14 Jun 2024
Words John Miller Informer

The Unlikely Billionaire

If wealth is the measure of a man, then Chris Morris has more than $1 billion in his ledger to gauge it.

But riches are a poor measure. Money doesn’t define Morris, nor has it ever been his motivation. So, what is? An entrepreneurial spirit, an eye for an opportunity, sound business instincts, a high risk tolerance, recruiting the right people, family, learning from mistakes, a belief in the possible, keeping it simple and a straight-talking frankness that is refreshingly out of place in today’s word-watching, hyper-politically correct culture — all are characteristics of Morris that have contributed to his phenomenal business success. But Morris Group’s eponymous founder says his success would have been unlikely without his signature quality: an endless enthusiasm for everything he does.

“Passion. That’s it. If you’re not interested in it, don’t do it,” he says. “Don’t expect to make money. Don’t think about money. Think about doing something you really want to do. If you do that, you’ll be successful. Well, hopefully you will. I wouldn’t advise anyone go into pubs.”

He delivers the last line with a wry laugh. Morris estimates he’s lost $40 to $50 millions on pub investments over the decades.

But those losses pale against the hundreds of millions he has made, initially with Computershare, and, since 2011, in luxury accommodation in North Queensland. First was Orpheus Island Lodge, then The Ville Resort-Casino in Townsville and Mt. Mulligan Lodge, an outback retreat southwest of Port Douglas. Recently, Morris Group has added two luxury offerings to its portfolio: Pelorus Private Island and Ardo, Townsville’s first five-star resort, which opened prior to Christmas. The name Ardo hints to Morris’ prime motivation, deriving from ardour, meaning great enthusiasm.

Talking to Morris about his career, it’s clear he had no grand plan to conquer the world. Did the business cases stack up before he made any of his ventures? “Never,” he replies with characteristic bluntness. So it was with Ardo.

Many told him a luxury resort wouldn’t fly in Townsville, a city nowhere near as touristy as Cairns, its North Queensland rival. “But you don’t know until you try,” says Morris. When he bought The Ville in 2014, he described it as “the worst performing casino in Australia.” Now, it’s one of the best investments he’s ever made, one that helped bankroll Ardo, almost a decade later.

Instead of a grand vision, Morris’ success is a result of him doing nothing more than following his interests and having the inherent nous to make a go of things.

“When I was young, I never thought about being successful,” he says. “I just loved doing what I was doing and always did. I always knew I would run my own business. I’ve always been a little bit entrepreneurial. I started working in orchards at 10 and my first business was growing tomatoes when I was about 17. But really, it’s passion. I was passionate about Computershare. I’m passionate about what I do now.”

Morris made the big time with Computershare. He was well ahead of the curve, seeing the potential of computers much earlier than others. He started Computershare in 1978 in his hometown of Melbourne prior to the personal computer revolution taking off in the 1980s. Computershare was a tech start-up, long before the term gained currency in the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, early 2000s.

Computershare initially provided computer services to businesses before it became a share registry. In 1994, it listed on the ASX (quintessentially with the code CPU) with a market cap of $36 million. Today, Computershare has a market cap of over $16 billion and is a global player, active in 28 countries with 18,000 employees, providing financial services for companies to manage their shareholder engagement.

“Computershare is the best investment I ever made,” says Morris. “It’s the proudest thing in my whole life because I started it. Now, we have more shares and assets under management than any other business in the world. We do 20 of the top US companies. Because we have a banking licence in every country, we can handle global deals. None of our competitors can do that. It’s quite phenomenal.”

Morris’ introduction to computing was also not part of any visionary life plan. He has his mother to thank for it. Worried her teenage son wouldn’t find employment, Morris’ mother enrolled him in Australia’s first ever computer course in 1966.

“I could never sit down to study or anything. But computers really clicked with me,” he says. “I loved programming. It got me up in the morning.”

Morris’ passions still make him an eager riser. “I wake up at 5 o’clock every morning and get the results of what happened last night at the casino,” he says. “Whether I won $100,000 or lost $100,000.” Morris bandies around vast sums of money like they are small change, but nonchalance is understandable when money isn’t your motivation.

All of Morris’ business interests in North Queensland can be traced back to a single advertisement in the Australian Financial Review. Reading the paper one morning in 2011, he saw an ad for Orpheus Island, one of the Palm Islands off the coast north of Townsville, and bought it on a whim.

“I’d always wanted an island for some silly reason,” he says. Morris purchased Orpheus for $6.25 million and turned it into arguably the best luxury island resort in Australia, albeit an elite one with only 14 lodgings at a minimum cost of $1,925 a night.

It proved such a hit that Morris decided to replicate the success with a second island retreat directly north of Orpheus, Pelorus Private Island. Opened earlier this year, Pelorus is even more exclusive than Orpheus with only five lodgings and bookings limited to a single group starting from $20,000 a night.

So many of Morris’ business decisions are instinctual, not given to overthought, and often comprise a chain of events, one thing that leads to another then another then another. He needed to supply Orpheus, so he bought a fleet of helicopters, Nautilus Aviation, for the airlift from Townsville, 30 minutes’ flight away. Now, he has over 40 of them operating from seven bases across Northern Australia.

Morris needed a place in Townsville to lodge his guests in transit to Orpheus as well as his helicopter crew, so when The Ville came up for sale, he bought it because “I’d always loved casinos,” he says matter-of-factly.

What convinced him Townsville was ready for a five-star resort? Another gut feeling. “If it wasn’t next to a casino and I didn’t own the casino, I wouldn’t have done it,” he says. If Cairns had been his base, Morris says he probably would have bought The Reef Hotel Casino.

How much room does he think there is at the premium end of Townsville’s accommodation market for more hotels of Ardo’s calibre? “None, I hope, other than the one I plan to build next,” he says.

I ask how Morris Group’s guest marketing differentiates Ardo from The Ville. Again, another Morris’ lesson in not overthinking.

“We probably spent too much money worrying about that sort of thing,” he says. “One is a casino. The other is a luxury hotel next to a casino.”

“It’s a lot to do with restaurants too. We definitely have the best restaurants in Townsville. We put in a steak-and seafood restaurant, Marmor. There wasn’t a Japanese restaurant in all of Townsville. There is now. [Terasu.] Many told me, ‘Look, no one will ever come to these places up here.’ But people are loving it.”

Ardo, like Morris, is minimal fuss. Its streamlined exterior is sleek, fresh and modern with echoes of Art Deco. For the design, Morris brought in his long-time associate, David Dubois of Dubois, after firing two architects who told him what he wanted for Ardo was impossible. Dubois had worked as a design consultant on Morris’ personal residences, as well as refurbishments of Orpheus and Mt. Mulligan. His brief from Morris was simple.

“My only instruction was that Ardo’s shape should take advantage of the views, plus I wanted a top-floor bar, swimming pool and restaurant,” he says. “I’ve been to a lot of hotels in the world and there’s nothing with a view like Ardo where you’ve got 360 degrees, no other building looking at you. Also, it’s beautiful weather up there, so people want to sit outside, which is why Ardo has big balconies. David has done a brilliant job.”

Creating outdoor spaces was key to Morris’ reinvention of The Ville too. The casino was failing when he took it over, partly because it lacked any al fresco venues to enjoy a drink or meal. So, he created an expansive one on the water, naming it Quarterdeck after the old buoy at the marina. Now, it’s a Townsville institution and has played a major part in reviving the casino’s fortunes.

Morris says Townsville people are now proud to say they live there, and that he’s happy to have given them something to be proud of with The Ville and now Ardo.

Morris has a thing for water. “Anything with a water view,” he says. “I’ve got a number of places around the world. From all of them I can see the water. Water has a soothing aspect for me.”

Morris and his wife now mostly reside on the Gold Coast, having relocated from Melbourne during Covid. They also have a place in Cannes, which they use as a base for “wandering around the Mediterranean” in a boat. The Med, Morris says, is the opposite of North Queensland waters. Many boats and no fish, compared to North Queensland’s lack of boats and many fish.

Morris’ current passion is trying to develop a superyacht marina for Townsville.

“There are so many boats in the Mediterranean, you can’t get a mooring,” he says. “You have to pay to go onto a beach. That’s the beautiful thing about Australia, you can go anywhere and don’t need to pay. We just need more places where yachts can pull in.”

There will be some who tell Morris his marina is impossible. But like so many of his business ventures, Morris is likely to rebuff the naysayers.

That is another contributing factor to his remarkable success: his willingness to seize the gauntlet to prove people wrong by turning the unlikely into the likely by following his own lights and passions.

“My dad was a dentist,” says Morris. “When I was studying computing, he told me, ‘Son, it’s really good you’re doing that, but you have to understand you’ll never make as much money as me.’ That was very motivating for me at a young age. I said, ‘I’ll prove to you that I can.’” END