Global leading oilfield services company Reservoir Group has been ranked in the top 10 of the Sunday Times 100 buyout track. The Group, which specialises in the downhole drilling, completion and production sectors, has leapt to number 8 from its ranking of 44th position in last year’s league table.

Aberdeen-headquartered Reservoir Group is one of just six Scottish companies which have triumphed on the league table of Britain’s fast-growing private equity-backed stars.

The annual league table illustrates Reservoir Group’s excellent contribution to the local economy in its latest two years of available accounts, and against the backdrop of the economic downturn. In total, the Scottish companies have created 1,200 jobs and employ 3,300 people. Profits have grown an average of 65% a year to combined profits of £124.7million.

Key to Reservoir Group’s success has been its organic growth and strategy of acquiring niche, independent market-leading companies including Corpro, Kirk Petrophysics, Storecore, Dowdco, Extreme, InfoAsset and Omega Data Services.

Pioneering technologies being developed across The Reservoir Group have seen it rapidly emerge as a global leader in providing integrated solutions for the oil and gas industry’s downhole drilling, completion and production sectors.

Group finance director Rick Clark said: “This is another tremendous achievement for Reservoir Group and its staff, and it demonstrates the success of our customer-focused business strategy.

“As we continue to grow, we have evolved the technologies that we have acquired and enhanced their distribution. We are now increasingly benefiting from synergies within the Group because of the complementary aspects of the companies that we have purchased.

“The level of expertise within the business and our service oriented approach is allowing us to engineer new specialised products and services, some of which are already being successfully implemented on projects globally with several others in the pipeline.”

Reservoir Group makes its third appearance on the Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100. The company, which is backed by Houston-based private equity firm SCF Partners, bought five businesses in Australia, America and Britain in 2008, effectively doubling the size of the Group.

James Baird, partner for Scotland at Deloitte, title sponsor of the league table, said: “The results show that private equity-backed businesses in Scotland are achieving strong profit growth through performance improvement measures and refreshed strategies. Private Equity investors continue to play an important role in developing businesses and as the economy improves, I expect to see increasing deal activity, particularly in the oil and gas, and service sectors.”