Founders Simon Bragg, Adrian McMillan, Mark Young and Brendan Wilders are enthusiastic advocates of employee ownership, and are keen to emphasise that the stockbroking firm they founded in 2002 is majority-owned by its staff. Some 50% of Oriel’s sales come from advising companies on mergers, acquisitions and stock-market flotations. The other half comes mainly from providing advice and brokerage services to 250 institutional investors, including Standard Life and M&G. Sales have grown 88% a year from £2.8m in 2003 to £18.8m in 2006.