Dining website puts £16m on London founder’s table

On top of the world: Karen Hanton was given business tips by Sir Alex Ferguson
12 April 2012

A crofter's daughter who came to London from Scotland as a teenager to make her fortune landed a £16million windfall today when she sold her restaurant booking website.

Karen Hanton, who was inspired to start toptable.co.uk in 1999 out of frustration at the sight of empty places in her Fulham restaurant, sealed a £35million deal with US firm OpenTable.

The sale will make £4million for her long-term friend and investor Sir Alex Ferguson and £400,000 for another backer, restaurateur Gary Rhodes.

The website now lists around 5,000 restaurants in 14 countries, of which about 2,000 are in London — including names such as Le Gavroche and Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley.

It gets 2.3 million visits a months and is the biggest online restaurant booking service in Europe. Users are entitled to a free meal after six bookings and reviews and restaurants are charged £2 for each reservation through the site.

Its range of special offers meant it grew strongly in the recession and helped restaurants that may otherwise have struggled for survival to keep busy.

The site did not make a profit for its first five years and its founder said she feared getting the "hairdryer" treatment from her famously demanding backer. But she said he had offered some key managerial insights from his years at Manchester United.

The most successful manager in English football history told her she had to think of the business like a football team, saying: "Look at all the positions you have to cover — heads of IT, marketing, etc. You have to get excellent people in all of those key positions."

Ms Hanton, 53, whose own favourite London restaurants are The Wolseley, Sketch and Cecconi's, said she was inspired by the success of lastminute.com founders Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman.

"I thought travel seemed to be working so why not restaurants?" she said.

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