Three Buffalo-area companies have been included on a new national list of the nation’s 100 fastest-growing inner-city businesses.

AEP Books and Media, Allied Mechanical and Schutte- Buffalo Hammermill made the 2010 Inner 100 ranking of companies by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) and Bloomberg Business Week magazine.

AEP was ranked No. 31, Allied Mechanical came in 36th, and Schutte-Buffalo was 52nd. A Rochester firm, Panther Graphics, also made the list, at No. 73.

“We are delighted to celebrate businesses like the four winners from Buffalo and Rochester that are playing a critical role in revitalizing America’s urban communities,” said Mary Kay Leonard, the group’s president and CEO. “These extraordinary companies demonstrate the market possibilities that exist within our inner cities.”

The Inner 100 is designed to recognize successful inner-city firms and their CEOs as models of entrepreneurship, innovative business practices and job creation in urban areas, according to a news release by the group. In the past 12 years, the list has included 607 different companies that together generated more than $27.2 billion in revenues with nearly 72,000 jobs.

For 2010, the top 100 businesses employ 10,700, having created 6,300 new jobs from 2004 to 2008. Their average work force is 45 percent minority and 40 percent inner-city, while 34 percent of them are minority-owned and 18 percent are owned by women. And they operate in 58 cities and 34 states.

The firms grew at a compound annual rate of 37 percent and an average standard rate of 340 percent from 2003 to 2008. The average revenues of the winning firms were $6.6 million.

A record number of nominations were submitted this year. To qualify, winners must have at least 51 percent of operations located in an economically distressed urban area, employ at least 10 people full-time, and have a five-year operating sales history that includes at least $200,000 in revenues for the first year of consideration, at least $1 million in sales for the fifth year, and an increase in sales from the fourth year to the fifth year.