Addison Lee CEO Liam Griffin on fighting Uber, going back on early retirement and London’s driver shortage

His family sold Addison Lee for £300 million in 2013, with Griffin staying on at the cab firm until he fell out with its private equity buyers Carlyle in 2015. He then retired, aged 42.

Five years of travelling, angel investing, property development, triathlons and Ironman followed — “all those things for when you’ve got lots of spare time” — before he realised:  “I missed work.”

“Early retirement means you miss your sense of purpose,” he says. “During that time I read every self-help book going – it’s not all happiness and light to be sat at home at 42 with no job.”

Griffin has spent his career in cabs, starting with childhood summer holidays in the tiny Battersea minicab office of Addison Lee, the business his dad founded in 1975, where “I’d price dockets, fix radios, anything, really.” He joined the firm after graduating from Loughborough University, taking over as CEO from his father, John, in 2006.

Addison Lee’s sale in 2013 was not about the money, Griffin claims, but expansion. He wanted to take Addison Lee to the US and across the UK.

“Then Uber came on the radar. And Carlisle pulled the plug on all of our ambitions.”

It wasn’t an easy partnership: “Going from family business to private equity was a bit of a culture shock. We’d never had a board meeting prior to the takeover. And I didn’t take particularly well to it.”

Griffin quit in 2015, but remained on the board. Addison Lee floundered and by 2018 it was posting a £39 million loss. Carlyle tried and failed to sell it to avoid losing control through a debt-for-equity-swap from frustrated backers. Griffin’s increasingly vocal criticism saw his replacement as CEO banning him from its building (“and I owned it!”).

Then came the unfulfilled millionaire years — although they were good to him. The now-49-year-old is tanned and far more relaxed looking than the average CEO, sporting a collarless white shirt with a wrist of boho bangles.

Griffin finally bought back Addison Lee in 2020 “for considerably less than what we sold it for” — said to be around £125 million. He used his own cash, plus backing led by Cheyne Capital.

There was one wrinkle: he hadn’t phoned Addison Lee’s founder to discuss his return first. “My dad hasn’t been overly supportive ,” Griffin says, looking pained. “I’ve been slightly disappointed by his lack of enthusiasm for me coming back and doing this. I think his view was that we couldn’t do it again without him.”