The man who can't help making fortunes

WHY do some people display an unerring knack for making money while most do not? There appears no hard and fast rule.

True, many serial entrepreneurs haven't been to university. They're driven, energetic, restless types. You get the feeling that every moment of every day they're thinking of new ways of adding to their pile. They may profess to enjoy a round of golf or watching football but, even then, you suspect their minds are on business.

It seems to be in their water. They find spotting a potential profit as natural as learning to ride a bike. They can do it over and over again. Take Tony Reeves. He's made not one, not two, but at least three fortunes. He can't help it.

He's been running businesses and buying and selling them all his life, ever since he sold a disco on the Costa Brava. While his contemporaries are planning retirement, he's running hotgroup, the hugely successful Aim-listed online recruitment consultancy.

He's chairman and chief executive of the agency, which has made 11 acquisitions in recent years and intends to make more. In the past two years, annual revenue at the firm has grown trebled.

Figures out today show another quarter of strong growth. Profits are expected to double in the next year, to £6m. From what was effectively a standing start four years ago, the company is now worth around £50 million.

In itself this would be remarkable - there are very few dot coms in the black, let alone producing this sort of growth (and, by the way, Reeves is a very undotcom 64). But he's done it before.

He grew up on a Battersea council estate. Dad was a builder by trade who, in later years, went on to head Trollope & Colls. He passed the 11-plus and went to grammar school, then to engineering college in Brixton. 'I was only good at sports and maths so I was told to train as an engineer.'

Where chance intervened was that, instead of heading into the obscurity of working for a large firm, he decided to go freelance - 'I needed the money'. An employer asked him if he knew other freelancers and the idea of a temping recruitment consultancy for engineers and draughtsmen was born.

In 1973, he sold the firm, Acorn Engineering to Alfred Marks for what, in today's money, would have been £2.5m.

He joined the main board of Alfred Marks, then owned by the Marks family. When they sold to Adia, he became vice-president of the larger group. It was the late Seventies and Western companies were tapping a rich seam, supplying healthcare to the oil-rich Gulf states.

Reeves handled this side of things for Adia, supplying nurses and other workers to hospitals in the region. When Adia said it was no longer going to be involved in large hospital projects, Reeves asked to be allowed to buy the business out.

He got backing from Michael Sinclair (himself a doctor who went into recruitment and now runs - in his sixties, like Reeves - an Aim-listed dotcom, YooMedia) and they built a business, staffing hospitals and construction sites in the Middle East.

In 1986, they reversed their UK firm into a company listed on the US Stock Exchange. They changed its name to Lifetime and through a dizzying series of 80 purchases, and organic growth, pushed its turnover from $25m (£14m) to $1bn in seven years.

Along the way they set up Office Angels in the UK. They had a booming office temping business on this side of the Atlantic and healthcare on the other. Eventually, Reeves and Sinclair went their separate ways.

In 1993, Reeves sold Lifetime to Olsten for $660m. How much of that came his way? 'A fair chunk,' he says, smiling. 'We sold for a significant sum of money - but we were the market leader in the US.'

Most people would have stopped there and then. Reeves didn't. 'I was looking for something to do. If I play lots of golf then I can't have an excuse for my poor golf.' He was invited to join the board of computerpeople, a long-established but troubled recruitment agency for IT workers.

After one long board meeting, he emerged as chief executive. He changed the name to Delphi. It had sales of £90m and a share price of £1. In five years, he took the turnover to £350m and the shares to £5.65. Then he sold to Adecco and pocketed another few million.

Then his wife happened to play golf with someone who knew Harvey Sinclair, the founder of hotgroup, and the rest is apparent. In between all this, he's run six marathons to raise money (more than £2m so far) for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (his eldest son is diabetic).

He does claim to relax, either at home (he lives in Marc Bolan's old house in Sheen) or at Chelsea (he's a vice-president of the club) or on the golf course (he's a member of Royal Wimbledon and Royal Mid-Surrey). Somehow, you don't believe him. What about retirement?

'I tried it once, for two weeks, and it set my wife off. Listen, in turnover, by the end of this year we'll be even higher. It's one of the most exciting times to be in business.'

And then he's off, again, talking about more money-spinning ideas.

The life and times of Tony Reeves

Born: 1940

Education: Sir Walter St John's Grammar School, south London

First job: Freelance design draughtsman

Key career moves: Setting up freelance engineer and draughtsman agency; joining board of Alfred Marks; forming own healthcare recruitment business