Alan Sugar
 | This May 2007 needs additional citations for verification. (May 2007) |
Sir Alan Sugar | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 24, 1947 |
| Occupation(s) | Businessman, Founder of Amstrad |
| Spouse | Ann Sugar |
Sir Alan Michael Sugar (born 24 March 1947 in Hackney, East London) is an English businessman. After leaving school at 16[1], Sugar started selling car aerials and electrical goods out of a van he had bought with his savings of £100[citation needed]. He now has an estimated fortune of £830m. [2] and was ranked 84th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2007. Despite being best known as a technology businessman, most of Sugar's wealth now derives from his property portfolio in Mayfair, rather than business ventures.[3]
Sugar stars in the BBC TV series The Apprentice, which has so far had three series broadcast: in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The series is based upon the American television show of the same name, featuring entrepreneur Donald Trump, which had already proven popular in the USA.
Sugar was knighted in 2000 for services to business. He holds two honorary Doctorates of Science degrees, awarded in 1988 by City University and in 2005 by Brunel University.[4] He is a donor to the British Labour Party and a philanthropist for charities such as Jewish Care and Great Ormond Street Hospital.
History
Amstrad
In 1968 Sugar founded the electronics company Amstrad (an acronym of his initials – Alan Michael Sugar Trading). By 1970, the first manufacturing venture was underway. He achieved lower production prices by using the injection moulding plastics for hi-fi turntable covers, severely undercutting competitors who used the vacuum forming process. Manufacturing capacity was soon expanded to include the production of audio amplifiers and tuners.
In 1980 Amstrad was listed on the London Stock Exchange and during the 1980s, Amstrad doubled its profit and market value every year. [citation needed]
By 1984, recognising the opportunity of the home computer era, Amstrad launched an 8-bit machine Amstrad CPC 464. Although the CPC range were attractive machines, with CP/M-capability and a good BASIC operating system, it had to compete with its arch-rivals, the more graphically complex Commodore 64 and the popular Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Despite this, three million units were sold worldwide with a long production life of eight years[citation needed], even inspiring an East German version with Russian Z80 clone processors[citation needed]. In 1985, Sugar had another major breakthrough with the launch of the Amstrad PCW 8256 word processor which, although made of very cheap components, retailed at over £300. In 1986 Amstrad bought the rights to the Sinclair computer product line and produced two more ZX Spectrum models in a similar style to their own CPC machines. It also developed the PC1512, a PC compatible computer, which became quite popular in Europe[citation needed] and was the first in a line of Amstrad PCs.
At its peak, Amstrad achieved a stock market value of £1.25 billion, but the 1990s proved a difficult time for the company. The launch of a range of business PCs was marred by unreliable hard disks (supplied by Seagate), which occasioned a high level of customer dissatisfaction and great damage to Amstrad's reputation in the personal computer market, from which it never recovered.[citation needed] Subsequently, Amstrad sued Seagate for $100 million for lost revenue. In the early-1990s Amstrad began to focus on portable computers rather than desktop computers. Also, in 1990, Amstrad entered the gaming market with the Amstrad GX4000, but it was a commercial failure, because it used 8-bit technology unlike the 16-bit Sega Megadrive and Super Nintendo. In 1993, Amstrad released the PenPad, a PDA, which was also a commercial failure[citation needed].
In the 1990s, Amstrad bought into Betacom and Viglen, so as to focus more on telecommunications rather than computers. Amstrad released the first of its combined telephony and e-mail devices, called the e-m@iler, followed by the e-m@ilerplus in 2002, neither of which are sold extensively.[5]
At the time of the launch of Sky Amstrad was the only manufacturer producing receiver boxes and dishes and has continued to manufacture set top boxes, including Sky's Sky+ box.
Tottenham Hotspur FC
Sugar was Chairman of Tottenham Hotspur F.C. from 1991 to 2001. In June 1991, he and Terry Venables collaborated to buy Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, in the process defeating a bid from Robert Maxwell for the club. In an interview with Channel 4's High Interest programme, Sugar observed:
"The only dialogue I had with Rupert Murdoch was when that clown Maxwell came on the scene and knowing that they were in the past arch enemies I think Rupert rang me up one day and said 'what's going on with this football club you're trying to buy and this clown Maxwell is trying to buy also', and I think I might have said to him at the time 'he's got the power of his newspaper to hype up the thing, I haven't got a newspaper so perhaps one of your journalists could put in a good word for me on The Sun, but that was about it."[6]
A Sun headline once read: "20 things you never knew about Tel's Sugar Daddy"[citation needed], which played on Sugar's financial contributions to Spurs – paying off their £20 million debt and placing limits on players' wages and other expenses – effectively saving the club from administration. However, Sugar's relationship with Venables turned acrimonious and court battles ensued. Sugar has stated that his time at Spurs was "a waste of my life"[citation needed].
Sugar sold most of his shares in Tottenham Hotspur in 2001, after receiving death threats towards him and his family.[citation needed] He sold the shares to ENIC Sports Ltd, represented by Daniel Levy – effectively the current chairman of the club. In June 2007, Sugar sold the remainder of his shares in the club (a 12% holding), to ENIC Sports Ltd for £25 million.[7]
Sugar once compared football players to thugs and suggested that if they weren't playing professional football, most of them would be imprisoned.[citation needed] During a television interview, he threw Jürgen Klinsmann's signed shirt away and said he would not even wash his car with it, when the German striker refused to take up an option to stay with the club for a second season.[citation needed]
The Apprentice
Sugar became the star of the BBC reality show The Apprentice which has had three series broadcast in 2005, 2006 and 2007, and in which he has the role of the boss (the same as Donald Trump in the US version).
This means that Sugar "fires" a candidate each week until one candidate is left, who is then employed in Sugar's company (although, technically, the candidates are not actually "fired", since at that point, they are not in the employment of the company). Every week, he eliminates a contestant with the utterance "you're fired!", which has become a popular catchphrase in both the US and the UK.
The candidates are split into teams and Sugar uses his contacts in the business world to get them assignments in such establishments as Harrods department store. In addition, he chooses rewards for the winning team, such as a trip to Monaco or on the Orient Express train.
Sugar reprised his role in the second series of The Apprentice, broadcast on BBC2 in February/March 2006 and in the third series, broadcast in March–June 2007 on BBC One.[8]
As a condition for appearing in the third series, Sugar placed a requirement that the show be more business-orientated rather than just entertainment and that he should be portrayed in a less harsh light, to counter his somewhat belligerent reputation.[9] He also expressed a desire that the calibre of the candidates should be higher than those who had appeared in the second series (who had come across as manifestly lacklustre) and that the motives of the candidates for participating are scrutinised more carefully, given that certain of the candidates in previous series had used their successful experience in the show as a springboard to advance their own careers (as occurred with Michelle Dewberry, the winner of the second series, who left Amstrad's employment after only 4 months of winning).
Sugar has criticised the US version of "The Apprentice" because "they’ve made the fatal error of trying to change things just for the sake of it and it backfired." [10]
On 18 May 2007, the BBC announced that two further series of The Apprentice will be made.[11]
A celebrity Apprentice special for BBC TV's charity fund raising event Comic Relief was broadcast in March 2007 featuring Alastair Campbell, Piers Morgan, Ross Kemp, Rupert Everett, Danny Baker, Cheryl Cole, Jo Brand, Maureen Lipman, Trinny Woodall and Karren Brady. The team raised over £1 million for the charity.
Other TV
The increase in Sugar's public profile has led to his appearances in several television shows, including a special celebrity edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. In 2005 he became the face of National Savings in British television advertisements, donating his fee for the adverts to Great Ormond Street children's hospital. He appeared on Room 101 in 2005, in which he consigned to oblivion American English, men who wear wigs, call centres, schmoozers and advertisements that do not make clear what is actually being sold. He has also appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross twice, first in April 2005 and again May 2007.[12][13]
Amsair
Amsair Executive Aviation was founded in 1993, and is run by Sugar's son Daniel. As with Amstrad, the name Amsair is an acronym taken from the initials of Sugar's name "Alan Michael Sugar Air." Amsair operates a large Cessna fleet and offers business and executive jet charters. Through its alliances, it has access to over five thousand aircraft of all sizes and shapes, used mostly in collaborations with Blue Star Jets.[citation needed]
Amsprop
Amsprop is an investment firm owned by Sir Alan Sugar and controlled by his son Daniel. In September 2006 it bought the IBM South Bank building from private investors for £115 million. The IBM Centre occupies a prime site between the river and Upper Ground east of the National Theatre and west of ITV's London Television Centre. IBM's lease runs for another eight years. The trade press speculates that the site is likely to present a major redevelopment opportunity.[14] This will be featured in the last in the current series of the Apprentice UK.
References
- ^ "The Apprentice - The Board". BBC. Retrieved 2007-05-08.
- ^ "Richlist 2007 - Top football millionaires" (PDF). Times Online. Retrieved 2007-05-08.
- ^ Lewis, Jane. "So just how good is Alan Sugar?". MoneyWeek. Retrieved 2007-03-28.
- ^ "Honorary Graduate Sir Alan Sugar". Brunel University. Retrieved 2007-04-24.
- ^ "Amstrad dumps e-m@iler phone". VNUnet. 2007-06-10. Retrieved 2007-06-10.
- ^ "Alan Sugar". Blogs.com. Retrieved 2007-03-22.
- ^ "Sugar sells Spurs stake for £25m". BBC News. 2007-06-07. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
- ^ "Boardroom blitz! Sir Alan raises the bar as The Apprentice moves to BBC One" (Press release). BBC. 2007-03-20. Retrieved 2007-04-23.
{{cite press release}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Robb, Stephen. "Back in Apprentice's firing line". BBC News. Retrieved 2007-04-27.
- ^ Last, Colleen. "Sir Alan Sugar Speaks". MSN. Retrieved 2007-04-27.
- ^ "Apprentice gets two more series". BBC. Retrieved 2007-05-18.
- ^ "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross: Joely Richardson on the couch" (Press release). BBC - Press Office. 2005-04-29. Retrieved 2007-06-08.
{{cite press release}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help) - ^ "Sir Alan tells Jonathan about The Apprentice and fame" (Press release). BBC - Press Office. 2007-05-11. Retrieved 2007-06-08.
{{cite press release}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help) - ^ "Amstrad boss buys IBM building in £115 million deal". LondonSE1. 2006-09-28. Retrieved 2007-06-08.
Further reading
- David Thomas, "Alan Sugar - the Amstrad Story" (1991), paperback ISBN 0-330-31900-0.
- Alan Sugar, "The Apprentice: How to get hired not fired"
External links
