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Press Release

BGL Group wins regional Business of the Year Award 2007

Immediate release: 19 November 2007

BGL Group wins regional Business of the Year Award 2007

The BGL Group, one of the UK's largest personal lines insurance intermediaries has won the Peterborough Large Business of the Year Award 2007 in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph Business Awards.

The prestigious 11th annual Business Awards were held at The Holiday Inn Hotel, Peterborough, on Friday (November 9).

Deputy Group Chief Executive Ian Leech was presented with the coveted trophy at the glittering awards ceremony hosted by television newsreader Mary Nightingale.

More than 200 of the city's top business leaders attended the black tie event which marked the culmination of months of intensive analysis by a team of judges who finally whittled down the applicants to three finalists in each of the nine categories.

The BGL Group was up against travel industry giant the Thomas Cook Group, whose headquarters are based in Peterborough, and Royal Haskoning, an international firm of consulting engineers and environmental scientists.

Chairman of the Judging Panel Nigel Hards said: "The judges felt that the quality of this year's applications showed what strength and depth Greater Peterborough has in the large corporate sector. With industry leading brands both in the finalists and with the companies that didn't make the top three."

"The quality has been extremely high this year so we had some very difficult decisions to make. BGL Group is a major employer in the area and has delivered a pre-tax profit of £43 million, up 93 per cent on the previous year and has some very exciting and ambitious plans ahead for the next 12 months. It was a very deserving winner of this prestigious accolade."

Deputy Group Chief Executive Ian Leech said: "It is a great honour for the BGL Group to be recognised in the Peterborough Business Awards. The dedication and support of the excellent people within our business, and our entrepreneurial culture which allows us to react quickly to changes in the market, have contributed to our success.

"As one of the UK's leading insurance intermediaries we are both flexible and innovative, ready to launch new products and take advantage of new trends. Winning this award is the icing on the cake in a year in which we have marked a decade since changing our strategy from being an insurance underwriter to a broker."

"Peterborough is home to the headquarters of the BGL Group and our Fusion contact centre. As a Group we have created 1,000 new jobs since 2004 bringing our total workforce to 2,250. We are extremely committed to the region and are currently recruiting for in excess of 100 vacancies - more than 70 per cent of which have been created through investment and expansion rather than attrition."

The BGL Group is now among the largest IT employers in Peterborough - earlier this year its existing 170-strong workforce relocated to dedicated new premises at Park House, Peterborough, to cope with the continued growth of the business.