Born in Berkshire, England

So it is the month of October and this month our business personality is Mr Peter Jones. He was born in 1966 and raised in Berkshire (England). At the age of seven he often went to his father's office in Windsor as he loved sitting in his dad’s big chair and pretending to be in charge of a big company, even though it was a small office and just his dad. He’s parents wanted the best and sent him to private school. It was financially crippling for them to send him there and moreover he did not even like it and found it very different from what he was used to. So at the age of eight he left, spending the rest of his school years in state schools. Both his parents worked full-time for over 50 years to provide the family with as much as they could. He wanted to do the best he could and always believed in himself to become a millionaire one day. And that he is today with an estimated wealth of £250 million. He appeared on the hit Television show Dragon’s Den. This is a UK show where budding entrepreneurs pitch their idea in front of 5 eager investors. Mr Peter Jones also went on to host his Television show, Tycoon. We will concentrate on this reputable business man further on this month, so keep watching this space.

BSkyB to sell its ITV shares

It has been confirmed by the Competition watchdogs that BSkyB's ownership of a 17.9% stake in broadcaster ITV restricts competition and "operates against the public interest". The group now faces the prospect of having to sell down its stake, which it acquired for £940 million last November.

BSkyB’s move in buying ITV shares caused controversy by Virgin Media's ITV merger plans, and sparked fire with Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson. The final decision on what action should be taken will be made by Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Secretary John Hutton. BSkyB's last annual report placed a carrying value of £795 million on the ITV holding.

Commission chairman Peter Freeman said: "The acquisition has made BSkyB ITV's largest shareholder by some margin and, whilst our provisional view is that this would not necessarily affect day-to-day operations, BSkyB would be able to influence ITV's key strategic decisions, particularly relating to investment, whether in content, capacity or new technology. As a pay-TV operator, BSkyB faces competition from the free-to-air TV offer, of which ITV is an important part. BSkyB would therefore have both the ability and incentive to take advantage of opportunities to weaken ITV or prevent it from taking actions that would threaten BSkyB's interests."

BSkyB is 39% owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. (source: Yahoo News)

Yesterday, Ebay the famous internet auction site, admitted that it had overpaid hugely for Skype, the internet telephone company. It also said that Niklas Zennstrom, Skype’s founder, would step down as Skype’s chief executive to become non-executive chairman. He has resigned from the role before his permanent successor has been hired. The online auctioneer has cut bonuses due to Mr Zennstrom and others by 60% because it was so disappointed by the Skype’s performance.

EBay bought Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion. Yesterday it warned shareholders that it would have to take an impairment charge of $900 million (£450 million) because it had valued the group too highly two years ago. At the time of the deal, eBay said it would pay a maximum earn-out bonus of $1.7 billion based on various performance targets. Yesterday, it said that it would pay just $530 million in cash to the Skype founders in the only and last payment of its kind.

An eBay spokesman said: “Skype has not performed as well as we would have hoped. And we are disappointed about the impairment charge. But we still believe Skype to be an extremely valuable asset.” Skype allows users to talk to each other online, through their computer, as if they were on the telephone. While calls between Skype users are free, the company makes money by charging for calls made from Skype to ordinary landlines and mobile phones. (source: Timesonline)

News for the weekend

JJB Sports' chief executive is planning changes to the chain after admitting that his daughters could find "nothing to buy outside footwear" in the company's shops. The company reported a 38% fall in pre-tax profits to £11.2 million on sales of £365.3 million, down 4.3%.

Mr Ronnie, chief executive admitted: "If I go into one of our shops with my daughters, who are 18 and 21, they won't buy anything in our stores, other than footwear. We need to capitalise on the younger consumer. What we are doing at the moment is we are missing trends."

Mr Ronnie wants to increase the proportion of own-brand sales to 25% from around 5%. He admitted that the company had been over-reliant on sales of replica kit and said “I want the company to be in a position to perform regardless of whether England qualifies for the European football championships next year.” Last year's figures were boosted by heavy sales of replica kit in the run-up to and during the World Cup, despite England's performance. (source: Independent)

A fee of £80 million is likely to be paid to advisers on the Barclays €67.5 billion (£47 billion) bid for ABN Amro. The biggest losers, if ABN does reject Barclays, as most analysts expect, will be the six investment banks advising on the deal. Banking sources believe that the advisers stand to lose at least £400 million and possibly as much as £800 million in fees. These banks are BarCap, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Cazenove, Deutsche Bank and Lazards. If the deal fails, these investment banks will also lose out in the City’s all-important mergers and acquisitions league tables for this year.

ABN shareholders will decide on Thursday whether to accept the Barclays bid or the €71.1 billion offer from the RBS consortium. ABN and Barclays entered into exclusive negotiations in March but a month later RBS contacted the Dutch bank to indicate its own interest. (source: Timesonline)

Tesco, the supermarket giant will reveal that sales at Tesco Direct, have soared by 25% compared with the same period last year, since the launch of a 1,000-page catalogue earlier this month. The group, which reports interim results this week, is also expected to announce that Laura Wade-Gery, chief executive of its online grocery division Tesco. com, will become chief executive of Tesco Direct as well, replacing Steve Robinson who left earlier this month.

Tesco is also expected to confirm that it will roll out Tesco Direct internet kiosks in 10 new nonfood Homeplus stores planned for the UK. The retailer believes that placing Tesco Direct online kiosks within stores will prove a winning combination. (source: Timesonline)

A new feature is set to be introduced on the highly successful Facebook in order for users to group their friends and control the information they see, in a move that puts it in competition with some of the start-ups that have been developing applications for the wildly-popular social networking site.

In May this year, Facebook opened up its site for developers to create applications that work within it. Companies that build applications get immediate access to a potential user base of the site's 43m active users. The most popular of these applications is Slide's Top Friends, which allows users to access their best friends more easily. It could be rendered useless by the new feature.

Michael Arrington notes on technology blog TechCrunch: "This will shut down at least one 'start-up' we've been tracking that was creating this exact feature as an application." More than 40,000 developers have requested data from Facebook to create applications. Almost 5,000 applications have launched.

Facebook has created a $10m (£5m) fbFund to pay software developers to build new applications, raised by the site's primary backers Accel Capital and The Founders Fund. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is thought to be negotiating the sale of a minority stake in the company to Microsoft for $500m (£245m), valuing Facebook at $10bn. Google is also said to be interested in the site. (source: Telegraph)

Month End for Mr David Gold

Mr Gold, chairman of Gold Group International, that owns the lingerie chain Ann Summers and Knickerbox as well as Gold Air International, Birmingham City Football Club and newspapers started his business in a small shop. He sold magazines and newspapers and sometimes had to sleep in this little shop. He always kept it open till late even though the law forbid that. He started to negotiate with comic suppliers to sell comics at good rates and also started to sell adult magazines as it proofed to be selling very quickley in those days.

He used this shop in Charring Cross (London) to begin his empire, later on by out Ann Summers and hand the Chief Executive position to his daughter, Jacqueline Gold.

Mr Gold is co-owner with Brother Ralph Gold and at school Mr David Gold had to look out for his brother. He missed a chance to play for his favourite football team West Ham United due to his father not wanting to sign permission for him to play. He now flies to work in one of his helicopters owned by Gold Air International. Gold Air International is an exclusive private airline to fly business people and celebrities to their required destinations. The Gold family is worth £500 million.

I am facinated by Mr Gold and his whole life story. His book is the ultimate Rags to Riches tale and is highly recommend. I have signed copy of his book and if anyone is interested in owning a copy of this book (not available in book shops) then please contact me by posting a comment with your contact details and I will send you my singed copy free of charge.

Here are links to the articles on The Month of Mr David Gold (our business personality for September:

End of month Bannatyne - September Businessman

From button sellor to Gold Group International

Typical Day for Mr David Gold

For the month of October, our business personality is Mr Peter Jones, owner and founder of Phones International Group founded in 1998, providing mobile cellular solutions to a broad range of clients. So keep wathcing the entrepreneur for more on Mr Peter Jones.

Virgin 1 to be launched

The launch of Sir Richard Branson’s first Virgin-branded television channel was celebrated by 200 guests at Sir Richard’s Oxfordshire home. There was a fairground and the inclusion of a flight simulator among the attractions.

Virgin 1, a male-skewed entertainment channel, offering US imports and attention-grabbing factual shows, is Sir Richard’s new step towards the battle with BskyB. The latter company is 39.1% owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times.

About 40,000 subscribers (see article on the 09/09/07) have left Virgin Media since BSkyB pulled its basic channels, including Sky One and Sky News, from Virgin Media in a row over fees. Sir Richard is still fighting over BSkyB’s 17.9% stake in Britain’s ITV which blocked his £5 billion takeover bid.

Virgin 1, which will launched on Monday, will have a budget of £40 million ($80 million). Sir Richard commented on the feud with Sky that “If you have a gun held to your head and give in the first time around, it is likely you will get a gun to your head a second time. Sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand.” Sir Richard said: “hoped the competition authorities would settle the dispute with BSkyB in his favour. As for ITV, watch this space”, when questioned if a future bid for the broadcaster was a possibility.

Launch highlights include The Riches, an Emmy-nominated US drama starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a television spin-off from the Terminator films. The channel will rely on hours of Star Trek and Seinfeld repeats in its opening year. Sir Richard also said that British Airways, his arch rival in the transatlantic wars, had won the battle to become the first advertiser on the service. Virgin Media expects the new channel, aimed at men aged 25 to 54, to be among the top ten multi-channels by 2012. (source: Timesonline)

Poor sugar trading and currency pressures have allowed shares in Tate & Lyle to fall by 25%. Tate & Lyle will report a loss for the six months to September 30, 2007, against a £15 million gain in the comparable period after sugar prices fell during a August. It is understood that the weakness of the US dollar ($1 - £2) will impact profits by as much as £12 million ($24 million). Their corporation tax has also been increased from the average 30% to 34% following a restructure of the business when it sold of its European cereal sweeteners business.

Commenting on future trading, Tate & Lyle said "given the importance of these factors, the board views the near term outlook with caution."

British Airways $8.2 billion dollar order

In a major fleet replacement programme in nearly a decade, British Airways placed an $8.2 billion (£4.1 billion) order for 61 new aircraft, including its first order for Airbus's A380 superjumbo that can carry up to 853 passengers. This includes 12 Airbus A380 superjumbo’s and 24 of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner craft. British Airways has also taken options to buy a further seven Airbus superjumbos and 18 Dreamliners. Although the airline said the new fleet are worth $8.2 billion (£4.1 billion), City analysts believe the price agreed will probably be about £3 billion because of the size of the order. The order fits with the airline's anticipated capital expenditure plans of £900 million per year

The new planes, will be delivered between 2010 and 2014, and will be used to replace 34 existing long haul planes, mostly Boeing 747s. Willie Walsh, BA's chief executive, said “the airline would use the A380 to make the best use of limited take-off slots at London's Heathrow airport. The new order would deliver an extra 4% capacity every year over the medium term.” (source: Timesonline)

Ikea, the Swedish furniture chain, founded by Ingvar Kamprad one of the richest people in the world, posted profits at 8% lower than last year. This is due to investment in revamping stores and developing e-commerce in a tough market. The company spent £33.9 million on building new stores in Ashton, near Manchester, and Coventry, and £27 million on extending and refurbishing stores in the year up to August 2006.

Total sales are up by only 2% to £1.09 billion ($2 billion) in the year to August 2006, indicating flat underlying sales. Peter Högsted, managing director of Ikea in the UK, said the chain was in the process of a £760 million expansion. Ikea has made 350 managers redundant and hired more shopfloor staff as it cut costs and attempted to increase customer service this year. Mr Högsted expects to extend e-commerce to cover the whole of Britain by next spring, up from about two thirds of the country now. By then he expects to be achieving about £80 million of sales online, equivalent to a medium-sized store. Ikea has yet to advertise its online store, which began operating as a trial in January. (source: Metro)

Virgin Mobile Flotation

In Virgin Mobile (USA) set up in November 2003 is planning to raise $375 million (£186 million) in new funds for its upcoming float on Wall Street. The company, which is a joint venture between Sprint Nextel (US telecoms giant) and the Virgin group, both hold a 47% share in the business. The group moved into the black for the first time during the first quarter of the year, with 15% of the American market (4.88 million) mobile users. In the float the group will sell a stake worth almost 43%.

In the latest filing to the SEC last night, the company said that it planned to sell about 27 million shares at between $15 and $17 each. After expenses, the company plans to use the $375 million to repay $150 million of debt and $45 million of borrowings that it owes to Sprint. If the float goes ahead at $16 a share, it would value the group at more than $900 million. Virgin, which uses the Sprint PCS network to offer pay-as-you-go wireless communications services targeted at the youth market, hit a million customers within 18 months of its launch. As of June 30, Virgin served about 4.8 million customers. The company’s revenue and net income for the six months ended June 30 were about $666.9 million and $26.5 million, respectively.

Mer-rill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, the US investment banks, the underwriters for the flotation, have the option to buy up to an additional 4.1 million shares to cover any overallotments made by the flotation.