Lawrence Tomlinson

Early life

Tomlinson grew up in Batley, where he attended grammar school before going on to study engineering at Huddersfield College at age 15. Early on in his studies, engineering company, Wellman Bibby, spotted his skills and sponsored his engineering degree at Bradford University. He was head hunted by Holset Engineering for their Graduate Trainee Programme in 1987.

Throughout most of his youth, his father was a haulage driver and his mother worked at Fox’s Biscuits. When he was in his teens his parents started a care home. Tomlinson was involved from the start, writing software on an Amstrad 8256 to aid them with the management of the care home. After completing his studies, and whilst still in training at Holset Engineering, Tomlinson bought the care home from his parents in 1988. This was the start of Tricare.

Career

Tomlinson initially started with a single care home in 1988, which has since grown into the LNT Group and employs over 1,000 people across five core businesses:

The LNT Group was ranked 28th in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 Companies in 2010.

Tomlinson was the Institute of Directors’ Overall Director of the Year 2013 and advised Government on business issues as the Serial Entrepreneur in Residence in the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills in 2013-14.

Biography

Tomlinson started in business importing ski boats and classic cars into the UK. Borrowing £526k from his local bank in 1988, he bought out his parents care home company and, spotting a gap in the market for bespoke purpose built care homes, he went on to design, build and operate new facilities, establishing LNT Construction in 1991. LNT Construction has built 20-25% of all the new elderly care homes in the UK, operating under a vertically integrated model since 2008, when Tomlinson purchased their main subcontractors for cash.

From there, he launched further businesses including LNT Software, which develops and sells bespoke software for the care home industry. LNT Software’s care home management programme, CoolCare has been installed in over 1,000 care homes across the country.

A further addition to the LNT Group was LNT Solutions, a chemical company that Tomlinson bought from his motor-racing instructor in the pub following a track day. The business initially produced domestic products which, whilst demonstrating good technology, were not best suited to business-consumer sales. LNT Solutions supplies Network Rail with a chemical that stops trains slipping on the leaves, de-ices the third rail and supplies runway and aeroplane wing de-icer to airports across North America and Northern Europe.

In 2005 Tomlinson acquired Ginetta, which has been continuously building race cars since 1958. Since its purchase by LNT, Ginetta has grown to become one of the most significant players on the global motorsport scene. Tomlinson has himself raced at Le Mans winning the GT2 class at the 24 hours of Le Mans in 2006. Tomlinson’s contribution to engineering has been recognised by three Honorary Doctorates from the University of Huddersfield, the University of Bradford and Leeds Metropolitan University.

Tomlinson sold Orchard Care Homes (originally Tricare) in 2007 for £175m. Since the sale, he has set up the Ideal Carehomes operation. He re-entered the care sector in 2009 when he set up Ideal Care Homes. In 2015, social housing provider Anchor bought 24 care homes from Ideal Carehomes in a deal worth in excess of £100m. Ideal Carehomes retained 15 care homes across the Midlands, North West and Yorkshire.

In 2017, Ideal Carehomes once again announced its plans to expand with new build care homes from its sister company, LNT Care Developments.

Entrepreneur In Residence

In April 2013, Lawrence Tomlinson became Serial Entrepreneur in Residence at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Tomlinson was selected from over 100 candidates.

Tomlinson was awarded a £10,000 honorarium and expenses in return for one day a week in the Department. Tomlinson ran a competition for his £10,000 honorarium in return for the best idea for growth. The winner was announced during Global Entrepreneurship Week in November 2013.

Throughout the year, Tomlinson worked across Government departments providing advice and feedback to civil servants, Ministers and MPs on policy ideas including; planning, red-tape and access to finance.

Tomlinson’s time in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will largely be remembered for his work on the Tomlinson Report.

The Entrepreneur in Residence scheme has been extended for a further year. In March 2014 BIS advertised for two new Entrepreneurs.

Motor racing

An enthusiastic race car driver, Tomlinson and his two co-drivers steered the Team LNT Panoz Esperante to first place in the GT2 class of the Le Mans 24 hour race in 2006. In 2009 he raced the in-house developed Ginetta-Zytek GZ09S, which was raced in 2010 by Nigel Mansell.

In 2005, Tomlinson bought Ginetta Cars from the group of enthusiasts who had brought it out of administration. Tomlinson designed the specification for the Ginetta G50 car which was built within six months, and now races in GT championships across the world, and has its own Ginetta GT Supercup series in the UK. After Ginetta won the Small Business of the Year award from the Motorsport Industry Association in 2008, and the Ginetta G50 crowned Autosport’s Car of the Year, in 2009 Tomlinson was nominated by the MIA for the Outstanding Contribution to Motorsport award.

Today, the LNT Group and Ginetta are housed in a purpose built site in Garforth, Leeds. Opened by Damon Hill OBE in December 2007, it houses both the group headquarters and the Ginetta car factory.