No, he couldn't. The company is successful but relatively small (about £3.5m turnover pa, I believe). Tom said in the final he needs to raise £25m to get his hedge fund off the ground - which, in these terms, is still pretty small.

As I understand it, Tom's investment strategy for the hedge fund is basically the same as he currently uses to make his wine investments - and successfully so. That's his track record. Where he lacks experience (as does Sugar) is in the financial and legal intricacies of setting up the hedge fund, as was identified by Claude. But I know of at least one interested party (a friend of a friend) who has already expressed an initial interest in helping to do exactly this. You can't see why anyone would want to invest in Tom - but I know of someone who is. It may never happen, but there IS interest out there. And now that he has appeared in the final, even though he lost, the exposure will undoubtedly help him attract investors now.

Before The Apprentice, Tom was nobody to potential City investors. Now, because he has been on TV, he has some leverage - or at least awareness.

But if his current investments are so successful, he should be able to trade on his track record to get new money.
From what I've seen, only a mug would invest in a wine "hedge" fund run by a 23 year old whose claim to fame is being the housewives' favourite in the latest Apprentice.

I thought it was his company, that he set up on his own, and it prove so successful his dad asked to join it.

Regardless, the panel made it clear that finding the investment capitol would be hard.

No, his dad set up the company in 1997 and Tom joined it in Sept 2009.

He said in the boardroom he'd been running the company for some time before his father joined.

Was a bit puzzled by the conflicting versions myself. I'm sure that on The Final 5 it talked about him joining the family wine company. Suppose he could then have started his own which took over from the family one.

You're effing joking aren't you? a cold call farm, just what we need!!!! She was useless I could have put a better plan together in an hour, it was a terrible, child like, business plan.

Although dubious morally, I suspect it would have made money.


I thought they were exaggerating how bad it was. For example, she did have costings, and knew how quickly she'd get through the £250k. She'd thought it though more than she'd been given credit form, even if she'd needed some help with the written plan itself.