Haymarket 50 Years: To you from us

editorial quality, visual standards or production values of our own
magazines or the range of services in exhibitions, events and
directories that we offer.

We produce magazines for other companies to the standard of our own. We
work all over the world and the same standards remain central. A quarter
of our turnover comes from our overseas subsidiaries and a fifth of our
profits. The web is contributing a higher share of the company's profits
from sites we own or design and manage for others.

Change is all around but the central premise on which the company was
founded 50 years ago hasn't changed at all: produce the highest quality;
employ the most talented people.

Today there are nearly 2,500 of us directly employed all over the world
and we've listed everyone by name on the inside back cover. But it was
not always that way and perhaps a brief moment of nostalgia is permitted
at this moment. In 1957, 50 years ago, there were just three of us. My
then partner and former Oxford friend, the late Clive Labovitch, and our
secretary. We lived in a permanent state of excitement and
determination. Clive had recruited Lindsay Masters and Simon Tindall as
salesmen. They were to become outstanding executives.

Looking back over the life of the company, they carried the business
during my long absences in politics. More than anyone else, as chairman
and managing director, they gave the company the look and feel upon
which its reputation rests today. It took David Fraser, who joined us in
1968, to bring our accounting standards into the 20th century. They
built an admired and innovative publishing business that helped to
change the face of British publishing.

The company has been built on the talent of numerous people. I hope that
they, and our clients, will realise the sense of gratitude and pride I
feel as I look back on Haymarket's evolution, from the smallest
beginnings to that of a large, small company and now to its present
international status as a small, large company.

There is still a long journey ahead, but today our position in many
markets and across multiple media platforms allows us to consider the
next 50 years with genuine excitement.