I certainly don't . That's why Ricky and Jade don't stand a chance .

He'll go with either Tom or Nick.

I believe LS will find wine too risky, unknown territory and that's why Nick is a more certain bet.

How do we know what the business plans are?

How do you know what their ideas are?

We don't know if Tom's idea has anything to do with wine. Plus no idea what Ricky and Jade's are - but I dont think we can say they are anymore untested than the other two

Nick's probably the only one we can be sure has to do with technology and the internet

The Sun says Nick's business idea is an "internet scheme". No indication what the other proposals are.

In fact seems like nick's already tweeted his business idea:

https://twitter.com/#!/nickholzherr

And besides 250 k is less than 1% of Sugar's net worth - so either way , his Lordship is hardly sweating this....

Remember the quote " I didn't get where i am today...."

That was 800 million quid ago : now surely he can afford to enjoy such frivolities .Bet flying Elton John into his Chigwell home for a private gig cost a heap more!

He's worth millions, its just pocket money to LS.

How does your logic work? Tom and Nick were the new, untried ideas.

Asking Sugar to invest £250k is like asking me to invest £5. Hardly a big deal.

Wine is a more uncertain territory than an online venture? I don't think so. Tom's idea is difficult to understand for anyone who doesn't have an appreciation of how financial markets work. I have a limited knowledge of them, but I have spoken to a friend who works in the City, who tells me that not only could it work but that wine investment is a big area of interest at the moment. Why? Because traditional asset investments like property are so down in the dumps at the moment. Wine is booming, with the growing interest from new markets such as Asia. Make no mistake: Tom's idea was definitely risky, but he was not lying when he said there is a lot of demand for it.

Are these the same people who invested in the dot.com bubble, facebook or decided that the investments that practically brought down the western world's banking system were a good idea.

I'd rather invest in Tulips
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tu...ice_index1.svg


Get is fast, get out quick and you will make money but if you say that it is already flavour of the month then it's already too late to get in fast.

Before I start, let me say that (a) I don't work in the City, nor have I ever done and (b) I don't excuse some of the idiotic, near-criminal or indeed actual criminal behaviour which has often taken place in financial markets - as it does in all walks of life.

But your sweeping generalisation is a bit on the facile side. On the whole, financial markets generate considerable national wealth - although obviously not so much in the last few years. Is the global banking system a good thing? On the whole, yes it is.

Of course there have been errors, but for every catastrophe like the dotcom bubble there have been a tthousand good investments which have boosted the national wealth and helped to support our pensions - these people run all our pension funds, folks - and private investments. There are a lot of very intelligent, hard-working and honest people in the City who do a lot to make all our lives a bit better off (and, sadly, a privileged few a lot better off). Condemning them all as stupid is a bit silly, really.

All I've done is to confirm that there is a lot of interest in this sort of thing at the moment. Where there's interest there's investment. Is is a guaranteed success? Of course not - nothing in life is and there is considerable risk attached to any hedge fund, not just this one. But anyone who dismisses Tom's idea as stupid just because they don't understand it, or who sees Ricky's business plan as "a sure thing" - certain, no; safer, yes - needs to appreciate that there is no black and white when it comes to investments, merely shades of grey.

Sugar's no Roman Abramovich, though. £250,000 is a relatively small proportion of his net worth, but it's hardly an insignificant amount. I doubt Sugar got to where he is today by flinging his money about carelessly.

He is worth £770m approx, so £250k is 0.032% of his wealth.

That's about the same as me venturing £40.

The wine idea was way off. No way would LS be responsible for 25 million. Nick's idea I think has already been once on dragons den or something similar. But there they had already negotiated with the supermarkets for them to put their recipe's on their website.
Jade's idea seemed similar to Helen's last year.
Ricky was going to do something that he already does for another company. That company wont just let him get 'away' with it. They most likely already have their site set up and its not that easy to improve on one. I cant see where LS comes in. Its not his line at all.
I suppose LS thought this was the 'cheapest' way out for him.

LS wouldn't be responsible for £25m. He would have an investment in a company that was, big difference.

A lot of that is probably down to fixed assets though. And besides, one bad (very public) investment could cost him his credibility which will be worth a lot more than £250k down the line.

Sugar is probably investing nothing in reality. How much do the Beeb pay him for doing the show?

Hedge funds are entirely different. They are not about investment in actual firms or bonds - the money goes nowhere real and exists in a market of its own divorced from the real economy and real stockmarkets. Its not used - its laid down as a bet. They are about gambling on prices - in amounts totally unrelated to the real economy and events to which they are loosely related. They serve no useful economic purpose. They do divert and destroy resources that otherwise would be engaged in the real economy employing people and they amke the real stockmarkets more volatile. They do make some people incredibly rich - as do bookies - but they also produce massive indebtedness, massive losses and massive recessions like this one. Ideally they would all be banned - the problem is that it would take global agreement to do that and no one is willing to lose money in the fantasy economy while other countries are still trying to make it.

The deal was that Tom would egt hsi name - supported by Lord sugar - as a way to add to his credibility. The inevitable result was that when Tom lost people's 25 million Lord sugar would be associated and blamed.

The deal was even worse because the evidence of the series was, that when Tom did make a risk decision, he got it wrong, and when he needed to understand what tasks were all about he got it wrong 4 weeks in a row, You wouldn't back a horse with that record, let alone your reputation.

LS could raise £250k quicker than you or I could raise £50.

But i agree about his reputation.

That exactly what I thought when watching it. I was thinking maybe he wanted to quit the show Shen he didn't want to give people jobs as a reward but the BBC talked him out if it and it's us licence payers that invest to £250K instead of the Lord