If you have used an automated teller machine (ATM), bought a European football shirt, used a Microsoft computer or smoked cigarettes or drunk alcohol bought in a duty-free shop, then a De La Rue (DLR) product has passed through your hands. The Basingstoke business has its finger in more pies than its fame as the world’s biggest commercial printer of bank notes would indicate. But even a company with a licence to print money can get itself into financial difficulty.

Three years ago DLR was forced to issue a series of profit warnings after a disastrous diversification away from its core businesses left it lumbered with a series of high-tech but poorly performing acquisitions. At the same time, European countries were ordering less currency than usual as they worked their way through the stockpiles of euro notes ordered in the run-up to the 2002 currency change-over. DLR’s share price was hovering at about 300p and the company’s name was mud among investors.

Leo Quinn was headhunted from Invensys to change the fortunes of the 194-year-old business. The laid-back 50-year-old says: “I came because it was a great challenge, a turnaround that had to be done in the listed sector under the full scrutiny of the public eye. When I walked in the door, it looked like Aladdin’s Cave because of the wealth of opportunities.”

The new chief executive spent the next three years trying to uncover the “jewel of a company” beneath DLR’s extraneous layers. He closed two factories, sold loss-making divisions such as Sequoia, the US voting-systems company, replaced 40 of DLR’s top 100 executives and cut headcount by 10 per cent. Production activities were outsourced to China, reporting layers scrapped and £70 million in working capital released.

The hard work appears to have paid off. DLR’s share price closed at 822½p last week. Pretax profit rose from £22.5 million in 2004 to £102.4 million for the 12 months to March 31. More than £280 million, the equivalent of the company’s entire free cashflow over the past three years, has been returned to shareholders during Mr Quinn’s tenure, the most recent chunk a £75 million special dividend payment announced in May. DLR’s chief executive says, with some satisfaction, that “shareholders are happy, really happy”.

Today DLR prints bank notes or supplies bank-note paper to 150 countries and makes passports and ID cards for 50, as well as turning old bank notes into mulch for farmers. It also makes fiscal stamps for cigarette packets and bottles of alcohol, the holograms that identify genuine Fifa merchandise, authentication stickers that adorn every Microsoft product, ATM machines and devices that do everything from counting to storing cash. But analysts speculate that, having squeezed incredible cost savings from the company’s existing divisions, Mr Quinn will find it tricky to continue to improve returns at his present rate.

The former civil engineer believes, however, that he has the global environment on his side. The rising panic about national security means that DLR’s expertise in authentication devices is more relevant than ever, he says. “One of our missions is to be two steps ahead of the counterfeiter, and that means terrorists as well as bank note fraudsters,” Mr Quinn says. “When people think of De La Rue, they probably think of an old, very traditional company but we’re something very different to that. We’re really a force for authentication, be it in bank notes, passports or labels.”

The company already advises government departments on security issues and hopes to be the front-runner when ministers push ahead with the introduction of identity cards in 2009. DLR lost the contract to produce British passports in 1997, and Mr Quinn is determined to win it back when it comes up for grabs in two years’ time.

DLR has demonstrated that it can move quickly to take advantage of opportunities. In 2004, as part of the reconstruction of Iraq, the company printed a billion new Iraqi bank notes in 100 days, chartered 24 747s to take the money to Baghdad, then worked with the country’s central bank to retire the old currency and circulate the new one within a few months. “That’s an unprecedented feat,” Mr Quinn says.

Despite speculation that debit and credit cards will replace paper money, there are reasons to believe that cash will remain king for some time. Sales to emerging markets, which are likely to remain cash-based in the near future, is expected to compensate for the West’s predilection for plastic. Growing wealth in countries such as China means increasing demand for ATMs and the crisp, new bills that they dispense. In Europe, two thirds of all transactions continue to be made in cash.

Mr Quinn argues that the cash generated by DLR’s mature currency business can be used to fund its push into passports and its smaller but growing cash management business, which produces and fits ATMs, cash-count-ing machines and others that scan notes for signs of wear.

DLR’s chief executive figures, though, that it is going to take more than money to force the business forward. He has launched My Contribution, a scheme under which employees are encouraged to suggest productivity improvements. In its first year, the scheme received 300 suggestions, and in its second, 1,700. Last year 4,000 ideas were put into the data-base, resulting in product improvements worth £20 million.

DLR is about more than a few top managers, but no matter what he says, this chief executive has made a serious difference to the company.

Leo Quinn

Born December 13, 1956

1968-1982 Attended London Oratory Grammar School. Degrees in electrical and civil engineering at the University of Surrey and Portsmouth University. MSc in management science at Imperial College

1979-1981 Civil engineer at Balfour Beatty Construction (UK)

1982-84 Planning manager at Texas Instruments (UK and Portugal)

1984-2000 Rose from strategic planning manager to president at Honeywell International

2000-01 President of EMEA region at Tridium

2001-04 Chief operating officer of Invensys’s production management division

2004-present Group chief executive of De La Rue

The man in question

If you could change one thing in the financial and commercial environment, what would it be?

9/11 has changed life for us all, especially for frequent business travellers. Before that, people had the relative freedom to move across borders freely, whereas today the queues at passport control and security check in seem to get ever longer. Clearly, it is necessary that nations protect their borders, and I believe that technology can provide the means to enable it to happen more efficiently. So my change would be to start to accelerate the move to electronic passports and identity, which record a person's biometric data, which is a big step up enabling a much more robust way to secure our borders. Naturally, there is a price to pay for this in respect of disclosing more personal information, but, for me, I am prepared to make this trade-off.

What does leadership mean to you?

You've got to see what needs to be achieved, energise people towards that goal and give them the tools to achieve it. At De La Rue our formal process of My Contribution has contributed significantly to the margin improvement we have achieved since 2004. Leadership has played a strong part, as the programme is about De La Rue pulling together to realise our full potential as a Group, by sharing our existing expertise.

Does money motivate you?

Only printing it!

What was the most important business event, good or bad, to happen in your working life?

A great lesson for me was failing my first-year engineering. I spent more time running the entertainment committee at the student union than knuckling down to my studies. For me, the setbacks in life, which are inevitable, by the way, are about how you respond to them, and, actually, I often look for this when I interview people, as it can provide a unique insight into their strength of character. I believe those who experience major setbacks, both in their personal lives or their career, and can respond with tenacity and determination often have an edge about them which can set them apart.

What gadget must you have?

I am a regular user of Skype, both for family and business. Through my career I have spent many years in the USA and some of my family has settled there. Voiceover IP is now maturing and the quality is improving.

How do you relax?

My definition of relaxing is going out and doing something active. I am a keen skier and also spend time clay pigeon shooting and swim the best part of a mile every morning. My new hobby is fly fishing because it's perfect for giving me time to reflect and think, which is really important.