Is this a career-defining moment? Rupert Cornford meets the man at the helm of internet success Laterooms.com.
Laterooms.com is bursting at the seams. The business, founded by brothers Tony, Paul and Steve Walsh in 1999, employs 300 people at the Salford site alone, and expansion just keeps on coming. “We are on the way out,” says managing director Chris Morris from behind his cluttered desk. “We could do with being out today, but we’re are in talks to negotiate a move.”
The story of Laterooms.com is a welcome distraction at a time when businesses are pushing to break even or falling by the wayside. By selling vacant hotel rooms via the internet the business reached the £4m-turnover mark, which prompted interest from private equity in 2004. A £25m buyout by ECI made the headlines, but the subsequent sale to First Choice in 2006 made even more. The business was bought for £108m and is now under German ownership after the merger of First Choice and Thomson owner and plc TUI Travel in 2007.
Morris has been a key player in this journey. “When I joined in December 2004 we were all in this building,” he recalls, looking out over the four other units occupied by Laterooms at the Deva Centre in Salford. “I was probably the only person to join from anywhere else. Everyone was either a graduate or leaving school to find their first job. There was an awful lot of enthusiasm but also an innocence about people.”
Morris had worked for blue-chip organisations such as Wedgwood and Airtours and was brought in to develop the structure in what he calls a “very entrepreneurial” business. He has a casual demeanour, but with a background in professional services, he brings order to the table.
“Coming here was a big change,” he says. “I joined as finance director, with Chris Allen as managing director and Tony Walsh as development director. But we were really just three general directors taking the business forward. You would get involved in hotel recruitment, taking the bins out, PR – from a personal development point of view it was great.
“In terms of roles, investment, structure and experience, it’s completely different now. We are ten times the size we were in 2004 but it's still a youthful, fast-growing business – so we’ve kept the good bits.”
A combination of entrepreneurial zeal and structure has enabled the business to work with different investors, but Morris believes the name on the share certificate makes little difference to daily operations.
“PLC has been good to us because they don’t interfere or tell us how to run our business. They are tour operators so we are not part of their core business, and we have managed to retain that independent feel. It was a growth story and they backed us financially in what we wanted to do.”
The company has expanded by 50 per cent year-on-year. Turnover was £24m in 2008, against profits of £9.2m. In a market Morris estimates is growing by 10 to 15 per cent a year, “we are getting things right”, he says.
While the UK market for last-minute hotel rooms shows no signs of slowing, the company’s latest foray has been in the international arena. Being part of a plc means that long-term investment opportunities can be entertained. After opening offices on continental Europe to tap into the Spanish market in the first instance, a play for new business in South East Asia is taking place. TUI bought Asiarooms.com in September 2007, which is being run by the team at Laterooms using the same model – hotels sell rooms via the site and the company takes a commission.
For Morris, the next few years are clearly marked out. “It’s a work in progress at the moment,” he says. Laterooms is big in the UK but still working in a small space in Europe. We’ve got some good footprints, but it’s still some way behind. For Asiarooms.com, we only took on the model in September 2009, so it will be five years before we get that to the same level as the Laterooms brand.
“Until that’s done, it will feel like unfinished business for me. At that point I may want to stay for another 20 years, I don’t know. I can’t see myself moving for five years because there is just too much to do. I’m 37. I would hate to think that this is my one big thing, but it’s a big thing and will be for a number of years. I don’t know what I’ll be doing when I'm 47 or 57. I never look that far.”
For a professional immersed in an entrepreneurial environment, what does it take to make the switch? “I’m not a proper entrepreneur, but I understand how to run an entrepreneurial business,” says Morris. “I’m not the kind of person who would come up with a concept from nothing, but given a growing business I think I understand how to work with entrepreneurs.”
On the outside, Laterooms is a far cry from the days when the Walsh brothers and Allen made a name for the brand through the dot-com boom, but the entrepreneurial ethos is still very much alive. Morris might not claim to be an entrepreneur but he knows how to play the game.
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