Serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist James Caan, has joined the Dragons Den panel for the new series.

The multi-millionaire joins Peter Jones, Duncan Bannatyne, Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis as potential investors.

James Caan set up the Alexander Mann Group in 1985 which grew into one of the leading HR outsourcing companies in the UK. After building it into a £130m turnover business, he sold it in 2002.

Dragons Den continues next Monday night on BBC 2 at 9pm.

Sir Richard Branson owner of Virgin Comics is set to publish a new series of the comic book legend Dan Dare.

The pilot of the future will return in a new monthly series from November. During the 1950’s when the comic character appeared on the front of boy’s comic ‘The Eagle’, it was selling around a million copies a week.

Sir Richard Branson is a self confessed fan and is said to be thrilled about the return of the character, he describes Dan Dare as: “one of the great original aviators”.

Virgin Comics is based in Bangalore, India, and it is a collaboration with Gotham comics, the biggest publisher of comics in South Asia. The original series of Dan Dare captivated a generation of British readers in the 50’s.

The new Virgin comics version will be set a few decades in the future and Dan Dare will be as energetic and courageous as ever.

Bannatyne fitness is planning to open a call centre and Sensory Spa brand to it’s home town

The health club chain owned by Dragons Den entrepenaur Duncan Bannatyne, has chosen Darlington over Milton Keynes for the location of it’s contact centre. Initially six staff will be employed at Bannatyne’s headquarters, in Haughton Road to manage bookings and inquiries for it’s sensory’s gift experience day packages.

Last year Bannatyne Fitness started the Sensory Spa brand as part of the £90 million acquistion of twenty four LivingWell Premier Health Clubs from Hilton International. Included within the deal was LivingWell’s headquarters in Milton Keynes, which was a potential place for the call centre.

Duncan Bannatyne’s chain has revealed plans to build a new Sensory Spa in Darlington and has handed over plans to the borough council. This investment should lead to a creation of at least ten jobs, with the idea being to provide employment to qualified beauty students from the nearby Darlington College.

Sir Alan Sugar has been blamed for their being a rise in unfair dismissals, due to the blunt talking he uses on ‘The Apprentice’

There has apparently been a massive increase in the amount of employment tribunals that have had to take place . It has been pin-pointed as the fault of macho bosses copying the blunt talking used by Sir Alan Sugar on his successful BBC TV programme ‘The Apprentice.’

Lawyers have said the archaic management style taken on by Sir Alan, has resulted in thousands of employers having to take expensive tribunal action. Whereby sacked workers are able to take their bosses to court and claim unfair dismissal if certain procedures are not taken when when employment is terminated.

Figures from the Employment Tribunals Service (ETS) show that since 2004 when ’The Apprentice’ first aired on the BBC, the number of employment tribunal claims increased by 25 per cent.

In 2004 and 5, there were 86,181 registered employment tribunal claims, whereas last year there were over 115,000.

Sir Alan Sugar’s show has become hugely successful and has made him one of Britain’s most well known businessmen.

Eddie Stobart the UK haulage company is merging with the quoted Guernsey property firm, Westbury.

The UK haulage company has joined with the Guernsey property firm to create a road, rail and port transport logistics company with assets over £250 million.

Eddie Stobart famous for it’s lorries, is at present the largest privately owned haulage company in Britain.

The deal is in a asset swap in which Westbury will purchase Eddie Stobart for £138 million, in return Stobart will buy Westbury’s property assets for £142 million. The pair will own 28 per cent of the Stobart group.

William Stobart, who is the current managing director of Eddie Stobart, will become chief operating officer of the new company. Andrew Tinkler, co-owner of the firm, will be chief executive.

There have been predictions that this reverse takeover will bring in revenues of some £250 million in it’s first year, and the pre-tax earnings of around £25 million.

The Haulage company currently has clients that include Tesco, Coca Cola and Johnson & Johnson.

Sir Richard Branson’s company Virgin Atlantic has suffered a large drop in it’s annual profits. Falling a whopping 85 per cent to a mere £6.6 million, down from £45.2 million the previous year.

A number of reasons have contributed to the dip in profits, including losses linked to it’s Nigerian start-up private flag carrier, higher oil prices, and tax increases.

Along with security alerts at Heathrow and losses at Virgin Nigeria Airways in which Virgin has a 49 per cent stake, came in at £40.8 million.

Sir Richard Branson has said in a statement: “Our profits would have been higher had it not been for the frustrating external issues many airlines have had to cope with, such as increased oil prices and the security alerts at Heathrow Airport in the summer of 2006.”

Alan Sugar has agreed to sell his Amstrad business to BSkyB for £125 million.

Sir Alan Sugar will make £35 million from the sale of Amstrad to BSkyB, but will continue to work with the organisation.

Amstrad was founded in 1968 and became a household name after launching several mass market home electronics products and was once valued at £1.25 billion.

Amstrad’s revenues from the sale of set-top boxes to BSkyB, make up 75% of their business.

BSkyB head Rupert Murdoch said “It would benefit from an in-house design and development capability.”

Alan Sugar said “I could not imagine a better home for the Amstrad business. I turned 60 this year, I’ve done 40 years of hustling in this business. I have to start thinking about my team of loyal staff, many of whom have been around me for a very long time.”

Sir Alan Sugar is worth an estimated £830 million and ranked 84th on this year’s Sunday Times Rich List, helped by his many London based property investments.

Mike Ashley bemuses the city again, after buying a 1% stake in Adidas.
The stock market was closed, then Sports Direct release a bulletin stating the purchased 1.6 million shares - 1% of Adidas. The group cliamed that the £48 million transaction was consistent with a policy of “pursuing strategic investment opportunities” where it could “gain strategic or commercial advantage”.

In line with recent news on Sports Direct, City analysts were shocked by the move, just two days after a profit warning caused a 22 per cent drop in the Sports Direct’s shares.

Mike Ashley was criticised for buying and then selling a personal 3.14 per cent stake in Adidas, one of the main suppliers to his Sports World chain, weeks after the float (see article). He sold the shares at the start of June raking in an estimated £28 million profit.

The Times reports that City experts last night said it was likely that Sports Direct was trying to gain more influence with Adidas, amid growing speculation that the German firm favours the group’s two main UK rivals, JJB Sports and JD Sports. A trading update from JD Sports yesterday revealed that like-for-like sales growth had risen to 11.2 per cent over the past 12 weeks.

What’s next in this saga?

Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct shares tumbled yesterday after the company warned that profits in the current financial year would be substantially lower than City expectations.

Having built the retail empire Sports Direct, Mike Ashley must have thought that floating the company would be a natural progression in his business career. However, since floating in February, Sports Direct shares have more than halved, leaving Mike Ashley with a red face.

“I wouldn’t be honest if I did not say I regretted certain parts of this process,” Ashley told The Daily Telegraph. “I still believe that going through the process of becoming a public company has been necessary to achieve the goal of becoming the leading, most profitable sports retailer in the world.We could have been better prepared from an investor relations point of view before the float,” admitted Ashley. “We did not understand the effort that investor relations required.”

When Sports Direct was floated back in February, Mike Ashley was seen as an interesting character. One who preferred to stay out of the media, was prepared to make strong decisions and back them up.

Many media analysts suggest Mike Ashley may not be up to the task of managing this business now, but those that bought Sports Direct shares at their peak, are hoping Ashley has more positive secrets to reveal.

Deborah Meaden is set to cash in to the tune of £20 million when Weststar Holidays is sold to Parkdean Holidays.

Deborah Meaden, another ‘celebrity entrepreneur’ thanks to the BBC business show Dragon’s Den, could be cashing in on the 23 percent of shares she owns in the firm, Weststar Holidays, founded by her parents.

Weststar was founded in 1988 by Meaden’s parents, but was later controlled by Deborah Meaden in 1993. In 2005 she sold the majority stake to Phoenix Equity Partners, realising £30 million.

Meaden has still been an active shareholder within the Weststar business, but has been devoting more of her time to other investments, due to the success of Dragon’s Den. This deal would no doubt further enhance her reputation on the show, as Deborah Meaden really does play the Dragon.