Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The East of England Business Awards are one of the longest-running of their kind in the UK and unique in honouring business achievement right across Europe's most innovative region.

The Awards are sponsored by international law firm Eversheds, global trade facilitator UK Trade & Investment, ‘Bank of the Year’ Lloyds TSB Corporate, leading professional services firm Deloitte, Stansted Airport owner BAA and – new this year – Slough Estates International, the biggest developer of biotech space in California and owner of Cambridge Research Park.

AVEVA's success in beating off the stiffest competition the Awards has ever seen, to scoop both the Quoted Company of the Year award and the overall title, was recognised at a gala presentation evening at Queen's College, Cambridge yesterday evening.

The Awards have gained a reputation as being among the most rigorously judged in the country, with a panel that includes world-famous venture capitalist, Hermann Hauser, leading entrepreneurs such as former Virata CEO, Charles Cotton and the chairman of one of the country's largest privately owned companies, Michael Marshall of the Marshall Group.

AVEVA's double glory was based on a performance that saw its share price double during 2006, with revenue, profit and market growth for the year “all bearing the hallmarks of an exceptionally well-managed company,” according to Business Weekly managing director, Tony Quested.

Just today, City powerhouse, Altium Securities initiated coverage on AVEVA with a rating of ‘add,’ sending the company's shares northwards.

AVEVA Group is one of the world's foremost and fastest-growing engineering IT providers to the oil and gas, power, chemical, pharmaceutical and shipbuilding industries.

AVEVA was founded in 1967 and received another company of the year award at the PLC Awards in London earlier this month.

The last company to leave the presentation evening with two of the Awards' signature crystal obelisks was wireless giant Cambridge Silicon Radio in 2004.

Meanwhile, Plastic Logic, which in January this year raised $100m (£51.4m) – one of the largest financings in the history of European venture capital – was winner of the Innovation category.

The company is pioneering printable plastic electronic circuits, technology that potentially enables the ultra low-cost computerisation of everything from clothing to packaging.

Plastic Logic is currently working on its first product what it describes as the first ‘take anywhere, read anywhere’ electronic reader products.

As part of the push to market, it is having built the first factory to manufacture plastic electronics on a commercial scale – in Dresden.

Private Company of the Year was residential care home provider, Hallmark Healthcare from Billericay in Essex.

Hallmark Healthcare recently embarked on a £300m investment programme, which will increase the company’s bed capacity by 1,000 beds annually.

The target is that by 2010, the Hallmark group will operate 5,000 beds in around 80 care homes.

Hallmark Healthcare was founded by the Goyal brothers in 1997 with the opening of The Hollies Care Home in Pontypridd. Ten years later, the group operates 22 care homes across England and Wales.

Cambridge Consultants picked up the award for International Trade, recognising the truly global scope of its product development and innovation consultancy activities.

Cited as one of the architects of the Cambridge Company, “the company's impact is now as international as the technology cluster it helped to create,” Tony Quested said.

Cambridge Consultants is an expert in the application of innovation in the automotive, healthcare, wireless, consumer and semiconductor sectors working for some of the biggest corporations in the world, around the world.

Reinforcing this point, the company announced this week that it would be recruiting 16 new wireless engineers to meet demand for its services and also its participation in a Europe-wide consortium that aims to develop a next-generation, mass-market micro-CHP (Combined Heat and Power) system for domestic use.

Rounding out the list of this year's successes is the winner of the inaugural Corporate and Social Responsibility award, air conditioning company, the Adcock Group.

Adcock Group, headquartered in Cambridge but with 13 UK branches, is not only Britain’s leading independent air conditioning and refrigeration specialist but also a pioneer of advanced climate control techniques.

Judges were impressed by Adcock's continuing commitment to staff development, as evidenced by its recently announced £200k training academy.

The company's collaborative effort with the UK Government to reduce the leaks of harmful refrigerants into the atmosphere also gained special mention.

EAST OF ENGLAND BUSINESS AWARDS

Business of the Year Hall of Fame

1990 - Pi Group

1991 - Domino

1992 - Perkins Engines

1993 - Roxboro

1994 - Pi Group

1995 - Willett International

1996 - Electrocomponents

1997 - TTP

1998 - Waymade Healthcare

1999 - ARM

2000 - Virata

2001 - Ryanair

2002 - Acambis

2003 - CSR

2004 - CSR

2005 - Cambridge Antibody Technology