Top 25 self-made millionaire entrepreneurs who started with small sums of money
Many dream of starting a business with a small sum of money and turning it into a million-pound juggernaut. After all, every business has to start somewhere.
And if you are looking for inspiration, there are plenty of British entrepreneurs who have built themselves into household names from relatively small amounts, according to a top 25 list compiled by Start Up Loans, a Government funded scheme to provide advice and business loans to new firms,
Topping that league is Topshop guru Sir Philip Green, who started his business importing jeans from the Far East to sell to London retailers with £20,000.
Small fortune: Philip Green started with £20,000 and is now worth nearly £4billion according to Start Up Loans. Pictured is his flagship Topshop store in Oxford Street, London
Fast forward to today and his estimated fortune is now £3.88billion ,as the owner of Arcadia Group, which encompasses high street chains such as Burton, Miss Selfridge and , of course Topshop.
Making up the rest of the top three is Mike Ashley, owner of Sports Direct, who started with £10,000 and Sir Richard Branson, Virgin mogul, who started with just £300.
Those who started with the least in the list are Lord Sugar, star of BBC’s the Apprentice and Jon Hunt, founder of Foxtons estate agents – both began their business adventures with just £100 capital.
Yasmina Siadatan, director of Start Up Loans, said: ‘This list goes to show what can be achieved with very little start up capital and should act as an inspiration to the next generation of entrepreneurs.
‘There are a number of people out there with great business ideas but little access to finance. Start Up Loans aims to equip enterprising individuals with the tools needed to make their business a success.’
According to Start Up Loans, the rags-to-riches list is based on identifiable wealth, using information available in the public domain.
The list comprises of self-made millionaires, who started their business in the UK with the help of small financial investment and have gone on to achieve notable success in their sector, providing inspiration for would-be entrepreneurs.
We reveal the top 25 below.
Top 25 rags-to-riches entrepreneurs:
1. Sir Philip Green
Estimated fortune: £3.88billion
Sector: Fashion/retail
Start up capital: £20,000
Having initially set up his first business with a £20,000 loan, importing jeans from the Far East to sell on to retailers in London, Green went on to become the owner of the Arcadia Group, which owns well-known high street chains such as Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Outfit, Topshop/Topman and Wallis.
2. Mike Ashley
Estimate fortune: £3.75billion
Sector: Retail/sports equipment/fashion
Start up capital: £10,000
After leaving school at 16, he became a county-level squash coach. In the 1980s Ashley opened his first Sport & Ski shop in Maidenhead, before hitting the big time with Sports Direct which started from a £10,000 loan. It is now a presence across the UK’s high streets.
3. Sir Richard Branson
Estimated fortune: £3.6billion
Sector: Tourism/finance/media
Start up capital: £300
Branson epitomises the self-made entrepreneur. He started off creating a student magazine aged just 16, then in 1970, he founded a mail-order record company – within a year he had opened his first shop on London’s Oxford Street – Virgin Records. Virgin has now become a brand which now covers everything from telecommunications to space tourism.
4. Peter Hargreaves CBE
Estimated fortune: £2.39billion
Sector: Finance
Start up capital: £500
Hargreaves and his business partner Stephen Lansdown began their investment broker business Hargreaves Lansdown from a spare bedroom, with just £500 and their cars as company assets. In 2007, the company was floated on the London stock market valued at £800million. It is now valued at £4.5billion.
5. John Caudwell
Estimated fortune: £1.5billion
Sector: Telecoms
Start up capital: £25,000
In 1987, Caudwell became aware of a new technology – mobile phones. From humble beginnings on a factory production line in Stoke, and running a mail order shop in the Midlands to the UK’s fastest growing company, Caudwell built up the Caudwell Group, which included mobile phone chain Phones4U before netting more than £1billon at its sale in 2006.
6. Sir Charles Dunstone
Estimated fortune: £1.49billion
Sector: Telecoms
Start up capital: £6,000
Charles began selling mobile phones out of his flat and became Europe’s largest independent mobile phone retailer from start up capital of £6,000 via his brand Carphone Warehouse. In July 2000 the company floated on the London Stock Exchange and based on an Issue price of 200p, the company was valued at approximately £1.7billion.
7. Sir Anwar Pervez and family
Estimated fortune: £1.31billion
Sector: Retail
Start up capital: £2,200
Born in Pakistan, the son of a poor farmer, he grew up in a village in Punjab and would walk eight miles to school and back every day. Former bus conductor Pervez built Bestway Cash and Carry and his £1.3billion fortune, from scratch.
8. Chris Dawson
Estimated fortune: £1.28billion
Sector: Retail/fashion
Start up capital: £5,000
Dawson, nicknamed, ‘Plymouth’s deluxe Del Boy’ has shown selling goods from a suitcase can lead to big things, founding The Range (homeware) in 1988. His chain of discount stores made £88million profit in 2014. The group has more than 100 stores nationwide and is worth £1.23billon.
9. Bernard Lewis and family
Estimated fortune: £1.25billion
Sector: Retail/fashion
Start up capital: £25,000
Having opened his first shop aged 20 selling fruit and vegetables in North London, a shop that has been described as being made from corrugated iron and old timber on a bomb site, Bernard Lewis became the entrepreneur behind the River Island fashion brand and clothing chain.
10. Lord Ashcroft
Estimated fortune: £1.2billion
Sector: Business services
Start up capital: £15,000
Lord Ashcroft is an international businessman, philanthropist and politician. Started with a £15,000 bank loan, he sold his company just three years later for £1.3million. Ashcroft’s fortune has since come from many sources including selling home security giant ADT, and in 2011, he sold The Priory clinics for £925millon.
11. Richard Desmond
Estimated fortune: £1.2billion
Sector: Media
Start up capital: £25,000
This self-made media mogul is an English publisher and businessman, who used his entrepreneurial skills to build a media empire which started from a small base with a record shop, and now encompasses the Express Newspapers and various celebrity magazines, such as OK! and New!
12. Lord Graham Kirkham and family
Estimated fortune: £1.15billion
Sector: Retail/furniture
Start up capital: £25,000
Yorkshire Tory peer Lord Kirkham entered the billionaire league in 2010 when he sold his furniture company, DFS. Over 41 years, Kirkham grew the firm, which started above a snooker hall in the outskirts of Doncaster, to 79 stores, three factories and more than 2,600 staff. He is worth a reported £1.1billion.
13. Jon Hunt
Estimated fortune: £1.07billion
Sector: Property/estate agency
Start up capital: £100
Hunt’s property career began at age 19 when he borrowed a £100 deposit to buy a one-bedroom conversion for £4,500. In 1981 Hunt, then aged 28, founded Foxtons with school friend Anthony Pelligrinelli, who put in £30,000 to fund the business in its first year.
14. Sir Brian Souter and Ann Gloag
Estimated fortune: £1billion
Sector: Transport
Start up capital: £12,000
Sir Brian Souter and his sister Ann Gloag – a former bus conductor and former nurse – set-up Stagecoach, the international transport firm, in 1980 with just two vehicles, having spotted a gap in the market for intercity bus services.
15. Lord Sugar
Estimated fortune: £900million
Sector: Technology/property
Start up capital: £100
Having initially started selling car aerials and electrical goods out of a van which he had bought with his savings of £100, Lord Sugar has become one of Britain’s best known entrepreneurs, founding Amstrad in 1968 which specialised in cut-price consumer electronic goods. He is a familiar fixture on television, starring in BBC’s The Apprentice.
16. Steve Morgan OBE
Estimated fortune: £650million
Sector: Construction
Start up capital: £5,000
Working as a site agent for Wellington Civil Engineering when the parent company decided it was to close, Morgan offered to take over the contract, borrowed £5,000 from his father and completed the contract at a profit. Aged just 21, Morgan registered his new company, Redrow, which now employs more than 1,300 people as one of the countries leading housebuilders.
17. JK Rowling OBE
Estimated fortune: £570million
Sector: Books
Start up capital: £1,500
While living on state welfare, Rowling was given a £1,500 advance from her publishers to write Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1995. She was advised by her publishing company to get a day job as financial success for the book was slim.
18. Melvyn Morris
Estimated fortune: £500million
Sector: Online
Start up capital: £5,000
A self-made millionaire, Morris left school at 16 and started a handful of businesses including a Spanish property group and a dating agency. When uDate was sold in 2002, Morris established King, the British and Swedish games studio behind smartphone sensation Candy Crush.
19. Tom Singh OBE
Estimated fortune: £350million
Sector: Retail/Cash and carry
Start up capital: £5,000
Singh initially founded New Look in 1969 following a £5,000 load from his parents. It has grown to become the third largest women’s wear retailer in Britain behind Marks & Spencers and Next, and the second biggest women’s footwear retailer with a chain of over 1,000 stores worldwide.
20. Sukphal Singh
Estimated fortune: £300million
Sector: Transport
Start up capital: £5,000
A refugee from Idi Amin’s Uganda, Sukphal borrowed £5,000 to start Euro Car Parts when he was just 18 after he spotted a gap in the market. He supplied parts for prestige German car brands such as BMW and Mercedes and landed a £225million fortune after selling the company to Chicago-based LKQ Corporation.
21. Rita Sharma
Estimated fortune: £100million
Sector: Travel
Start up capital: £4,000
The richest female Asian entrepreneur in Britain, successful mother and CEO, the college dropout who built up her business from her garage. WorldWide Travels, her travel agency which focuses on bespoke solutions and its web arm, Bestattravel.com had sales of £100million this year.
22. Charlie Mullins
Estimated fortune: £100million
Sector: Plumbing
Start up capital: £25,000
Charlie Mullins was Britain’s first ‘millionaire plumber’. Pimlico Plumbers was started in a basement of a London estate agent in 1979. It now employs 200 people and has an £18million turnover.
23. Charlie Bigham
Estimated fortune: £100million
Sector: Food
Start up capital: £25,000
With £25,000 of savings, Charlie Bigham set up a firm using his name. It is a ready meal business which now employs 200 people across two sites and had sales in the last year of £26million.
24. Sam and Dan Houser
Estimated fortune: £80million
Sector: Gaming/technology
Start up capital: £25,000
The pair grew up near a video library in London watching American crime and cult films and Spaghetti Westerns. In 1998 the Houser brothers founded Rockstar Games and subsequently created Grand Theft Auto, one of the most successful video game franchises of all-time.
25. Linda Bennett OBE
Estimated fortune: £65million
Sector: Fashion
Start up capital: £15,000
Bennett started by first training herself at the Hackney’s Cordwainers College and then went on to practice her trade. With a £15,000 bank loan, Linda Bennett set up her first shop which later became fashion giant LK Bennett making her £65million.
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