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When the mighty fell our superstores showed how to take road to success
IT has been a momentous decade for Yorkshire's biggest companies.
It kicked off with Halifax muscling its way into the Big Five banks after a 28bn merger with Bank of Scotland and promises that it would undercut rivals and set a new standard in banking.
But it was an ignominious end for Yorkshire's biggest bank – a Government brokered bail-out by Lloyds earlier this year and multi-billion pound losses.
The Bank of Scotland merger, which looked like such a good deal at the beginning of the decade, proved to be Halifax's demise.
HBOS's downfall was mostly due to problems at Bank of Scotland – the Scottish bank had too much exposure to property and had lent too much money to too few people.
If there is one image that sums up the decade it is the widely used picture of HBOS chief executive Andy Hornby at the Lloyds merger press conference – looking like a man who has lost everything.
After the culling of over 15,000 jobs since Lloyds' merger with HBOS, workers at Halifax head into the New Year wondering where the axe will fall next.
It was an equally sorry tale at rival Bradford & Bingley. The former building society became a bank in December 2000 and set itself on a path to self-destruction by getting involved in risky self-certification and buy-to let mortgages.
The result? The bank was nationalised in late 2008 and is now being run down after the sale of its savings business to Spanish giant Santander.
But enough of the bad news. We end the decade with just one Yorkshire company left in the FTSE 100 – Bradford-based Morrisons.
In 2003 Morrisons won the epic battle to buy Safeway, but everything went down hill after that.
Numerous profit warnings followed but then the group made the decision to bring in little known Dutch marketer Marc Bolland and the group has had a glorious past three years – trouncing rivals and restoring a sense of confidence in Yorkshire's biggest company.
Yet Morrisons ends the year on a note of doubt. Bolland has been headhunted by Marks & Spencer and now the group is going through the process of trying to find a replacement. It will be a hard job to fill, but Morrisons is now on a steady footing and if it sticks to what it knows, it should continue to thrive.
At arch rival Asda, the decade has also been monumental.
In 1999 the group agreed to a takeover by American retail giant Wal-Mart. There were fears that Leeds-based Asda would lose its Northern roots, yet the group has managed to stay loyal to its principles.
The company that introduced the word "colleague" instead of "employee" has gone from strength to strength and not only in terms of profits.
It has managed to steer clear of the poor employee reputation of its parent company and regularly features in the UK's Top 10 Best Places to Work.
While Yorkshire's two biggest supermarkets have both outperformed their peers, it is a different tale at former arch-rivals Bradford-based Provident Financial and Batley-based Cattles.
While the former decided to stick to its knitting – door to door credit lending, Cattles is dying a slow and painful death.
The group fell prey to a growing tide of bad debts in 2009, which had been hidden for years.
A forensic examination of its books found bad debts had been deliberately obscured, making the company appear more profitable than it was. The entire executive team was sacked or has left, and regulators are now probing the company to determine where the accounting shambles started and why it was allowed to continue for so long. Current management believe the problems may go back earlier than 2002.
It's a very different story at Provident.
The company split in two in 2007 with the spin-out of the international business which became International Personal Finance – now Yorkshire's ninth biggest PLC.
Provident itself has continued to produce steady returns and is well set for further growth next year.
While there have been highs and lows, some Yorkshire companies have withstood the trials of the past ten years and all deserve their place in Yorkshire's top ten listed companies – step forward Persimmon, Croda, SIG, Premier Farnell, Pace and Cranswick
It hasn't been an easy ten years for any of them, but strong management teams and a clear focus mean that all six should still be thriving at the end of the next decade.
Yorkshire's top 10 listed companies
1. Morrisons
2. Drax
3. Persimmon
4. Provident Financial
5. Croda International
6. SIG
7. Premier Farnell
8. Pace
9. International Personal Finance
10. Cranswick
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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