Högström

Högström & Co Management AB has been appointed to the Gazelle Company title 2008 by Swedens leading business newspaper, Dagens Industri.

“We are very happy and proud to have been appointed as a Gazelle Company” says Mats Högström, founder of Högström & Co Management AB. “Since the start of the company in 2003 we have grown with more than 600% and with profit.”

The concept of Gazelle was created by the American researcher Dr. David L Birch. Already in the 1980s, he showed that it was the small, fast-growing businesses that create most new jobs, unlike the larger “elephant companies” which must always increase efficiency and often reduce employment.

Furthermore, the Gazelle differ from the smallest ”mousecompanies”, who works for the daily bread, and not primarily strive to grow.

Gazelle companies are therefore the Swedish industry’s dynamic middle layer. But the criteria are tough. Less than 1 percent of the Swedish stock companies manage the requirements for designation as Gazelle, shows research from the Stockholm School of Economics.

A Gazelle company has:

• Published at least four annual financial reports.
• A turnover for 2007 that is at least twice that of 2004. Turnover must have grown each year during the period.
• A single operating profit for the four years that is positive.
• A turnover exceeding 10 million Swedish Krona.
• At least ten employees.
• In essence, grown organically, not through acquisitions or mergers.
• Healthy finances.

The Gazelle award is a way to draw attention to and award entrepreneurs.

Gazelle companies are important for industry because they steal business from less efficient companies and force less good companies to become better. That drives up productivity in the whole country.

Most Gazelle companies are comparatively small. As they grow, they eventually buy less efficient competitors. Then, they contribute further to increase productivity by making these companies more efficient.

At the same time the fast growing Gazelle companies create many new jobs. During 2004-2007, which is the period under review in the 2008 Gazelle survey the number of employees in the Gazelle companies increased with over 29,000 people.

That is 13 per cent of the total employment growth in Sweden during the same period, although only just over 1 percent of the total employed in Sweden are working in Gazelle companies. Gazelle companies contribution to employment growth, relatively other companies is expected to grow in the future when the number of employed decreases during the present downturn in the economy.