A NEWPORT-BASED firm and one from Caerphilly have been named in the 20th anniversary edition of the Sunday Times BDO Profit Track 100 league table which ranks Britain’s private companies with the fastest-growing profits.

Wales’s highest ranked company is Caerphilly-based Aerfin, which features on the league table for the first time.

The business has spent more than £100m buying aircraft, engines and spares, which it recycles and sells or leases to airlines such as Lufthansa.

In 2017, it supplied 415 customers in 62 countries, helping profits reach £8m and placing it at number five in the listing.

Number 58 on the list is Newport-based Veezu, a taxi provider which owns businesses across the region and the south west including Dragon Taxis in Newport. It currently has 306 members of staff and 1,000 self-employed drivers. The business has seen profits grow by 69 per cent over the last three years to £4.9m.

These are just of five companies headquartered in Wales to make the list. Together they have made a strong contribution to the country’s economy, employing a total of 760 staff and achieving combined profits of £35m.

Both Aerfin and Veezu are new entrants on the list.

The other Welsh names are Port Talbot-based beauty business 7th Heaven at number 37; Llanmoor Homes at number 20, down from 15 in last year's list; and Invertek Drives, of Welshpool, which is ar number 97.

The companies in Wales appear alongside well-known British brands, including fitness clothing retailer Gymshark, luxury yacht builder Princess Yachts and jewellery and watch retailer The Watches of Switzerland Group.

Others are connected to star names, such as Hippodrome Casino on London’s Leicester Square, at which Harry Houdini, Frank Sinatra and Julie Andrews have all performed.

Since the first league table was published in 2000, Profit Track 100 has featured many of Britain’s most successful private companies.

The league table programme is sponsored by BDO, Santander Corporate & Commercial and UBS Wealth Management, and compiled by Fast Track, the Oxford-based research and networking events firm.

Andrea Bishop, partner and head of Wales at BDO, the title sponsor of the league table, said: "We pride ourselves on being the champion of the UK’s Economic Engine – those mid-size, fast-growth, entrepreneurially-minded businesses which are the backbone of the UK economy, generating more than their natural share of GDP growth and jobs."

This year’s Profit Track 100 companies achieved, on average, profit growth of 78 per cent a year over three years, to a total of £840m in 2017/18. Together they employ 43,400 staff, having added 14,200 employees to their combined workforce over the period, some as a result of acquisitions.

Sixty of the companies on the list are based outside London and the southeast, including six of the top 10 biggest employers on the list. London is the most popular location for company HQs with 23, followed by the southeast with 17. Of the remainder, 13 are based in the northwest, 12 in the Midlands, 10 in the southwest, nine in Yorkshire, five in Wales, three in the East, three in Scotland, three in Northern Ireland, and two in the northeast.