Duncan Bannatyne says business is so easy that ‘anyone can do it’. He tells Exec about the Navy, his passion for acting and
building a £200 million fortune.
By James Hurley
“I didn’t like the presentation. I don’t like the product. And I don’t like you, so I’m out.”
So said Duncan Bannatyne to a trio of hapless would be entrepreneurs seeking reality television’s answer to angel finance in the current series of BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den. Admittedly, the product wasn’t the strongest the ‘dragons’ – a disparate cross section of some of Britain’s wealthier business people – will have ever been presented with, but was a dismissal of this ferocity really warranted?
After all, this is man who called his autobiography Anyone Can Do It, a man who rose from a working class upbringing in Clydebank, Glasgow and a serial entrepreneur with an unshakeable belief in the restorative and meritocratic qualities of enterprise.
Breaking the law
The Bannatyne that appears on Dragon’s Den contrasts with the Bannatyne I meet - he enjoys sharing his success story in the hope that it will inspire others. Now one of the richest men in Britain, Bannatyne has an intriguing background. He didn’t even begin to build his estimated £200 million fortune until he was 31.
Indeed, on leaving school at 15 with no qualifications, his first port of call was the navy. What was looking like developing into a lengthy career ended dramatically, when, four years in, Bannatyne was court martialled and sentenced to nine months in Colchester barracks for threatening to throw his commanding officer overboard.
I’ve heard various versions of the reasons behind his dishonourable discharge – including, fancifully, for a £10 bet, so I’m pleased that he’s wiling to clear it up. “I’d spent two nights ashore camping – I was boxing at the time, so to keep fit we’d climb and walk. As I came back, my commanding officer was passing me on the gangway. He was drunk and showing off in front of his girlfriend, poking me with his torch to move aside.
Protocol dictated that he should have waited at the top of the ship before he came down – what he was doing was stupid. We had a few words and I picked him up and hung him over the side of the aircraft carrier. I was going to throw him over, but he got pulled back.”
Keeping it simple
After serving six months of his sentence, he arrived home penniless and signed on the dole. Following four years spent working as a welder and a subsequent move south of the border, a training course led him to the Channel Islands, where he would spend a significant portion of his twenties...
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