AN ALTRINCHAM firm has been listed in a league table of Britain's biggest private companies.

Recruitment specialist NES Global Talent is one of 10 North West companies to make it onto the 15th annual Sunday times HSBC top Track 100 league table, which ranks Britain's companies with the biggest sales.

Established in 1978, the Trafford company recruits to the oil and gas, power, construction and infrastructure, life sciences, manufacturing and IT sectors worldwide.

It operates from 45 offices in 28 countries. Despite the downturn in the oil and gas industry, the engineering recruitment consultancy increased its sales by four per cent to £648m to rank at number 97.

It made a profit of £35 million and has a staff of more than 600.

The highest-ranked company in the region is Warrington-based European Metal Recycling at number 13 with sales of £2.5bn. It has invested in new technologies to recover more from scrap cars, recycling the plastics and using the remaining rubber and foam to generate electricity a year at its energy-from-waste plant.

Dan Howlett, head of corporate banking in the UK at HSBC, said: “At a time of unprecedented uncertainty, we can take real comfort from the dynamic private companies across the UK as recognised by the Top Track 100 league table.

"Firms such as these are fundamental in helping to get Britain back to business during this post-Brexit period of uncertainty and the inevitable challenges ahead. "These businesses are ambitious, agile and passionate about what they do and will play an important part in helping to drive the British economy forward, domestically and internationally."