Duncan Bannatyne

Duncan Walker Bannatyne, OBE (born 2 February 1949) is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, best selling author and former actor. His wealth was estimated at £320 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2009 making him the 167th Richest individual in Great Britain. His business interests include Health Clubs, Hotels, Media, TV,Stage Schools, Property and Transport. He is most famous for his appearance as a business angel on the BBC programme Dragons' Den. He has written 3 books Anyone Can Do It sold more than 200,000 copies and Wake Up and Change Your Life quickly entered the 'Sunday Telegraph' top selling books list as did How to be smart with money. He was bestowed with the honour Order of the British Empire for his contribution to charity.

Biography

Born in 1949 in the town of Clydebank, he was raised in a house in Canberra Avenue in a relatively poor family. Bannatyne was told by his mother that, due to the family's lack of money, he could not have a bicycle. To amend the problem he asked the local newsagents if he could have a paper round job and was told he could have one if he could get a list of one hundred interested people. Duncan painstakingly knocked on many doors and with extreme determination eventually had a list of one hundred customers. Armed with this list, young Bannatyne received the job and eventually a brand new bike.

In 1964 and at the age of 15, Bannatyne volunteered for 12 years with the Royal Navy as a junior 2nd class engineering mechanic (stoker) at RNTE Shotley near Ipswich, better known as the boys' training establishment HMS Ganges. He served in the Navy for several years before receiving a dishonourable discharge for threatening to throw an officer off a boat landing jetty in Scotland. In his biography he claims this was in part a reaction to this officer's abuse of his authority, in part a dare by his shipmates and in part a way of getting out of the Navy, with which he had become disillusioned. Bannatyne was only nineteen years old when this happened. After the incident he had to serve 9 months in the tough Colchester military detention centre before being discharged aged 20. He later spent a few days in Glasgow's Barlinnie prison after being charged with breach of the peace and resisting arrest.

After spending his twenties moving from one job to another, Bannatyne lived for a few years on the island of Jersey where he met his first wife. With a difficult business climate for outsiders, at age 29 Bannatyne and his wife moved to Stockton-on-Tees in northern England. Bannatyne's business career began almost immediately with an ice cream van purchased for £450. He soon expanded by buying more vans and eventually sold the business for £28,000, founding a nursing home business instead. He sold his nursing home business Quality Care Homes for £26 million in 1996 and children's nursery chain Just Learning for £22 million.

He has since expanded into Health Clubs, with the popular Bannatyne's Health Clubs chain to his name, and also to bars, hotels and property. He recently acquired 26 Health Clubs from Hilton Hotels. Bannatyne's is now the largest independent chain of Health Clubs in the United Kingdom.

In October 2008 in defiance of the credit crunch he opened the £12,000,000 "Bannatyne Spa Hotel" in Hastings.

His current wealth is estimated at £320 million, as indicated in 2009 by the Sunday Times Rich List, which places him as the 167th richest person in the United Kingdom. He is also by far the wealthiest of the Dragons in the BBC TV series Dragons' Den

Television career

Bannatyne's first TV appearance was in October 2003, appearing on the BBC Two documentary Mind of a Millionaire. He went on to present 23 episodes of Mind Your Own Business, again for the BBC, where he helped turn around failing businesses.

Since his initial appearance on BBC Two's Dragons' Den, Bannatyne has had a side career developing in the media.

He has appeared on ITV's new show Fortune - Million Pound Giveaway where people seek money to fulfil their dreams. He has also made guest appearances in episodes of Would I Lie To You?, 8 out of 10 Cats, Al Murray's Happy Hour, The Graham Norton Show,one episode of Break with the Boss, as well as several appearances as a panellist on channel Five's The Wright Stuff. He also appeared on ITV1's Rich List Give It Away, where he travelled the country trying to get more wealthy people to give money to charity.

A documentary "Bannatyne Takes On Tobacco" was broadcast on BBC2 on 1 July 2008. In this programme he visited three African countries to investigate the tactics used by big tobacco companies (and British American Tobacco in particular) in selling cigarettes to children. So successful and far reaching was the documentary that the Maldives Government, having watched it, overturned a decision to cooperate with BAT who wanted to bring a certain cigarette brand into their territory.

He anchored a programme shown in November 2008 called 'Beat the Bank', in which a young couple were to invest their life-savings of £10,000 to 'beat the bank'; ie get a better rate of return than a bank would offer. The couple were offered three options: Rebecca Hossack a fine art dealer, a fine wine dealer and an antiques expert. They opted for the art dealer.

Charity works

Bannatyne received his OBE partly in recognition for his work with charities such as Mary's meals. In Romania where over a 10 year period he has funded several projects, notably Casa Bannatyne in Târgu-Mureş, a hospice for orphans with HIV and AIDS.

In March 2008 established the Bannatyne Charitable Foundation with a personal injection of £1,000,000

On 19 May 2008 Bannatyne added his support to the launch of the Geared for Giving Campaign at the House of Commons to encourage UK Business Leaders to set up and promote a Workplace Giving scheme to benefit UK registered charities with tax effective donations through employees pay.

On 29 August 2008 Duncan appeared on the popular television programme Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and raised £20,000 for the charity NCH.

Bannatyne became President of the charity No Smoking Day in October 2008. The charity runs the annual health awareness campaign - helping people who want to stop smoking.

In November 2008 he was voted "The Most Admired Celebrity Charity Champion" by Third sector magazine.

Bannatyne is a trustee of Comic Relief and on the 27th November 2008 he had the pleasure of travelling to Ethiopia with other trustees of Comic Relief. On Saturday 29 November they visited Debre Zeit Bannatyne said "the most significant part of that day for me was when we were shown that people are taught how to sow vegetables so they can grow them in their own homes, in addition to the training programme the project supplies seeds and tools so that they can become self sufficient". They then were taken to have a look where a woman had gone through the programme and was now growing her own plants ready for sale, her whole garden was taken up an amazing array of plants. Bannatyne presented her with the Bannatyne/Ethiopia award for best entrepreneur of the year.

Politics

Bannatyne has previously supported the UK Conservative Party (under Margaret Thatcher) and then switched to support the Labour Party under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. This is evidenced in a 2008 promotional video supporting Gordon Brown.

Appearing on the Question Time panel on 7 February 2008, Bannatyne stated he had been a donor to the Labour Party under Tony Blair. He also voiced his support for Gordon Brown, but criticised the Cabinet for what he deemed "petty squabbles based on personal ambition".

Personal life

He has six children: four by his first wife, Gail, and two by his current wife, Joanne McCue. He also has one grandchild, from his eldest daughter.

Up until the age of twenty, he was a non-practising Christian, but changed his beliefs to Atheism for personal reasons.

Joanne McCue was Bannatyne's former director of nursing with Quality Care Homes. He proposed to her in Barbados in early 2006, and married her on 11 November 2006 at St Mary's Church in Norton, Tees Valley. Celebrities at the ceremony included Anna Ryder Richardson, Cherie Lunghi, Gary McCausland, Dragons' Den presenter Evan Davis and fellow Dragons Theo Paphitis, Richard Farleigh, Simon Woodroffe and Deborah Meaden. Pop star Marc Almond then performed for 200 guests in the warehouse next to his company's head office.

Bannatyne and his family live in England and France, maintaining homes in Wynyard in the north-east of England, London and Cannes.

Bannatyne was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science (D.Sc.) by Glasgow Caledonian University on the 5th July 2006 for services to business and charity. He was also awarded a Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) from the University of Teesside on the 6th February 2009.

Duncan recently celebrated his 60th birthday at Murano’s in London with celebrities such as David Coulthard, James Caan, Theo Paphitis and Anna Ryder Richardson. A second party was held in the North East which was headlined by UK soul singer Beverley Knight and featured Chesney Hawkes. The celebration took place in a converted warehouse in Darlington, County Durham.

Bannatyne openly discussed having had cosmetic surgery under his eyes on The Graham Norton Show.

External links

• Duncan Bannatyne official site
• Dragons' Den biography of Duncan Bannatyne
• Duncan Bannatyne at IMDb
• Duncan Bannatyne - From Ice Cream Man To Multi-Millionaire
• Inside the Dragons' Den - Building a fortune the Bannatyne way
• Growing Business magazine meets Bannatyne
• A review of Duncan Bannatynes first book, Anyone Can Do It
• No Smoking Day

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