She wasn't rude. The website design team thought she should win the thing as she was competent. and seemed as fed up with Jason wasting their time as Luisa was. Leah actually put suppliers off by treating them as she did. Alex just told Jason to shut up when he rambled with him. Neil just showed he was angry and sacked him as PM. Lord Sugar is hardly a shrinking violet himself.

I was referring to an earlier episode, not her appalling display during the dating task.

Turnover means nothing. You can turnover £1.5m and still lose money.

The two businesses that Luisa said had the highest turnover (£1.5m and c.£480,000) are both unincorporated and unregistered.

Thus, it would be difficult for Claude or anyone else to independently verify her claims.

The only business she has incorporated is the cupcake business which surprise, surprise, is also the one she with the lowest turnover of just over £100,000 mentioned in the interview.

"Peter Jones meets" episode where he met the people who make bath bombs - they sold out their first business to The Body Shop for £8 million, and went all website / mail order - they lost the whole £8 million and more. Each order lost them over £1. They had huge turnover but no profits.

http://www.bfpwholesale.com/sites/de...s_2013_web.pdf

Just found this from website of one of the existing bakery wholesalers.

Of course, the goodwill of the business, being internally generated, won't be shown on the balance sheet so what the latest accounts show doesn't necessarily equate to the true worth of the business. How much gets paid out to the shareholders in salary, dividends, pension contributions and the like?

Sorry to ask this - I have tried to check on various threads and Google etc - but could anyone enlighten me as to Luisa's online electronics business? The one with a £1.4m turnover? I can't find hide nor hair of it...

The thread is here : http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...pprentice+ebay

And the shop is here : http://stores.ebay.co.uk/General-Trading-Store

It sells a mixture of consumer goods and (surprise surprise) cup-cake making things. If that is the "4th biggest consumer electronics seller on eBay in Europe" and has a turnover of £ 1.4m I would be very surprised.

In theory you could have an unincorporated and unregistered business but it would mean an awful lot of personal liability once you got to £1.5million turnover. I suspect HMRC would be also interested.

And if you register as a company other companies are much happier dealing with other registered companies rather than an individual. There's also a whole range of things companies can do to reduce tax liability that aren't available to individuals. That is why a lot of celebs have their own companies that filter the money through to them.

Finally, a lot of banks will close your account if you are using a personal account for business. (A sole trader can get a business bank account but it's much harder to explain to the bank due to the lack of information requirements).

So, it's possible Luisa has unregistered businesses somewhere, but it sounds dodgy.

But then if you are raking it in, why do you want £ 250 k from Lord Alan...?

As Lord Sid himself said - to get his 'little black book of contacts' to access the supermarkets. At the moment it looks like Luisa may be a big fish in a little pond - she wants to go big time.

True, but I think she is a little fish in a little pond.

I thought so too, but someone had mentioned on the other thread that there were no registration details on their websites.

After some nosing around, I found a VAT number for The Baker Shop on Amazon. However, when I tried to do the same for General Trading Store (alleged turnover £1.4m), I discovered that GTS is merely a shopfront for various other sellers on Amazon and therefore no detailed seller info on GTS was available.

I wonder if GTS has a high turnover figure because it includes sales by other sellers through its Amazon platform?

Many thanks for that Joel, you're a star. I am baffled as to how Luisa has got away with this - her 'electronics business' is an ebay shop that doesn't sell any electronics (none of the links to those goods actually work) so consequently the BIB is another blatant lie from her. And as you say, if she could really turn over £1.4m per year just from cupcake accessories (all of which will have a huge profit margin) it's difficult to understand why she's going to LS for £250k.

I've been unhappy about some people progressing on or even winning The Apprentice before, but never have I felt so disappointed in what to me is a glaring, obvious fix...

Edited to add: After a couple more tries, I got through to a page selling six whole items, all miscellaneous faulty/refurbished/returned iPods, headphones and docks. I take it all back. Clearly Luisa is not satisfied with killing Comet and HMV, her electronics empire will destroy ALL who stand in her way. Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha, etc.

They have found this http://companycheck.co.uk/company/07549184, although the liabilities do somewhat exceed the assets/cash! It says there is one owner, but it is not part of a group. She doesn't mention it on LinkedIn, so it may not be hers.

She has The General Trading Store as her Ebay sales operation, although that looks like a sole owner operation and so, there is no financial record available publicly.

Her shop is Dixie's Cupcakery, which is two years old, likewise apparently owned as a sole proprietor.

Her project is the The Baker Shop, which is 21 months old and whose site is currently down.

I take the view that Sugar will pick her and then declare that later negotiations didn't work out or the paperwork isn't what she claims.

I cannot see how she can claim to be turning over £2m - esp as none of these businesses (except GTS as Frally says) have a VAT number, which you need for t/o of about £100K.

You've got me at it now. I see that a Lady Louisa Christina Zissman is registered as having a company.

That's a good point. If she's making millions (or even just a million) HMRC would be quick to ask her about VAT.

Mrs L. Zissman is shown as Company Secretary and Board Member of Boutique Trading Ltd, but this doesn't establish she is actually in control of the company.

I think her business empire is either her dads/husbands business empire, or it doesn't really exist outside her house. Lord Alan fired Tre for not having a business empire outside his bedroom. I wonder why Luisa is still in...?

The only angle I come up with is that she is one of the only two credible business plans left. That doesn't say much for this "process".

Interesting the Baker Shop has shut-down. it was fine yesterday, if the news was a little dated. Good think I didn't order my cup-cake supplies from a here today/gone tomorrow operation. The good people of St Albans should be happy that http://dixiescupcakery.co.uk/ is still going. She is tweeting about her Baker Shop at the moment. Perhaps someone should tell her that her shop is down...?

I do find it hard to believe she has the 4th largest Electrical retailer on Ebay, what about the Cannon, Sonny and many other major brands who have refurb shops on ebay? or is she saying "only European and not a global company?

If you're turning over £1.4m at little or no profit, you're not going to have £250k just lying around. To be fair, though, I think it's pretty obvious - and one of Nick and Karren (I forget which) raised this very point - that what Luisa is really after is Sugar's little black book of contacts.

From an investor's point of view, I find Luisa's credibility as a potential business partner shaky based on all the evidence above. It's not necessarily as damning as some have made out, but it would certainly be a cause for concern which merits deeper investigation. At the very least, Sugar would demand Luisa opens the books on all three of her businesses.

And, of course, the fact that she is already running three businesses is also a concern. Will he get 100% of her focus in this new venture?

It was Margaret; interestingly, Claude disagreed and thought it was about the money.

Margaret -- What she wants is your black book of contacts, so you can ring up supermarkets.
Lord Sugar -- Quite rightly so; I can get on the phone.
Claude -- Alan, it's your cheque book she wants; I don't think your black book is of particular interest to her.
Lord Sugar -- I'm not going to spend hundreds of thousands on hundreds and thousands.

Thanks! I remembered Sugar's joke at the end but not the exact details of the conversation that preceded it. Reality probably is she wants a bit of both. I don't think there's any doubt that having Sugar's name (and contacts) behind you is going to be beneficial, even if it's just to get that first foot in the door. He is, after all, pretty well connected in both business and political circles.

First of all, I very much enjoy your blogs and TV reviews, thank you for those.

I think you misread my original post judging by the BIB - Luisa will (or at least should) be making very healthy profits on her eBay business if this £1.4m turnover figure is to be believed. Disregarding the 'electronics' side of the site, which seems to be little more than a scam to grab Lord Sugar's attention, both the baking and beauty departments should yield high mark-ups due to the nature of the products. The latter particularly so, as I am reliably informed by my wife that the prices are expletive-deleted outrageous.

However, the eBay shop itself is very poorly designed and maintained, and simple price comparisons on eBay show almost without exception that one can get the exact same items cheaper from other vendors. I call shenanigans...

Ah, sorry. Some really interesting observations about Luisa's website there - thanks. You're right, bakery and beauty should be high margin - especially if she is overpricing! Of course, we don't really understand whether her operating costs are that efficient, but I would assume (in the absence of actual knowledge) that she's doing enough to at least draw a wage from the business, although I'd be amazed if she was super-profitable, as these eBay businesses rarely are.

A contestant exaggerating the size/success their business? That would never happen, surely?

Could be that she still has it as she is the founding director according to https://www.duedil.com/company/07549...rading-limited However, it does not have enough current assets to cover its current liabilities, which means it is in trouble and is only kept afloat by some Fixed Assets. It is registered in Milton Keynes, so she may have sold it or is trying to hide it.

I cannot see how they can doing much as my local cupcake business gives you boxes like those with the product, which they could not afford to do at those prices.

I believe that Boutique Trading Ltd is the company that trades as Dixiescupcakey as the t/o figures are closest to what she quoted in the interviews ('just over £100k').

Yes, it's acid test or quick ratio (current assets/current liabilities) says 'extreme caution' even when you compare it to the baking goods sector average. Moreover, Its debt/net worth ratio is off the scale when compared to the sector.

So basically, her company is carrying too much short term debt.