Stephen Peter Morgan (born 25 November 1952) is an English businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is the founder and former chairman of the housebuilders Redrow plc, a former chairman of Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C., and founder of the charitable Steve Morgan Foundation.
Early life
Morgan was born in Garston, Liverpool, on 25 November 1952. The son of a plant hire operator, he came from a poor background with what he, in November 2021, called a “tough upbringing”, telling The High Performance Podcast that it was only at the age of seven that he knew what an inside toilet was. He moved home nine times during his childhood and consequently changed school nine times. His parents moved to Colwyn Bay when he was 13, and he was educated at Colwyn High School and Liverpool Polytechnic (now Liverpool John Moores University), where he completed a two-year diploma course.
Redrow
Morgan entered the business world, aged 21, during the 1974 recession. His then employers, Wellington Civil Engineering, were on the verge of going out of business. Wellington was offered a new job laying sewers in Penley and Morgan offered to take it over. After Margaret Thatcher’s reduction in public spending put an end to this work, he went on to develop this company into the housebuilder Redrow plc. Under his chairmanship, Redrow was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1994, ultimately becoming a FTSE 250 Company.
The 1990s saw Morgan also invest in hotels, developing St David's Park Hotel in North Wales and Carden Park in Cheshire, eventually merging his interests into the De Vere Group.
In November 2000, after 26 years, Morgan stepped down as Redrow chairman, although his company, Bridgemere, remained one of its largest shareholders. In 2001 Morgan founded Brownfield specialist company Harrow Estates plc.
In March 2009, Morgan was urged to return by Martin Hughes, the Chief Executive of Redrow’s biggest investor Toscafund, after shares dropped to less than 100p and he rejoined the board as chairman after having rebuilt his stake in the company to 29.9% in order to address the significant losses suffered by Redrow during the financial crisis. By 2010, the situation had improved markedly with the housebuilder reporting a pre-tax profit of £700,000 (compared to a £44.2m loss in 2009). In a 2012 interview with the BBC's economics correspondent, Sarah Dickens, Morgan discussed his reasons for returning to Redrow, which by the time of the interview, had turned the inherited £140 million loss into a £43 million pre-tax profit.
After returning to Redrow, Morgan refocused the company's building projects on providing family homes by launching the New Heritage collection.
In September 2017, it was announced that Morgan would "ease back" to a non-executive chairman role with Redrow. In that year the company announced that pre-tax profits for the year to 30 June jumped 26% to £315 million, with revenues up 20% at £1.66 billion. Operating profit rose again in 2018 to £382 million. On 18 October 2018 Redrow announced its 100,000th customer since Morgan founded the business.
In March 2019, 10 years to the day that Morgan returned, he retired from Redrow. When he left the company, its annual revenue had increased to more than seven times its 2009 figure to £2.1 billion,profits were £406 million and it was valued at £2.2 billion.
Wolverhampton Wanderers and other football investments
A shareholder and lifelong supporter of Liverpool football club, Morgan attempted several times to buy the club, most notably in 2004 when he made an offer to obtain a controlling share of 51% in return for a cash injection of £73 million. This was rejected, reportedly because it valued the club at £61 million, which the board felt was too low. In an interview in 2021 Morgan disputed the figure stating he had in fact valued the club at £140 million