They point to the high level of borrowings required to fund the breakneck

They point to the high level of borrowings required to fund the breakneck expansion. They say the balance of power is shifting back to the brewers and away from retailers. And they argue it is only a matter of time before sentiment among notoriously fickle US investors changes and sends the high-flying shares crashing to earth.Mr Pennycook is having none of it. He is comfortable with a pre-placing gearing level of 63 per cent, while pounds 50m of debt finance for the next five years was secured on the basis that gearing would be kept below 80 per cent.Wetherspoons, he says, should also be relatively immune from structural changes in the industry as it has five-year supply deals with Scottish & Newcastle and Courage which do not run out until 1999. Some of its biggest sales are in new pubs in Manchester and Liverpool.Critics say that Wetherspoons, like so many growth stocks before it, is merely riding for a fall. In fact, Wetherspoons' customer profile spans students to white-collar professionals, clubbers to pensioners.

Cheap beer - Scotch bitter sells for as little as 99p - and high volumes are the other ingredients in this potent commercial brew.Indeed, heading north out of Wetherspoons' traditional London "laager" has proved an inspired move. Fights are almost unheard- of - a factor Mr Pennycook says appeals to women. By the time it was floated on the stock market four years ago at 160p, Wetherspoons had 44 pubs. Now it is Britain's second biggest independent pub company after Greenalls.Like most successful formulas, Mr Martin's is a simple one. All pubs have a no-smoking area, good air conditioning, no music and no pool tables The atmosphere is relaxed and unthreatening. US investors are looking for us to roll out our format aggressively over here."The company's expansion plans involve increasing the number of pubs from 133 pubs, 96 of them in Greater London, to a target of 1000 in the UK by an as yet unspecified date.It marks the next phase in Wetherspoons' exponential growth.

The company was set up by Kiwi Tim Martin, a barrister, who in true Victor Kiam fashion liked his local London boozer so much he bought the company.Run-down shops, garages and banks in town centres were quickly transformed into pubs which appealed to a broad cross-section of drinkers. This was the constitution of the firm, which provided for a managing partner, not a managing director As a non-partner, Morris was therefore excluded. "I had to ask for the constitution to be changed," he recalls blithely He got his way. For the next two months Morris and his three rivals - who are understood to include banking partner David Dickinson and property partner Charles Pollock - gave presentations to groups of partners throughout the firm.

His experience back home in Dorking, in the award-winning drama group the Heath Players, came in useful His voice is resonant, his speech fluid. "Acting gives you confidence about standing up and talking to people, helping you gauge an audience," he notes. His favourite stage role is Mercutio in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. "You get the sex and the violence," he jokes.But any actor raffishness was dampened by Morris's desire not to be portrayed as the accountant outsider. More than once, he casually mentions his time at Cambridge, where he started off reading history before opting for law. "When I was invited to talk to groups of partners, obviously I emphasised my financial strength," he says.

"But I know how to talk to people in their own language."The election was a tense affair, and drawn out over two months. Because none of the four candidates had won the requisite 51 per cent on the first vote, the ballot went to two rounds Morris finally emerged the outright victor in February. Perhaps mindful of partnership policies, Morris downplays his victory. "As finance director I was an awful lot easier to replace than some of the partners who were standing - so there was a strong negative factor in this," he argues Morris's line in the hustings process was clear. He argued that Simmons & Simmons needed someone with formal management training and experience - still a novelty in an industry where the idea of the gifted management amateur still holds sway "Management isn't something you do in your spare time. People are recognising that it is a skill that is necessary."Indeed, Morris seems extraordinarily well-versed in management theory. Prone to drawing diagrams to emphasise a point, he is fond of making elaborate analogies; one, which draws a parallel between managing a partnership and leading a convoy of boats across the Atlantic, lasts for a full five minutes.Morris's career has already taken a few turns.