Five companies in Wales, including one based in Newport, have been named as some of Britain’s fastest-growing private companies.

The 21st annual Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 league table ranks Britain’s private companies with the fastest-growing sales.

It lists five companies headquartered in Wales, compared to three last year, which include three new entrants to the league table. Their sales have grown by an average of 115 per cent a year over three years to a total of £113m, and together they employ 560 people.

The country’s top-ranked company is Caerphilly-based Aerfin, which ranks in the top three nationally. This company has spent more than £100m buying aircraft, engines and spares worldwide, which it recycles and sells or leases. Sales have grown 231 per cent a year over three years to £60.9m in 2016, and it recently secured a seven-year contract to provide component support for 20 British Airways’ jets.

Taxi group Veezu also makes its debut and is ranked fourth in Wales after sales rose an average of 157 per cent a year to £20.3m in 2016. In September this year, the Newport-based company bought taxi firm V Cars, its seventh acquisition.

Other Welsh companies on the list include new entrants include Zip World, which runs three activity centres in Wales visited by 4,000 people a day. It says its zip wire is the fastest in the world, and the longest in Europe. Sales reached £7.2m in 2016, and in 2018 it will start work on an adventure hotel near Snowdonia.

The companies in Wales appear with businesses from around Britain, including restaurant chains Five Guys and Leon, fashion retailer Missguided, and brewer BrewDog, which was valued at £1bn in April. Past stars include mixer drinks maker Fever-Tree, which floated in 2014 and is now worth £2.3bn, and innocent drinks, which sold a majority stake to Coca-Cola in 2013, valuing the company at £440m.

The Fast Track 100 is sponsored by Virgin, Barclays, BDO, BGF and Virgin Media Business, and is compiled by Fast Track, the Oxford-based research and networking events firm.