Tony Murtagh was born in Manchester in 1960. He left school at 16 to pursue a career in business that would see him appear in The Times Rich List and entrepreneur of the year lists. Tony Murtagh started his first business aged 21 and sold it a year later to inject cash into his father's finance brokerage.Following the recession of the late 1980s, Murtagh moved to Cornwall with just two staff. Between 1995 and 2004, Murtagh built The Mortgage Group into the UK's largest specialist mortgage broker, with over 800 staff. The company was not without controversy as some customers accused the company of "targeting borrowers with a bad credit history, overcharging on brokerage fees and mis-selling expensive payment protection policies" and was the subject of a BBC Panorama investigation.When he sold the company to GE Money in 2004, they were originating over 1,000 mortgages a month with GE, with a value of over £1 billion a year. Profits stood at over £1 million each month for the two years prior to the sale.In 2005, Tony set up The Money Group, based on a similar business model to The Mortgage Group. In 2004 the Money Group was criticised in court for a loan that was "grossly exorbitant".Since moving to Cornwall Murtagh has owned or operated local companies Not all of these companies however have been a success with Baltic Pine Conservatories on the Bickland Industrial Estate going into administration in 2006 and staff at the company's manufacturing unit in Longrock, Penzance, being informed at the same time that the company had stopped trading with the loss of over 50 jobs. It is thought that as many as 200 jobs overall may have been lost, with Members of Parliament calling for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the closure.
$700,000
