Up until now only one person (that I've read) has claimed to know whether the winner has a business ready or AS will chose the nature of the new business. That person said the Sugar would chose.

However, from what Melody said in the BR (and Sugar's reaction), two things have become clear.

1) The candidates have their own business plans.
2) Sugar does not know what they are.

Melody stated that she had a good plan waiting.

That implies both of the above points (although, perhaps the second more weakly than the first as she may just have assumed that he would not remember them all.)

I can not imagine AS to put £250.000 in a business that he doesn't know anything about. By this selection process it is clear that AS will select the kind of person he will be in business with but as well he would need to like the business proposal. What happen if he doesn't like the type of business they propose him?

I think when they did the aplication for the program they had to give indications about the type of business they would want to start with ASs money.

Fair point.

Maybe he vetted the applications for the 16 candidates initially but they have been told he does not look at the plans again?

Or maybe Melody was just pointing out that (in her opinion) her plan was good.

It does definitely imply that it will be the candidate's choice of business, though.

Of course Sugar knows all about their business plans, there are no flies on him. He will have been through all of them with a fine tooth comb to see which are the most viable. That is why Tom got off last night. Sugar knows who out of the candidates has the best business plans and is weeding out the weaker ones as the series progresses. It has nothing to do with their performance on the tasks.

I strongly believe that Natasha would have been out the door if she had been in the board room last night.

The main point of the thread is that we now know for certain that it is the winning candidate whose business idea will be used.

Up until last night it was unclear whether that was the case of whether Sugar would come up with the business idea.

Well duh.... It's been clear to me from the beginning that each of the candidates would have put forward a detailed business plan before they got on to the show and that Sugar would have looked at them all in great detail. How could you think differently? He would not risk putting money into a rubbish idea.

It has never been stated by the programme makers and at least one person here stated, as a fact, that Sugar would decide on what the business would be. (I dare say it was as clear to him as your opinion was to you. )

We now have definite evidence that that is not the case.


Can you not understand the alternative possibility: that Sugar had a business in mind and the winner would be expected to implement it with support from Sugar and his advisors?

There were two, distinct, logical, possibilities. From what was said last night, there is now one.

Sorry but I think you are wrong. He is investing in a business and if so, why should he have to make it up and do all the hard work? Sugar is no fool. He's been burned by hiring previous candidates on large salaries who have let him down. Investing £250,000 is a significant saving for him as he won't be employing the winner, just becoming a share holder in what will hopefully be a successful venture, rather like the dragons. Thats the way I see it.

That is the whole point. He wouldn't have to do all the hard work. He could come up with the idea and theen the winner would do all the 'grunt' work.


So you think that he's less likely to get his fingers burned financially by putting up £250,000 of his own money and assets than the £100,000 of the other series (which was paid by the production company anyway.)

An interesting take on things but not one that makes a great deal of sense.

Of course it makes good sense. It is expensive to hire people on six figure salaries (plus perks/pensions etc) and not so easy to get rid of them if they are no good. Investing £250,000 is not a lot of money if the business really takes off. He will be a share holder and will get a large percentage of the profits.

Don't know why you are so desperate to prove me wrong. It says at the beginning of the programme that Sugar is going to invest in their business.

From the Stylist
Glenn says:

Hi Natalie, as Nick said on You're Fired, I believe Lord Sugar has had bad experience in the past with engineers in business. I hope to prove him wrong. My idea of what I would have done if I had won is still a secret for now but may be put into action in the future.


That sounds like he has to provide an idea. He also writes there he may change it for apps or some other thing he has learned on the tasks.
It seems to me that most would go for any idea what LS would come up with if they get 250K

This is what I posted in another thread


Shugs does know about the business plans they propose. There is no way he is going to give up 250K of his money without doing his research.

It's quite amusing how you keep coming back trying to make the case that $250k is less exposure for Sugar than £100k that was paid by the production company anyway.

We know nothing about perks but we do know that the employment was a one year contract - and thus no pension would be involved.


As he's getting a 50% stake he would get 50% of the profits.


LOL, where does desperation come in?

You are being pointlessly argumentative over a snippit of information that came out in last night's episode that cleared up a small matter that people had been speculating about during the course of the series.


It says it will be their business. It did not make it clear that it would be their idea.

I gleaned two other vital pieces of information from the Paris episode:

1. The French really do like their children. They did buy a lot of child safety seats.

2. The French do drive. There did seem to be a lot of traffic in Paris.

Of course it will have to be their idea. ACU is correct - that is exactly what I have been thinking from day 1. Take a look at barbar's post about Glenn and HIS idea.

Several people have been thinking that from day one. It's the obvious thing to assume.

But some people have questioned it and one poster actually stated that that wasn't the case.

I just made this thread because, now, we have pretty concrete confirmation that it will be what most expected.

Nothing more than that.

Again, you seem to be wanting to argue just for the sake of it.

OP as Rachel; "You can't leave something like that to chance!"

LAS as Harvey; "I don't, i make my own luck".

In no way, absolutely no way, would LAS leave something like this to chance, especially with £250k on it. He would have studied the plans and the businesses meticulously beforehand. I would say there are at least 2 he likes, i would be flabberghasted if he liked all 12 contestants businesses, considering some of the reasons some of them have been fired. Just pawns to knock off as the numbers decrease and the desirables need saving.

Dont forget - its not HIS money - its part of the production costs for the series - so it is, in effect, OUR money!!

Shame we don't get a cut

I would imagine he knows already what their business plans are.

I can think of no other reason why Tom is still there.

Its not that clear, because if he knows the business plans and wants one or two its far from clear what the series is for. If you have the best proposal and perform poorly and still win, what was the point of the tasks?

They have at least to maintain the fiction that he does not know, and if sustaining that is too difficult or impossible, they might well decide that he wouldn't be told.

That of course risks him picking a final two or 4 with no good ideas.But if he does know, how does that not come out, and make him look bad, at some point.

First and foremost its an entertainment program. Its not there for Shugs to find a good business partner.

Well, that's clearly the BBC's motivation.

I think Sugar's motivation is mainly to get people interested in business.

He seems to have a real chip on his shoulder when it comes to people who are more (formally) educated than he is and I think that's why he would like to see people in business having a higher status. (Although whether that is being achieved by TA is another matter. If people in business are typified by the 16 'top young business talents' we see each year I can't see it doing much for the image of business people.)

The bit in bold is true. He wants to show people how easy it is to setup a business - this is according to his tweets.

As for the show doing that. I dont think it does. The candidates dont really come across as that bright. The first series was the only series where we had several candidates who were very good. Ever since we have only had the one or two. The US apprentice does have a higher quality of candidates. You always get the odd nutjob, but on the whole they do seem more 'business educated'.

Just to re-iterate something, when Edna was fired, the following morning on Breakfast TV, she let slip that the '£250,000' is actually spread over a 3 year term.