Our Journey

Through the guidance of our Founding Chairman Lawrence Tomlinson, the LNT Group has grown from a single care home into a multi-million pound success story. Each business in the LNT Group family has its own personality and none are without a story or two to tell.

It all begin in 1988

Lawrence 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. From these seeds grew Tri-Care which later became Orchard Care Homes.

Building success in 1991

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. For the last 4 years 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 Lawrence purchased their main subcontractors for cash. LNT Construction’s sister company, LNT Care Developments is now dedicated to finding land for LNT Construction, selling their care facility schemes.

1999 is pretty techie

Lawrence 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, is now installed in approximately 1,000 care homes across the country.

2002 … and now for something completely different

An interesting addition to the LNT Group was LNT Solutions in 2002, a chemical company that Lawrence 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.

Having identified the potential of this technology for industrial applications, it now been developed by LNT Solutions to create some of the most innovate and forward thinking products in the climate protection systems market. LNT Solutions supply the whole of network rail with a chemical that stops the trains slipping on the ‘wrong types of leaves’ that fall on the railway line, de-ices the third rail and supplies runway and aeroplane wing de-icer to airports across North America and Northern Europe.

The LNT Group gets racy in 2005

In 2005 Lawrence acquired Ginetta, which has been 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.

With racing pedigree throughout the business; Lawrence, Team LNT and Ginetta have raced at Le Mans with Lawrence himself winning the GT2 class at the 24 hours of Le Mans in 2006. Lawrence’s significant contribution to engineering has been recognised by three Honorary Doctorates from Leeds Metropolitan University, the University of Huddersfield, the University of Bradford and the University of Bolton.

Time for change in 2007

Lawrence sold Orchard Care Homes in 2007 for a headline figure of £180m.

We’re back again in 2009

Lawrence re-entered the care sector in 2009 when he set up the innovative Ideal Carehomes. Since 2009 LNT Construction has built over 40 care homes for Ideal Carehomes alone. With a full portfolio of newly built care homes and a commitment to high quality care, Ideal Carehomes was soon achieving sector-beating occupancy levels.

2013 gets political

LNT Chairman Lawrence was appointed as one of two “Entrepreneurs in Residence” in mid-2013. The position was a one year post, based in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, in which Lawrence was tasked with identifying areas for growth and educating the Department on how entrepreneurs ‘tick’. He spent his time identifying barriers the Department could remove for businesses to enable them to flourish, reporting into senior civil servants and Business Secretary at the time, Vince Cable MP and Business Minister, Michael Fallon MP.

In November, with the support of the Department for Business, he published a report on his findings on banks treatment of SMEs in the “Tomlinson Report”. This prompted a Financial Conduct Authority investigation into the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Success again in 2015

Following the successful expansion of Ideal Carehomes, at this point with 40 homes, in September 2015 Anchor Trust bought 25 care homes. The deal was valued in excess of £100m.

Ideal Carehomes has retained 15 care homes and are concentrating on further improving their service to residents.

BUILD, BUILD, BUILD in 2017

Things never stand still at LNT Group and after honing the residential care offering, LNT prepared for growth in 2017.

Having signed significant deals for turn of key homes with large national providers such as Country Court Care, Sanctuary, Barchester and Care Concern, LNT Care Developments continued to turn around high quality projects in record time, prompting a much acclaimed win as the Health Investor Property Developer of the Year 2017 in May.

In May 2017, Paul Farmer joined Ideal Carehomes as Managing Director and shortly after the Head Office operations formally moved to its new Headquarters in the Midlands to bring the team closer to the location of the homes. Ideal Carehomes then began to grow its portfolio by opening Mountview, in Leicester in November 2017.

Not a sibling wanting to be left out of the Group’s success, Ginetta announced its plans to launch an LMP1 car, riding high on the success of its “industry firsts” in prototype racing with its LMP3 and G57 models.

Reflecting and Moving Forward in 2018

As well as upholding our entrepreneurial and innovative reputation, 2018 will also provide time for reflection at LNT Group starting with celebrating 10 years at the Garforth Head Office in December last year. Coupled with the 60th anniversary of the Ginetta marque and the launch of the much anticipated G60-LT-P1 car, 2018 looks set to continue as a fast-paced, busy and exciting year – just the way we like it!

LNT Care Developments continues with its successful care home build design, moving forward with their eco-friendly and sustainable offer as well as branching out into designing and building luxury assisted living accommodation for many of our current and new customers.

Ideal Carehomes grew their portfolio last year with the opening of Mountview in Leicester and Managing Director, Paul Farmer, continues to develop and improve the offer to residents with the assistance of the Head Office team in the Midlands.

2018 also marks the launch of new and improved care home management programme, CoolCare4, for LNT Software. The software was previewed last year at the Care and Dementia Show to great feedback from existing and new customers.

The story continues...