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Top 10 rags-to-riches entrepreneurs in the UK

We’ve compiled a list of the greatest rag-to-riches success stories the UK business world has seen. Take a look at our list and let us know in the comments what you think.

1. Jo Malone - Jo Malone London

Candle-making entrepreneur Jo Malone left school at just 13 to look after her mother who had just suffered a stroke. Dyslexic and uneducated, Malone worked as a florist and it was there where she discovered her passion for scent. She began creating her own homemade toiletry products to give away to clients for free, realising the business potential after a customer made an order for 100 bottles of bath oil.

Malone’s husband quit his job to help her set up her shop in Chelsea selling luxury candles. In 2005, she sold the company in its entirety to Estee Lauder and turned her focus to a perfume range.

Total wealth: Est. £6 million

2. Michelle Mone - Ultimo

Michelle Mone was brought up in a tenement flat in Glasgow, she left school at 15 to support her paralysed father but quickly fell pregnant with her first child and found herself a marketing job. After wearing an uncomfortable padded bra at a dinner dance, Mone invented the Ultimo bra, using soft silicone as padding.

Ultimo is now stocked in Selfridges and Mone continues to promote her product all over the world.

Total wealth: Est. £39 million

3. Hilary Devey - PAll-Ex

The third and final woman in our list is also a well-known dragon. Hilary Devey left school at 16 to find a job to support her recently bankrupted father.

Working in logistics, Devey came up with a time and money saving business model. She had so much confidence in her idea, she sold her house to fund the venture. Devey’s company, PAll-Ex, now turns over £100 million a year.

Total wealth: Est. £100 million

4. Duncan Bannatyne - Bannatyne Group

He left school at 15, without any qualifications. He delivered bread until he had enough money to get a mortgage, and he then bought an ice cream van in the North East of England. With the profits from this venture, he bought four houses and turned them into B&Bs.

Bannatyne’™s next project was a nursing home, which turned into 30 homes that he sold in 1997, netting £26 million for his stake. He put a large chunk of this into a health and fitness gym venture. His health club chain currently operates in 60 locations.

Total wealth: £175 milion

5. Mark Burnett - Eco-Challenge and other shows

Only child of two factory workers in Dagenham, Mark Burnett enlisted in the British Army at 17 and became a Section Commander in the Parachute Regiment, fighting in the Falklands War.

After the war, Burnett took his chances over the pond becoming a live-in nanny and security guard for a rich Beverly Hills family. A fan of the great outdoors, Burnett, along with four others, took places in a French adventure competition in 1994. Burnett saw a business opportunity in holding similar competitions and he launched a similar competition, Eco-Challenge, in the US.

Burnett has since worked as a television producer for the hit show Survivor, and continues to produce similar reality TV show.

Total wealth: £240 million

6. Harold Tillman - Jaeger

Born into a Jewish family in South London, Harold Tillman left school at just 15. After his father suffered serious injury in WWII, Tillman intermittently ran the family business while studying to be an accountant. Tillman became one of the first boys admitted to London College of Fashion in 1962.

Following his graduation, Tillman became an apprentice at Savile Row’s Lindcrofts - rising to MD in just three years. A notoriously clever businessman, Tillman employed a young Paul Smith and used George Best to promote Lincroft’s clothes.

Tillman has since bought and sold UK Yves Saint Laurent distributor Marchpole and clothing retailer Jaeger.

Total wealth: £250 million

7. David Sullivan - Daily Sport, Playbirds

Welsh businessman, philanthropist and pornographer (you heard me), David Sullivan started life in a Cardiff council estate. Son of RAF serviceman, Sullivan began selling soft pornography, quickly expanding into sex shops, adult magazines and several low-budget blue movies. Before long, he was in control of half of the adult magazine market. Sullivan also dabbled in the football industry, as well as the media after selling Daily Sport and Sunday Sport for £40 million in 2007.

Total wealth: £750 million

8. Mark Dixon - Regus

Essex boy done good, Mark Dixon began his career selling peat to his neighbours from a wheelbarrow. After leaving school at 16, Dixon founded sandwich making business Dial-a-Snack, using his bicycle as chosen mode of transport. Dixon has tried his hand at many trades over the years including bartending in St Tropez; mining in Australia; and farming in Asia.

In 1989, he set up Regus, an apartment rental business in Brussels which was valued at £1.5 billion by October 2000. Regus now operates in over 100 countries.

Total wealth: £820 million

9. Alan Sugar - Amstrad

Born the youngest of four children, living in a Hackney council flat, Alan Sugar is the classic rags-to-riches story. He also left school without any qualifications, and began working at a local greengrocer. He then used his earnings to sell electrical goods out of a van. At just 21, Sugar founded Amstrad and began manufacturing low-priced electrical goods.

Total wealth: £900 million

10. Bernie Ecclestone - Formula One Management

A popular face in the media at the moment, Bernie Ecclestone is the richest on our list by far. He left school at 16 to work as an assistant in a chemical laboratory testing gas purity. Son of a fisherman, Ecclestone had a lifelong passion for motorcycles and it wasn’™t long before went into business trading in spare auto-parts. He tried his hand at amateur racing, but after suffering an accident on the track, he turned his attention to team management.

Ecclestone became CEO and president of Formula One Management and Formula One Administration and married former Armani model Slavica Radic‡, who is 28 years his junior. They split in 2009 after 23 years of marriage - money can’t buy you love, eh?

Total wealth: £3 billion

Do you think we’ve missed someone? Let us know in the comments

Header Image Credit: FanShare

Source of total wealth figures: The Sunday Times richlist 2014

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .