Chris Morris leaves Computershare board to concentrate on pub and tourism empire

Having founded the share registry firm in 1978, Morris helped build Computershare into a $10bn business- which allowed him to buy a string of pubs, luxury islands and even a casino

Chris Morris says it has been ‘an exciting journey and it has been great being part of an Australian global success story’. Picture: AAP

Chris Morris has gone from failing every subject at school except for mathematics to building one of Australia’s pioneering and most successful IT companies.

And accidentally making one purchase that led to him becoming one of the nation’s biggest pub owners.

The Computershare founder stepped down from the board of the share registry services company he started in 1978 on Wednesday, though he insists he will stay as a major shareholder as the business keeps up its global growth.

Mr Morris will instead concentrate on his collection of pubs, ­hotels and craft beer assets dotted around Australia, as well as tourism holdings in north Queensland that range from a casino in Townsville to island resorts.

Long one of Australia’s more colourful business identities, Mr Morris said he was “very proud of what the business had achieved”, given it had grown from when he started working at the first computer bureau in Melbourne ­keeping bondholder and shareholder records to what is now a $10bn business on the ASX.

“It might not be like Afterpay or Atlassian these days, but we built an IT business that has 18,000 people around the world, and is about to add another 3000 with the acquisition of the Wells Fargo (Corporate Trust Services) business in the US,” he said.

“Little did I know all those years ago that the business I co-founded would go on to be the global success it is today. It’s been an exciting journey and it has been great being part of an Australian global success story.”

Mr Morris, 73, ranked 133rd on The List – Australia’s Richest 250 with an estimated wealth of $866m when this year’s edition was published by The Australian in late March.

He still owns almost 6 per cent of Computershare, which he listed on the ASX in 1994, and hospitality outlets ranging from the Portsea Hotel on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula to Perth’s Raffles Hotel

Mr Morris joked that “pubs are just about the worst industry to be in at the moment” given lockdowns in several states, but noted that with the AFL grand final being played in Perth this year he was once again happy to have ­establishments in the west.

It was there, in 2008, that he first got into that sector via the listed Empire Beer Group that owned the Colonial Brewing Co in Margaret River and Perth’s Royal Hotel.

Computershare’s Perth office had handled the Empire float, but it lost $7m in its first year. Mr Morris ended up buying the assets and using the shell company for a carparking business called Smart Parking.

He would later acquire another 10 pubs via the Cornerstone group that went broke, and has been accumulating pubs and ­hotels ever since – often funded by selling parcels of Computershare shares.

His private Morris Group also owns the luxury Orpheus Island resort south of Hinchinbrook Island, the Daintree Eco Lodge, the Nautilus Aviation helicopter business in the state’s north and even a superyacht.

All of which is a far cry from when Mr Morris, who now spends much of his time in Queensland, started in business in Victoria. Having failed every subject bar maths at school, his mother enrolled him in a three-month computer course at Taylors College in Melbourne – the first of its type in Australia.

That led to the computer ­bureau job where he was assigned to the share registry system. He and then business partner Ken Milner would later form Computershare in 1978 to service Australian share registers. The business would later expand to New Zealand, then the UK and later the US via a string of successful acquisitions. It had floated on the ASX with a market capitalisation of $36m in 1994.

Mr Morris would remain chief executive until 2006 and was later executive chairman before taking a non-executive role.

He retires as a director at Computershare’s annual meeting on November 11.

“It’s time to give other people a go,” he said. “But I’ve got no intention of selling out. And I’ve got total confidence in (CEO) Stuart (Irving) and there’s a lot of people there who I know and came up with me, and have managed to maintain that culture that has been so precious to me.”