MANCHESTER, England — Millionaire businessman Steve Morgan CBE has said he wouldn’t be averse to investing further in the hospitality sector “if the right opportunity came up”.
Speaking to Joe Stather, market leader – operational real estate, Questex in a one-on-one keynote interview at the Annual Hotel Conference (AHC) taking place at the Manchester Central Convention Complex on 4 October, the owner of Carden Park in Cheshire as well as founder and former chairman of Redrow plc charted his career history and offered some words of wisdom to the hospitality investors, owners and operators in attendance.
Although he said he was not involved in the day-to-day business of the 197-bedroom Carden Park hotel, he lives on the estate and supports with building projects such as the £11-12 million spa that opened at the hotel two weeks before lockdown, as well as refurbishment projects undertaken during the quiet periods of the pandemic.
“You never get chance to do work in the kitchen – we repaired a roof, we brought new kitchen ranges in, we did the air conditioning, we built a brand-new lounge and did massive refurbishments while the hotel was quiet when it would be very difficult to do it normally,” he said.
“We spent millions of pounds during the pandemic and opened at a different level… part of my philosophy in life is when everybody’s retreating, go on the attack – and that’s what we did.”
The staff accommodation was also refurbished and although Morgan said he believed the hotel had “fared better than most” amid the current staffing challenges, he acknowledged it was a “massive problem… the single biggest problem the industry faces”.
He spoke of how resort director Hamish Ferguson has tried to create a working environment that is friendly and open, and like Redrow he said that bringing young people into the business and trying to give them career opportunities was a focus.
Morgan made his fortune as the founder of Redrow in 1974 aged 21, which initially specialising in drainage and sewer contracts, evolved into house building, and grew to become one of the UK’s leading home builders.
He got into the hotels business “by accident” as St David’s Park in Flintshire, which Redrow developed in the 1990s, had planning permission for a four-star hotel on top of housing and a business park. Following the recession in the 1980s, Morgan said that Holiday Inn pulled out of the project, so he and the team at Redrow “decided to develop it ourselves”.
De Vere Group bought St David's Hotels, which by then also included Carden Park, from Morgan’s Bridgemere Holdings for £32.7m in 2000, which saw Morgan join the board of De Vere as a non-executive director and become a shareholder. His career has also included being the owner of Wolverhampton Wanderers football club.
“At Redrow we never wanted to be the biggest, and we weren’t, but we always wanted to be the best. Same with Carden. I don’t feel like I want to grow the chain at all. I just want Carden to be the best and I take a great deal of pride in Carden,” said Morgan. “I enjoy doing something well.”