Meet the top five on our Great British Billion-Pound Businesses list

Meet the top five on our Great British Billion-Pound Businesses List, in association with 德意志银行 Wealth Management.

We've dug into the people who have built a billion-pound business and kept on going. The people on this list founded UK companies valued at ￡1bn or more and are still directors or majority-owned.

We wanted to highlight these people because while the UK has a great track record of starting businesses, it has struggled to convert them into large companies. We believe that not only is growth possible for British business leaders, but with a slight shift in culture it’s well within reach.

So, who better to look at than those who’ve been there and grown billion-pound businesses? These are the leaders who’ve proven their ability to navigate hard times, adapt and build an incredible legacy.

Let’s take a look!

Sir Jim Ratcliffe didn’t start his chemicals behemoth INEOS until his mid-40s, harnessing the expertise and knowledge of industrial sites and dealmaking that he’d nurtured in the first half of his career. His strategy was simple: buy unloved chemical plants and see where they could be knitted together with other overlooked sites. But it was his appetite for risk that really spearheaded the company’s growth, with Ratcliffe borrowing large sums to realise his dream.

Dyson products are a household staple – and for good reason. Sir James Dyson is a perfectionist. It took 5,127 prototypes of his first bagless vacuum cleaner before he was content. Since then, his company has expanded into a wide range of everyday products, from hair dryers to air conditioning units and hand dryers. Ever the innovator, he’s now looking into robotics and AI.

Russian-born Nikolay Storonsky moved to the UK to work as a trader for Lehman Brothers. But after the firm's collapse, which lost him around ￡500,000, he turned his attention to starting his own company and Revolut was born! It offers an app-based service that undercuts mainstream banks with services such as fee-free foreign exchange, while it was also quick to move into new areas such as cryptocurrency trading. It now operate across 160 countries and has more than 40 million customers.

Working at their father's petrol-filling station gave the Issa brothers inside knowledge of the industry, which meant that when they bought their first forecourt in 2001 they knew exactly what they were getting into and how to succeed. As they grew their portfolio, they realised they could boost revenues by partnering will well-known food and drink brands such as Starbucks, Burger King, KFC and Greggs. Today, their EG Group has nearly 6,000 forecourts and annual revenue of ￡22.4bn!

Greg Jackson has always been passionate about sustainability; he has been a member of Greenpeace since his teenage years. He started Octopus Energy in his 40s, building on his experience of setting up other ventures including making mirrors and trading property. Within just nine years, he grew Octopus Energy from a small-scale disruptor into the largest electricity supplier to British homes.

Want to see the full list and learn more about those leading Britain's biggest companies?

You can find the full list here: https://www.businessleader.co.uk/great-british-billion-pound-businesses/