Founder of Zeus Capital will be keynote speaker at Yorkshire Fastest 50 awards

Richard Hughes, the founder of Manchester investment bank Zeus Capital, will be the guest speaker at the Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 Awards 2019.

He will deliver the keynote speech at this year’s event, which is organised by law firm Ward Hadaway and celebrates the achievements of Yorkshire’s fastest-growing companies.

As a prolific investor, Mr Hughes founded Zeus Capital, a boutique investment bank with offices in London and Manchester.

The Yorkshire Post and Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 awards 2018 held at Aspire in Leeds. Jonathan Simpson celebrates with colleagues Suzanne Latimer, Rachel Pease and Andrew Thirkill at Pure Retirement winners of the Fastest Growing Large Business and Overall winners. Picture Tony Johnson.

Zeus provides a full range of corporate finance advice, from fundraising to mergers and acquisitions, and is best known for floating around 30 per cent of all businesses on AIM each year - raising a total of £3.6 billion for clients over the last four years.

Mr Hughes has several significant business interests. He was the majority shareholder of Crawford Healthcare which he acquired for £700,000 nine years ago and which was reported in a national newspaper as being sold for more than £100m in 2018.

He was also a non-executive director and a founder of Boohoo.com through the first eight years of its phenomenal growth, leading up to the company’s IPO in 2014, which Zeus handled. Boohoo now has a market capitalisation of around £2.3 billion.

He will talk about the highs and lows of his career when he meets business leaders and representatives of Yorkshire’s fastest growing companies at the invitation-only Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 Awards 2019 at Aspire in Leeds on Friday, March 22.

16 March 2018 ....... The Yorkshire Post and Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 awards 2018 held at Aspire in Leeds. Picture Tony Johnson.

The awards highlight and celebrate the privately-owned, profit-making businesses in Yorkshire which have grown their turnover by the largest amounts in recent years.

Speaking about his forthcoming appearance, Mr Hughes said: “I’m delighted to have been invited to give the keynote speech at the Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 Awards for 2019, which celebrate the success of businesses across the region.

“Yorkshire is a vibrant region and its businesses have seen some considerable achievements over the years to help them become even stronger as a place to live and work.

“The Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 is an excellent way to highlight and celebrate the businesses which are flying the flag for Yorkshire by creating jobs, boosting prosperity and attracting investment into the region.”

The Fastest 50 is supported by Ward Hadaway and The Yorkshire Post

“I am really looking forward to attending the awards and finding out which companies are leading lights when it comes to their expansion plans.”

Partner at Ward Hadaway’s Leeds office, Philip Jordan, said: “We are thrilled that Richard has accepted our invitation to be a guest speaker at the Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 Awards for 2019.”

The Yorkshire Fastest 50 list is compiled using publicly available financial data from Companies House.

Through the independent analysis of company financial figures, the Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 identifies the privately-owned, profit-making companies which have seen the biggest annual expansion in their turnover in recent years.

The Yorkshire Fastest 50 has been run in partnership with The Yorkshire Post since the awards were established in 2011.

Greg Wright, The Yorkshire Post’s deputy business editor, will also speak at the awards.