Terry Matthews

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Sir Terence Hedley Matthews (born 6 June 1943) is a Welsh-Canadian business magnate and Wales' first billionaire. He has founded or funded over 100 firms in the high-tech communications industry, most notably Mitel and Newbridge Networks.

He is the chairman of Wesley Clover and the Swansea Bay City Region board.

He is the owner of the Celtic Manor Resort, KRP Properties, the Brookstreet Hotel, and the Marshes Golf Club.

Early life

Matthews was born in Newport, South Wales, at the time Lydia Beynon Maternity Hospital. Matthews returned as an adult to include the manor house that housed the hospital within the Celtic Manor Resort. He grew up in Newbridge, Caerphilly. In 1969, he obtained a bachelor's degree in electronics from Swansea University.

Personal life

Karen, his daughter, is the executive director of Wesley Clover Parks. Owen is a founding and chairman of the Alacrity Foundation, and lives in Victoria, British Columbia. Trevor is Trevor's youngest son, who was the producer, founder, and CEO of Brookstreet Pictures.

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Career

Matthews left Britain and joined MicroSystems International, a chip manufacturing company associated with Northern Telecom (which became Nortel Networks) in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, after an apprenticeship at British Telecom's research lab in Martlesham Heath.

In 1972, Matthews' first business was founded in collaboration with fellow British and Microsystems employee Michael Cowpland. The pair planned to import and sell electric lawnmowers built in the United Kingdom in order to raise seed money for future enterprises they had hoped for. The name Mitel is believed to be a diminution of "Mike and Terry Lawnmowers," both on conventional and Matthews' accounts. Cowpland is also known as saying that it stands for "Mike and Terry ELectronics." This first attempt was a fiasco; the shipping firm handling the first batch lost the container. The ground was still covered with snow in the Canadian winter, and no one would buy them when they finally arrived. "That taught me a key lesson" Matthews later learned, emphasising timing. The lawnmowers were stolen from the shipping company! By the time they arrived, no one had hoped for them because grass can't be cut when it's covered with snow."

Mitel moved from home to various companies around Ottawa's burgeoning high-tech district. Mitel's customers included the National Research Council, the Communications Research Centre, and a handful of early-up companies, including SHL Systemhouse, which was later acquired by EDS and now is part of HP and Quasar Systems (now Cognos).

The two developed a telephony DTMF tone receiver based on Cowpland's PhD thesis, gaining funds from a $4,000 bank loan as well as from their own savings and a group of angel investors (notably Kent Plumley). This was a major advancement in the technology, since they were able to produce receivers at a fraction of the price of competitor counterparts while still gaining returns of 100 percent. In addition, Mitel later became a chip manufacturer after the purchase of the Silek foundry in Bromont, Quebec.

The pair later discovered that the then-new microprocessors and other semiconductor technologies would make a similar shift in the small PBX industry. The SX200 PBX is a huge success, being cheaper to buy, quicker to install, and much more reliable. Mitel became one of the world's best small PBX and telecom semiconductor manufacturers, IPOing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1981.

British Telecom acquired a majority interest in Mitel in 1985. Cowpland would later form Corel, and Matthews later founded Newbridge Networks.

Matthews was instrumental in the development of Newbridge's international data networking industry, manufacturing computer communications equipment, particularly ATMs and routers, in 1986. The company employed over 6,500 workers in 2000, out of a $1.8 billion net profit in FY 1999. Alcatel bought Newbridge in 2000 for $7.1 billion. Matthews' personal interest in Newbridge was worth over a billion dollars, and as a result of the merger, he became the country's biggest single shareholder.

He acquired the Mitel PBX business and company name in 2000, making it private. He has invested heavily ($600 million) in Mitel to turn it into a broadband communications firm by 2006 (Finn). The company has made significant investments in enterprise Voice, which is a version of IP telephony. BreconRidge, Mitel's manufacturing company, was spun off as BreconRidge. In April 2007, Intertel was acquired by the firm. Mitel went public again in 2010. In November 2013, Mitel revealed the acquisition of Aastra Technologies. Mavenir Systems was purchased by Mitel in March 2015. Mitel announced the acquisition of Polycom in April 2016. However, the agreement fell through and Polycom instead merged with private equity firm Siris Capital Group. Mitel revealed in July 2017 that they had reached an agreement to buy ShoreTel for $430 million, raising the number of the company to 4,200 workers. The company was announced on April 24, 2018 that it would be bought by an investment group led by Searchlight Capital Partners.

In addition, Matthews serves on the board of directors for a variety of high-tech companies, including Solace (formerly Solace Systems), and Benbria Corporation.

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