Sir Alan Sugar

Alan Michael Sugar was born on 24 March 1947, the son of a tailor. He attended Brooke House School in London but left at 16 and was briefly a civil service statistician.

It wasn’t long before Alan Sugar went into business selling products such as cigarette lighters and intercoms. He then founded Amstrad (Alan - Michael - Sugar - Trading) in 1968, the same year that he married his wife, Ann.

In 1980 Amstrad was listed on the London Stock Exchange. Amstrad as a company doubled in both profit and market value every year throughout the 1980s. By 1984, realising the opportunity of the computing era, Amstrad launched an 8-bit machine Amstrad CPC 464. He then went on to controversially purchase the football club Tottenham Hotspur! Unforuntately this turned sour and Alan went on to describe the time he spent at Spurs “a waste of my life”.

At its peak Amstrad achieved a stock market valuation of £1.2 billion, but the nineties proved a troubled time. In 1997 Amstrad divided into Betacom and Viglen. Sir Alan Sugar’s business empire was (as at 2005) estimated to be worth £700 million and he was 25th on The Times Richlist in 2004.

In 1993, Sir Alan founded Amsair Executive Aviation, a British private aircraft charter company that provides business jet and executive jet charters. His son, Daniel Sugar, runs the business. As with Amstrad, Amsair’s name is also taken from Sir Alan’s initials.

Alan Sugar was knighted in 2000.

In 2005 Sir Alan entered the world of television when he tested 14 possible candidates for a six figure salary position in his company. The BBC TV series was named The Apprentice, after Donald Trump’s successful US show.