Hoover in America.

Also listed is the Dick Lovett Group, the Swindon-based car dealer, which employs more than 400 people and has dealerships for Mini, BMW, Porsche, Ferrari, Lotus and Maserati. It is placed in sixth place in the south west with sales of £205.9m last year.

The Early Learning Centre, which has its headquarters in South Marston, as well as a shop in the Brunel Centre, is ninth in the region with sales of £174m.

The full list is published in tomorrow's Sunday Times.