Overall ranking: 19
Pub ranking: 5
Snapshot
Tim Martin is the founder of managed pub operator JD Wetherspoon, which has more than 650 outlets employing 15,370 staff.
After serving as executive chairman since 1983, Martin returned from a six-month sabbatical in April 2004 to become non-executive chairman, with John Hutson as his chief executive.
Career guide
Martin, who is 49 this year, was a 24-year-old law student when he bought his first pub in Muswell Hill, London, in December 1979. This was the beginning of JD Wetherspoon.
He floated the group on the London Stock Market in 1992 and opened the first Wetherlodge budget hotel in 1998. The following year, the group made its first foray into Ireland and in 2000, it bought ten Lloyds No 1 pubs from Wolverhampton & Dudley.
What we think
“He’s the Richard Branson of the sector, a consummate entrepreneur” was the verdict of one of the judges who selected Martin for the 2001 Caterer & Hotelkeeper Catey Pub Industry award. His “real-ale, no jukebox” approach is credited with revolutionising the face of pub retailing at a time when many operators were more focused on brewing than on pubs.
Wetherspoon's success has been founded upon a simple but consistent offering – low prices, no music or TV, large no-smoking zones, and facilities for the disabled.
Standards are maintained via an internal system called CBSM (cleanliness, beer, service and maintenance) which involves head office staff making at least five unannounced visits to each pub every month.
Since 1998, veteran food critic Egon Ronay has been helping Wetherspoon to improve the quality of its food, which now accounts for 40% of turnover.
The 70-strong Lloyds No 1 chain is an alternative brand offering music and dance floors in city centre sites. The development of 11 Wetherlodges with 315 bedrooms has also made the group a minor player in the budget hotel sector and, in 2002, Martin took on the coffee shop sector by opening Wetherspoon pubs at 10am to sell coffee and breakfasts.
The group is seen as a good place to work. Martin actively seeks feedback from shop-floor staff and all employees are regarded as potential managers (in 1999, one in five managers had started as bar staff or cleaners). Wetherspoon was the first pub company to introduce a 48-hour week in 1995, ahead of legislation and at the cost of £2m in profits.
Between 2000 and 2004, group turnover has grown from £369.6m to £786m, while pre-tax profits have risen from £36m to £54m.
However, the City’s love affair with the group has cooled recently in the wake of Martin’s new backseat role and lacklustre interim results in which pre-tax profits slumped from £20.7m to £14.3m.
Faced with stiff competition from high street rivals and from supermarkets along with rising labour and utility costs, Wetherspoon has slashed its new openings schedule from 50 pubs a year to just 15 in 2005. A series of share buy-backs have also prompted rumours of a management buy-out (which the group denies).
Nevertheless, Wetherspoon emerged as the third most respected hospitality firm after Greene King and Compass late last year, when it was ranked 21st in the pan-industry top 220 in the peer-reviewed Britain’s Most Admired Companies 2004 report.