People & Business: By design
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Your support makes all the difference.ANDREW MORRIS is a happy man. He is the managing director of the Business Design Centre in Islington, which is owned by his family business. He is also the founder of the London Contemporary Art Fair, which kicked off its tenth annual exhibition this week.
"We started in 1989 with 32 art galleries exhibiting and 4,000 visitors. We sold pounds 200,000 worth of art," Mr Morris recalls. "Now we have 90 galleries, get 40,000 visitors and we expect to sell around pounds 10m worth of work."
Mr Morris adds that taking into account art works sold after the exhibition closes, "we think the value of our art market is pounds 15m to pounds 20m".
Despite the success of the Design Centre as an exhibition venue, Mr Morris insists he has "no plans to float the business - even though lots of City people keep approaching me".
Mr Morris believes in keeping it in the family - his four brothers are also in business, while 13 grandchildren are waiting in the wings.
Youngest brother Jack is chairman of the Design Centre, while Gerald, Paul and Phillip run CIL International, a shopfitting company that recently _fitted out the duty free complexes at Hong Kong and Dubai airports.
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