Age: 64yrs
Birth Place: New York City, New York, USA
Industry: Real Estate
Biggest Hold Back: Went Bankrupt Several Times
Net Worth: $2 billion
Why they made the list..
What do you think of when you hear the name Donald Trump? Fame, Fortune or his books? I’m betting the last thing you would think of is bankruptcy right? Donald began working for his fathers company in the late 1960’s, The Trump Organisation working in real estate from an early point in his life. He managed to completely revamp a huge complex with only a 44% occupancy rate into a thriving complex with 100% occupancy in only a year, making his father’s company a nice $6 million in profit. Trump rose yet again into glory when he took on a massive project that the City of New York had nowhere near completed after two years and after having spent a huge $12 million on it. Trump managed to complete the entire project after taking over and used less than a third of the remaining budget.
However it wasn’t always great news and success for Donald. In 1989 at the beginning of a recession Trump, was left helpless against huge debts which had piled up due to the building of his new casino, the Taj, Mahal. The Taj Mahal had cost $1 billion in junk bonds and his debts increased further than anyone could have imagined. Just three years later in 1992 Donald was forced to sign a bankruptcy protection plan because he was unable to make payments towards the huge accumulating debts. He was now in personal debt of $550 million as well as the $1 billion in junk bonds. By 1994 his personal debt had totalled a disastrous $900 million! He eventually managed to restructure his bankruptcy by reducing his shares from 56% to 27% meaning the bulk of the debt would all but disappear. With the changing hands of the company shares the business changed it’s name to the Trump Entertain Resorts Holdings. Trump is currently worth an estimate $2 billion.
Age: 56yrs
Birth Place: Kyrgyzstan
Industry: Oil and mining Industrialist
Biggest Hold Back: Government
Networth: $1.9bn
Why they made the list..
Alijan Ibragimov was brought up in Kyrgyzstan, and was brought up in poverty for his early years. However his background did not stop him becoming a billionaire. Early in his career Alijan had decided he wanted to work for himself rather than work hard hours of manual labour, in the poverty stricken country. He and a number of his friends got together and formed aoligarchs, known as “The Trio”. The Trio includes Alijan himself, and business partners Alexander Mashkevich and Patokh Chodiev. Their business was within the oil and gas industry in which they mined for the resources.
The Trio then became major shareholders in the global group Eurasian National Resources Corporation (ENRC), which now resides in London and is in control of a plethora of assets within the Eastern hemisphere. ENRC went on to make over $1,400 million in profits, through sales of nearly $4 billion. However the government allegedly “forced” Alijan, into selling a quarter of his shares in ENRC to a fellow billionaire, named Kazakh. Alijan has been named in the Forbes list of top richest people in the world, and is still on the list to this day.
*****
Age: 65yrs (Died December 15th 1966)
Birth Place: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Industry: Entertainment/animation
Biggest Hold Back: Bankruptcy & Told He Would Fail
Net worth: $1.1bn
Why they made the list..
I’m pretty certain almost everyone (if not everyone) will know who Walt Disney is, and he is a great example of a successful entrepreneur. After dropping out of school and being refused entry to the army due to his age, Walt went on to work for the Red Cross. Upon his return to Chicago he managed to gain employment through his brothers collegue as an artist for a local business, where he created adverts for newspapers and movie theatres. After leaving his job, he and fellow artist, Ubbe Iwerks, started the Iwers-Disney Comercial Artist Company, which fell after a very rocky start. He was then offered a job by the Kansas City film Ad Company, where he learned how to create animations from cut-outs. However after reading the book; Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, by Edwin G. Lutz, Walt decided to leave the Kansas City Film Ad Company and try once more with his own business.
Laugh-O-Grams his second business went out of business due to bankruptcy, mainly because he had studio costs, far too many staff and not enough revenue to pay everything, disaster. Walt had failed not once but twice, but he didn’t know how to give up. Having learnt very really lessons in how to fail, Walt and his brother Roy went to Hollywood in search of glory. Whilst there he managed to secure a distributor to help with his business. Things went from strength to strength, it started with his live action Alice in Wonderland stories, and then continued with his own unique characters such as Julius the cat and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. His real success came with Mickey Mouse when he made a series of animated shorts such as “Silly Symphonies” and “The Skeleton Dance”. In 1932 after popular demand for the character Mickey Mouse by all of his new found fans, Walt received an Academy Award. He had made it, thanks to help of a little fictional mouse called Mickey. Walt continued his success for a further 34yrs before his death, leaving behind his legacy which we all now know as the Walt Disney Company, which is worth somewhere in the region of $35 billion today.
Age: 83yrs (Died April 7th 1947)
Birth Place: Greenfield Township, Dearborn, Michighan, USA
Industry: Auto-motive manufacturer
Net Worth: $1.1 billion
Biggest Hold Back: Bankruptcy, Dyslexic
Why they made the list..
Henry Ford, we all know of him don’t we? One of the few men that made the car become a reality. He was born into a family of farmers who originated from England and Ireland. Not the wealthiest of families but certainly not poverty stricken. In his teenage years, his father had given him a timepiece, which he later took to pieces just to see if he could piece it together again successfully, which he did. He then started to do the same with other peoples timepieces and eventually he started to repair them too. He quickly became know as the young watch repair man. How ever clocks, and watches were not what he wanted to be involved in as a career. After his mother died in 1876 he was left distraught and told his father he did not want to be part of the family business.
He went on to complete an apprenticeship with James F. Flower & Bros, and also with the Detroit Dry Dock Company. In 1891 he met with Thomas Edison who liked his concept of an auto-mobile, so he allowed him to use his warehouses to manufacturer two vehicles. Ford was grateful but later went on to build his own company so he could build the cars on his own terms backed by William H. Murphy he founded the Detroit Automobile Company (1899). This was short lived however not only because the vehicles produced lacked the quality and precision Ford wanted as well as being horribly expensive, but they were so expensive that the company went bankrupt! The business went under but it didn’t stop him. Ford went on to build the Cadillac Automobile company. After almost failing a second time due to lack of sales and high debts more partners came into the business and the name was changed to the Ford Motor Company. Current sales for the Ford group are now a massive $190 billion. Wow! The rest as they say, is history.
*****
Age: 64yrs (Died 10th September 2007)
Birth Place: Littlehampton, UK
Industry: Cosmetics
Biggest Hold Back: Lack of time (motherhood)
Networth: £652.3 million ($1.03 billion)
Why they made the list..
Dame Anita Roddick, may not have had a poverty stricken lifestyle, but she was a mother who at the same time as caring for her family, was able to create a thriving business. Anita’s story is about motivation and passion and one I hope you all can relate to. Starting back in 1970 Anita and her husband Gordon opened up a restaurant business, however Anita wasn’t happy with this and wanted something more suited to her personality. She created The Body Shop in 1976 with just 15 products that she had sourced herself from around the world. Anita had traveled extensively before opening up her business and with her husband and two girls in tow she set off to create something special.
Faced with a massive task of getting the shoppers in the UK to part with their money for “Greener” products, but with a motivation, a dollop of passion and a pinch of luck Anita managed to succeed. Luckily for Anita just as she was halfway through her first year the UK shoppers had a change of heart and started shopping for these “Green” products she was selling. She opened another store and another, and another, they just seemed to grow and grow. Anita had managed to build her empire to a whopping 1,980 The Body Shop stores, totaling in more than 75 million customers worldwide in 50 different countries by 2003 and was then bought out in a very controversial deal with L’Oreal it was controversial due to The Body Shop not using ANY products tested on animals, as opposed to L’Oreals company that did. The deal made her £652.3 million ($1.03 billion) better off which was more than well deserved for her fierce years of service. I hope Dame Anita managed to enjoy that money for the remainder of her life.
Age: 81yrs (January 14th 1984)
Birth Place: Oak Park, Illinois, USA
Industry: Fast Food
Biggest Hold Back: Confidence
Net worth: $500 million
Why they made the list..
You didn’t think I was going to leave Ray out did you ? What’s that, you don’t know who Ray is? Sure you do, you visit his restaurants at least once a month (Unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case I apologize). Ray Kroc is best known as the man behind McDonald’s. Ray, was an unsuccessful entrepreneur, and was also good friends with Walt Disney I might add. After the war ended Ray went on to try unsuccessfully a number of different career paths, a jazz musician, a pianist, he even tried to sell paper cups, but his confidence just wasn’t there anymore, he’d lost a little faith. After leaving the cups behind, he went on to sell milkshake machines, and found that he was pretty good at it. His confidence rose and he was selling them by the dozen.
Convinced with his new found confidence he sell a machine to every restaurant he partnered up with a couple of brothers by the name of McDonald. They were starting to franchise their own business, a fast food restaurant. The McDonalds brothers went on to build a fair amount of stores and were raking in the money, but Ray wasn’t happy, he was hungry, hungrier than ever now he’d tasted success. So he used all the money he had made ($2.7 million) to buy out the two brothers in a bid to franchise the business everywhere he could. Ray discovered that the way his business should work, should be almost like a production line, that way he could work quicker and serve more customers. He was right. His technique meant no customer would go from being served to having their order in their mouth in more than five minutes, hence the coined phrase of “Fast Food”. By the time of his death Ray Kroc had built an empire of over 10,000 restaurants globally and that has grown to a massive 31,000 today! McDonald’s currently makes $23 billion each year. What an achievement.
Age: 61yrs
Birth Place: Clydebank, Edinburgh, Scotland
Industry: Health and Beauty
Biggest Hold Back: Lack of Start-up Funds and Community
Net worth: £320 million ($450.7 million)
Why they made the list..
Duncan Bannatyne is a well known entrepreneur in the UK, known famously for his role in the television series Dragon’s Den (BBC). In his early life he was poverty stricken like a lot of families that grew up in the 1950’s in Scotland. Aged 15yrs he wanted a bicycle but was denied one due to lack of money within the family funds. To remedy the lack of having a bicycle, he decided to find some sort of work, asking one of the newsagents for a job, they told him “You can have you can get a list of one hundred interested people”, to cut a long story short, he knocked on hundreds of doors until he made the list, and got a job. Aged 20yrs, after years of loyal service in the Navy, Duncan was dishonorably discharged for attempting to throw an officer off a jetty, due in part to the officers abusive behavior.
Duncan spent his twenties going from one pointless job to the next, in search of something more, he craved his own business and wanted to succeed without being told what to do by others. He moved to Jersey where he met his wife. Through countless failures due to the Jersey community not welcoming business from outsiders, Duncan and his wife Joanne left the island. With only enough money to get by with, Duncan risked it all and bought an ice cream van for £450 ($714), within 2yrs he had managed to build such a successful business from it that he had bought several other vans, with employees to work them for him. He eventually left the ice cream business £28,000 ($44,430) better off which prompted him to invest the money into a nursing home, the nursing home was expanded upon and he eventually sold it for a cool £26 million ($41.2 million) and a childrens nursing chain he’d bought along the way for a further £22 million ($34 million). Since then Duncan has gone on to make £320 million ($507.77 million) through building an empire of luxury spa’s and health centers.
Age: 61yrs
Birth Place: Clydebank, Edinburgh, Scotland
Industry: Health and Beauty
Biggest Hold Back: Lack of Start-up Funds and Community
Net worth: £320 million ($450.7 million)
Why they made the list..
Duncan Bannatyne is a well known entrepreneur in the UK, known famously for his role in the television series Dragon’s Den (BBC). In his early life he was poverty stricken like a lot of families that grew up in the 1950’s in Scotland. Aged 15yrs he wanted a bicycle but was denied one due to lack of money within the family funds. To remedy the lack of having a bicycle, he decided to find some sort of work, asking one of the newsagents for a job, they told him “You can have you can get a list of one hundred interested people”, to cut a long story short, he knocked on hundreds of doors until he made the list, and got a job. Aged 20yrs, after years of loyal service in the Navy, Duncan was dishonorably discharged for attempting to throw an officer off a jetty, due in part to the officers abusive behavior.
Duncan spent his twenties going from one pointless job to the next, in search of something more, he craved his own business and wanted to succeed without being told what to do by others. He moved to Jersey where he met his wife. Through countless failures due to the Jersey community not welcoming business from outsiders, Duncan and his wife Joanne left the island. With only enough money to get by with, Duncan risked it all and bought an ice cream van for £450 ($714), within 2yrs he had managed to build such a successful business from it that he had bought several other vans, with employees to work them for him. He eventually left the ice cream business £28,000 ($44,430) better off which prompted him to invest the money into a nursing home, the nursing home was expanded upon and he eventually sold it for a cool £26 million ($41.2 million) and a childrens nursing chain he’d bought along the way for a further £22 million ($34 million). Since then Duncan has gone on to make £320 million ($507.77 million) through building an empire of luxury spa’s and health centers.
*****
Age: 75yrs (Died April 16th 2002)
Birth Place: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Industry: Restaurant
Biggest Hold Back: Fire destroyed her first restaurant
Networth: $235 million
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Why they made the list..
Ruth Fertel, became the first female horse trainer in Louisiana aged just 24yrs old, whilst owning a racing stable with her Husband Rodney, who she later divorced in 1958. After realising she could not raise her two son’s on the alimony she was given. Ruth then tried a few jobs until in 1965 she saw an advert in a newspaper advertising a local restaurant that was up for sale, named Chris’s Steakhouse in. She immediately re-mortgaged her house in order to buy the restaurant in a bid to work for herself. Shortly after purchasing the Steakhouse there was a huge hurricane that left the building without power, instead of letting the food in the freezer go to waste, she managed to cook it all elsewhere and took it to her local Parish to help those in need. Chris’s Steakhouse is back up and running in no time and the business was doing well, until a fire which broke out destroyed the restaurant.
With her entrepreneurial streak not willing to give up, Ruth bought another property just a few blocks from the original restaurant, but found complications with the naming of her new business. A legally binding document stated that the name Chris’s Steakhouse could not be used or replicated anywhere other than on the plot of the original building. She renamed the business Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. Then in 1976 after several failures a local customer convinced Ruth to open up his own franchise on a very busy highway in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The success of this franchise was immediate and other friends, family members and associates tried to convince her to let them open their own franchise too. Her success was huge and by 1985 she had over 15 other franchises, by 1992 she was awarded the Regional Entrepreneur of the year, by 1995 she was awarded the National Entrepreneur of the year and in 2001 she won the Ella Brennan Savoir Faire Award. A very clever lady indeed.
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