Business
Iceland supermarket specialising in frozen foods and frozen ready meals at low prices. Started by entrepreneur Malcolm Walker in 1970 with one store, Iceland now boasts 741 stores nationwide. Iceland invests heavily in advertising with their slogan ‘that’s why mums go to Iceland’ featuring both celebrity mums and regular Iceland shopper mums as ‘the face’ of the brand and is also the regular sponsor of ITV’s I’m A Celebrity Get me Out of Here.
In March 2010 Iceland improved its ranking in the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For survey as one of the best 25 Big Companies to Work For in the UK. Iceland was the only food retailer to feature in the list and was the highest rated of all the big companies in the survey for staff satisfaction with their pay and benefits.
C & C Alpha Group – Bhanu Choudhrie
C&C Alpha Group is a global family run company. It was established to serve as a holding company for a group of private investors who have been in the business of venture capital funding for over 30 years.
Their portfolio of companies includes Healthcare, Real Estate, Leisure & Hospitality, Aviation and Utilities. Throughout the years, they have established strong and proven track records in these sectors in various parts of the world.
Bhanu Choudhrie is the Executive Director of C&C Alpha Group.
David Fishwick
Entrepreneur David Fishwick left school aged 16 without any qualifications. However, armed with a huge amount of determination and ambition, he’s now the largest supplier of minibuses in the UK. David’s first forays into business came about when he started buying and selling cars to help make ends meet as an apprentice builder aged just 16. At 21 he opened his own car dealership in a rented garage. After buying a run-down van, doing it up and selling it in record time, he soon realised that there was real money to be made in vans. He was soon in a position to buy his own garage and in 1994, he switched exclusively to vans, minibuses and specialist disabled accessible vehicles. David Fishwick Van and Minibus Sales Business is now the biggest minibus supply business in the UK, offering quick and affordable customised minibuses for schools, sports teams, community groups and local authorities and has a multi-million pound turnover, employing lots of local people in the Burnley area.
David is hotly tipped to be the star of Channel 4’s 2012 programming schedule with his three-part show Bank Of Dave.
Bank Of Dave is an observational series that will will see David embark on a mission to create his own bank with his own money and send it into profit in 180 days to show there are alternatives to the current banking system. David will give loans to businesses struggling to get help from the financial big boys and who are finding it hard to grow in the current economic climate. Much like an old-fashioned bank manager, he will offer not only money but hands-on advice. He has promised not to take a big salary or bonus, and to give all profits to charity.
David first took an interest in banking in the wake of the economic crisis in 2008/09 when he realised that high street banks were no longer giving loans to his customers. So he decided to lend them the money himself. It made him want to take things further and start his own small bank, convinced that he can do a better job that the high street banks.
Bank Of Dave will air on Channel 4 from May and a book of the same name, published by Virgin Books, will accompany the series, also out in May.
