Steve Morgan

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.

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.

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.

Bettison is a controversial figure for his role in connection with the Hillsborough football disaster in 1989.

Wolves responded on its official Twitter account, "The story is that Sir Norman Bettison attended the Bradford City game in the same way he has attended many Wolves games in the past. Steve Morgan and Sir Norman Bettison have known each other for many years. Everyone connected with the club has the utmost sympathy and respect for the victims of Hillsborough and their families."

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.

Under his chairmanship, Redrow was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1994, ultimately becoming a FTSE 250 Company.

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.

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

In 2007, an opportunity arose to purchase Wolverhampton Wanderers, a club which he had previously regarded as his "second club".

Morgan agreed to buy the club from Sir Jack Hayward for a token fee of £10 on condition he invested £30 million in the club.

The takeover was formally completed on 9 August 2007 when Morgan became chairman.

On handover, Hayward stated that Morgan had "had a heart transplant from Liverpool to Wolverhampton".

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.

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.

In May 2009, Wolves were promoted, as champions, to the Premier League, but were relegated back to the Championship in May 2012 after three seasons.

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.

After suffering a second successive relegation in the 2012–13 season, Wolves played in League One in the 2013–14 season and finished as champions with a record 103 points, returning to the Championship.

In October 2013, he was criticised for inviting former Merseyside Chief Constable Norman Bettison as his guest in the directors' box at a Wolves away match.

In 2014 Morgan oversaw the opening of the club's multi-million pound Compton Park training complex.

In July 2016, Morgan sold Wolves to the Chinese company Fosun International for £30 million.

Morgan later revealed in an interview that he had turned down other offers but had accepted Fosun's bid because of the company's commitment to invest £100m into the club.

Morgan signed off with an open letter to Wolves fans in which he described his time owning the club as "an honour and a privilege that I will never forget".

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.