every series there's always one candidate that gets "picked" upon ( for the want of a better word

i thought it was gonna be Dan but seeing as he got fired first time in the boardroom
who do you think will be this series fall/guy/woman

For me, Mergim strikes me as someone who might actually be quite competent but has already been shown to say the most idiotic things - "is this an onion?", selling fish to vegans, accusing teammates of ducking the PM role when he had done the same himself etc.

I think it will be Charleine as the others seem to be losing respect for her. Although, I think she seems to be quite a credible candidate, so I hope Lord Sugar doesn't buy it.

Sometimes he starts to listen to the people ganging up on someone, but on occasion (like with Susan Ma) that person manages to convince him that they're worth keeping on.

I think that's entirely possible, although as you say that can work both ways. I don't think Charleine has helped herself by going into a strop when she doesn't get her own way - although the way she was ignored last night was appalling by Selina, who seems to think that she's Superwoman on the basis of having been the winning PM on task 1 despite having done very little herself.

I have my doubts about the attractiveness of Charleine's business plan too. Will Sugar want to invest in a hairdressing business? Scaleable, potentially, but an industry with a high failure rate and not the easiest from which to make a profit from an investors' perspective. Will it ever make enough money to give Sugar a decent return?

I suppose that will depend on how credible the numbers are.

That's my exact concern, George. From my limited knowledge of the industry - and of Charleine's plan - it's hard to see the numbers scaling up unless she has a distinct and winning premium offer. High street premises aren't cheap, employee costs are high (although most are self-employed and I believe the real money is to be made in add-on product sales of ... whatever they actually sell, I have no idea! Cactus-based, maybe?)

That's not to say Charleine can't make a profitable business out of it, but from an investor perspective will Sugar have confidence in how much and how quickly he can make a return (which would have to come out of the business's profit) and will he be happy with the risk/reward/payback period equation?

I view this one as very different to, say, Mark's business (jumping on to a big growth area) or even Leah's, which offered a much higher-value (in £ terms) service, had a fast payback period and a stellar business plan which gave Sugar a very attractive exit strategy. A bank might provide a loan for a hairdressing chain, but a venture capital investor? I don't see it. Many businesses make a lot of sense on their own, but not from an investor's standpoint.

Yeah, I know, looking at the candidates and their plans from a hard-nosed business perspective. I'm so dull ...

No, don't think of yourself as dull! It's great to have some intellectual business analysis on here.

I find some of this a little hard to understand, but I do recall Claude telling Leah that her numbers didn't stack up, and she corrected him, launched into a very clear explanation about how her numbers would work, and proved him wrong. Who's to say that couldn't happen with Charleine?

Don't get me wrong, it could.

But - with my business hat on - I could see how Leah's numbers could stack up far more easily than I can see with Charleine's. Different industries are inherently different in terms of their attractiveness to investors. As an investor, the perfect business plan for Sugar would have a unique proposition, high value (in terms of both sales and profit margin potential), be relatively easy and low-cost to set up (or exit if it all goes wrong), scaleable, in a high growth space, short-term payback (5 years or less, ideally) and so on. And, of course, a credible front-person and business plan.

Last year, Mark ticked all those boxes, with the unique proposition being him and his 'fame' of being on the show, rather than the business being particularly unique. Despite being unpopular, he was clearly a credible candidate from the early stages in terms of his selling skills.

Leah ticked almost all of the boxes. Unique? Arguable. But certainly high value and margin, a bit on the high side in terms of set-up cost but scaleable and in a huge growth area. And the business plan was excellent - as well as being vastly superior to Luisa's.

With Charleine, my initial assessment is less positive (based on admittedly limited info so far). It's a very crowded and competitive market space, sales and profit margins are okay but not spectacular. Unique? I remain to be convinced. High growth? Absolutely not. Payback period? I don't see how any hair salon type business can return a £250k investment that quickly unless it's fronted by a 'name' from the industry, which Charleine isn't.

In many ways, I think it's too safe a plan. It would be a decent proposition for someone seeking a bank loan. But as an investor-type investment, I'm in the 'dubious' camp for now.

Every instinct I have says this one's just not interesting enough for Sugar, even though it could easily be a viable business and Charleine herself could prove to be an excellent candidate (although I don't see it yet). There's a world of difference between a good plan and an attractive, investable one.

Interesting. From what we've seen, who do you think is most likely to win?

Weirdly, I think Elle might turn out to have more to her than we've seen so far. She's just got something about her which makes me think she may actually be quite bright.

I don't really know so far - I need to find out more about the business plans so far. I'm dubious about Richard - I thought he was an excellent PM last night (notwithstanding David's scathing comment about him) but I wonder if he is proposing a plan that is too close to Mark's from last year.

The one thing that has occurred to me is that, after three years in a row in which Sugar has opted for a service-based business, whether he will be determined to revert to his more comfortable zone of investing in a product business. Of course, there has to be an attractive enough plan to enable him to do that first. I'm generally dubious about any product-based plan, unless it's truly innovative I don't see many me-too product-led plans offering an attractive enough return.

I don't think it will be Richard, because in the opening boardroom Lord Sugar was quite scathing about the way his plan was laid out. I don't think they'd have kept that in if he was going to win.

Also, I think that this year will have a woman winner, just because Leah is the only one since the change of format and they like to keep it reasonably balanced.

I think that's a fair working assumption.