Deborah Meaden
Deborah Sonia Meaden (born 11 February 1959) is a British businesswoman and TV personality who ran a multimillion-pound family holiday business, before completing a management buyout. She is best known for her appearances as a 'Dragon' on the BBC business programme ''Dragons' Den''. Early life Meaden was born in Taunton, Somerset. Her parents divorced when she was young, and her mother moved Deborah and her older sister Gail to Brightlingsea in Essex. Meaden went to the Godolphin School, Salisbury, for a brief period and then to Trowbridge High School for Girls (now The John of Gaunt School) which she left at the age of 16. Career On leaving school, Meaden studied business at Brighton Technical College, after which she worked as a sales-room model in a fashion house. After graduation, she moved to Italy at 19 and set up a glass and ceramics export agency, which sold products to retailers including Harvey Nichols. The company failed after 18 months. Meaden and a partner bought ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fox Brothers
Fox Brothers & Co is a clothmaker based in Wellington, Somerset, England. The company is one of the few working cloth mills still producing cloth entirely in England since 1772, although the present company was incorporated in 1996. History Fox Brothers originated in the clothier business of the Were family of Wellington. Their headquarters were at Trade Court, South Street, Wellington; they also owned two fulling mills. In 1768, Thomas Were's 21-year-old grandson Thomas Fox (1747-1821) joined the company, becoming partner in 1772 and sole proprietor in 1796. He introduced the FOX cloth mark and changed the name of the company (Fox Brothers from 1826). Thomas and his wife Sarah Smith, built in 1807, then lived in, Tone Dale House, Wellington - the house is still lived in by Ben Fox, five generations later. During the Industrial Revolution the company brought wool sorting, spinning, drying and weaving under one roof. It once owned nine mills, including Tonedale Mills and To ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Taunton
Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the Bishops of Winchester. Parts of the inner ward house were turned into the Museum of Somerset and Somerset Military Museum. For the Second Cornish uprising of 1497, Perkin Warbeck brought an army of 6,000; most surrendered to Henry VII on 4 October 1497. On 20 June 1685 the Duke of Monmouth crowned himself King of England here in a rebellion, defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. Judge Jeffreys led the Bloody Assizes in the Castle's Great Hall. The Grand Western Canal reached Taunton in 1839 and the Bristol and Exeter Railway in 1842. Today it hosts Musgrove Park Hospital, Somerset County Cricket Club, is the base of 40 Commando, Royal Marines, and is home to the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office on Admiralty Way. The popular Taunton flow ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Taunton, Somerset
Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the Bishops of Winchester. Parts of the inner ward house were turned into the Museum of Somerset and Somerset Military Museum. For the Second Cornish uprising of 1497, Perkin Warbeck brought an army of 6,000; most surrendered to Henry VII on 4 October 1497. On 20 June 1685 the Duke of Monmouth crowned himself King of England here in a rebellion, defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. Judge Jeffreys led the Bloody Assizes in the Castle's Great Hall. The Grand Western Canal reached Taunton in 1839 and the Bristol and Exeter Railway in 1842. Today it hosts Musgrove Park Hospital, Somerset County Cricket Club, is the base of 40 Commando, Royal Marines, and is home to the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office on Admiralty Way. The popular Taunton flower ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Patrick Van Der Vorst
Patrick van der Vorst (born 2 May 1971) is a Deacon of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster and former entrepreneur, dealer, art expert and winner on BBC's Dragons' Den, Dragons Den. Early career Van der Vorst is the grandson of Gaston Depre, founder of animal nutrition company Group Depre. Van der Vorst attended the KU Leuven, Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium where he graduated in law. In 1995 he moved to London, where he has lived ever since. He started his career at Sotheby’s Billingshurst in 1996 and transferred in 1997 to Bond Street in London, working first in the impressionist and contemporary art departments, before moving into the furniture department. At age 28 he became Deputy Director at Sotheby's and at 31 a director and head of continental furniture, specialising in 18th century French furniture. In these years he helped organise sales for Elton John's London home, the Easton Neston Sale, Thurn & Taxis, etc. At the age of 39 he left Sotheby's to se ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Minehead
Minehead is a coastal town and civil parish in Somerset, England. It lies on the south bank of the Bristol Channel, north-west of the county town of Taunton, from the boundary with the county of Devon and in proximity of the Exmoor National Park. The parish of Minehead has a population of approximately 11,981, making it the most populous town in the western part of the Somerset West and Taunton local government district, which in turn, is the worst area in the country for social mobility. This figure includes Alcombe and Woodcombe, suburban villages which have been subsumed into Minehead. There is evidence of human occupation in the area since the Bronze and Iron Ages. Before the Norman conquest, it was held by Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia and after it by William de Moyon and his descendants, who administered the area from Dunster Castle, which was later sold to Sir George Luttrell and his family. There was a small port at Minehead by 1380, which grew into a major trading centre d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charles Hazlewood
Charles Matthew Egerton Hazlewood (born 14 November 1966) is a British conductor. After winning the European Broadcasting Union conducting competition in 1995 whilst still in his twenties,10 questions for conductor Charles Hazlewood Artsdesk website, accessed 24 May 2020 Hazlewood has had a career as an international conductor, music director of film and theatre, composer and a curator of music on British radio and television, Motivational Speaker and founder of Paraorchestra – the world's first integrated ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians. He was a guest on BBC Ra ...
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Pepe Jeans
Pepe Jeans London is a denim and casual wear jeans brand established in the Portobello Road area of London in 1973, and now based in Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain. Carlos Ortega was the CEO, and owns more than 20% of the company. History Pepe Jeans was founded in 1973 by three brothers who ran a weekend stall at Portobello Road Market in London, before expanding to a store in Carnaby Street and then into Europe in the 1980s. In 1988, Pepe Jeans was owned by Arun, Nitin and Milan Shah. In February 2015, Pepe Jeans and Hackett London (part of the Pepe Jeans Group) were bought by the Lebanese M1 Group, and the LVMH LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (), commonly known as LVMH, is a French holding multinational corporation and conglomerate specializing in luxury goods, headquartered in Paris. The company was formed in 1987 through the merger of fashion house ... subsidiary, L Capital Asia. These companies were previously owned by Torreal Funds (31 per cent), Artá Capital (16.4 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wellington, Somerset
Wellington is a market town in rural Somerset, a county in the west of England, situated south west of Taunton in the Somerset West and Taunton district, near the border with Devon, which runs along the Blackdown Hills to the south of the town. The town has a population of 14,549, which includes the residents of the parish of Wellington Without, and the villages of Tone and Tonedale. Known as ''Weolingtun'' in the Anglo-Saxon period, its name had changed to ''Walintone'' by the time of the Domesday Book of 1086. Wellington became a town under a royal charter of 1215 and during the Middle Ages it grew as a centre for trade on the road from Bristol to Exeter. Major rebuilding took place following a fire in the town in 1731, after which it became a centre for cloth-making. It is possible that the fire referred to here was actually in Tiverton, Devon which has details of a major fire in the same year. Further information on a major fire in Wellington at this time cannot be foun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, which is owned by News Corp. Times Newspapers also publishes ''The Times''. The two papers were founded independently and have been under common ownership since 1966. They were bought by News International in 1981. ''The Sunday Times'' has a circulation of just over 650,000, which exceeds that of its main rivals, including ''The'' ''Sunday Telegraph'' and ''The'' ''Observer'', combined. While some other national newspapers moved to a tabloid format in the early 2000s, ''The Sunday Times'' has retained the larger broadsheet format and has said that it would continue to do so. As of December 2019, it sells 75% more copies than its sister paper, ''The Times'', which is published from Monday to Saturday. The paper publishes ''The Sunday Ti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alchemy Partners
Alchemy Partners is a British private equity firm, which specialises in investing in distressed and undervalued or underperforming businesses and other special situations through debt and equity throughout Europe. Alchemy was founded in 1997 by Martin Bolland and Jon Moulton. Before launching dedicated distressed vehicles, it invested over £1bn of equity in over 80 transactions. Notable transactions included Four Seasons Health Care, Alcentra and Phoenix IT. Alchemy came to public notice in 1999, when it was negotiating to buy Rover Group from BMW; its advisory board members included former Rover MD Kevin Morley. After public protests, the discussions were abandoned when the government imposed additional conditions to the transaction. Alchemy launched its first distressed debt fund, Alchemy Special Opportunities, in 2006 with a final close of £300m. Moulton resigned from Alchemy in September 2009, saying that he disagreed with plans by other partners to turn Alchemy in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Phoenix Equity Partners
Phoenix Equity Partners is a United Kingdom mid-market private equity firm. It specialises in working with management teams to help grow their businesses. It invests in companies valued at up to £150m. History Phoenix was co-founded in 2001 by Hugh Lenon, Sandy Muirhead and James Thomas. The firm is a result of a spin-off of DLJ European Private Equity from Credit Suisse First Boston. The first iteration of Phoenix Equity Partners was a private equity management business through Phoenix Group, established in 1991 as a sister company to Phoenix Securities Limited. In 1997, when Phoenix Group was sold to Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ), this asset followed and the team was renamed DLJ European Private Equity. When Credit Suisse First Boston Credit Suisse First Boston (also known as CSFB and CS First Boston) is the investment banking affiliate of Credit Suisse headquartered in New York. The company was created by the merger of First Boston, First Boston Corporation and Credit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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EBITDA
A company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (commonly abbreviated EBITDA, pronounced , , or ) is a measure of a company's profitability of the operating business only, thus before any effects of indebtedness, state-mandated payments, and costs required to maintain its asset base. It is derived by subtracting from revenues all costs of the operating business (e.g. wages, costs of raw materials, services ...) but not decline in asset value, cost of borrowing, lease expenses, and obligations to governments. Though often shown on an income statement, it is not considered part of the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) by the SEC and the SEC hence requires that companies registering securities with it (and when filing its periodic reports) reconcile EBITDA to net income. Usage and criticism EBITDA is widely used when assessing the performance of a company. EBITDA is useful to assess the underlying profitability of the operating businesses ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |