44. CAE - £49.9m

Many VARs on this list sacrificed profit at the altar of revenue growth last year, willingly or otherwise. But this Watford-based reseller was surely the only one to make it clear in its directors’ report that the move was a calculated one. Sales for the year soared 17.6 per cent, but operating profit declined marginally to about £2m. Gross margins also dipped from 23.5 per cent to 22.8 per cent, and the report attributed the decline partly to pressure on product and service pricing. But also cited was “a large, highly innovative digital media project, which continues to give a wonderful demonstration of the organisation’s capability, but was delivered at no margin, in order to secure the relationship”.