Patrick Grant is on a mission to bring "stodgy British menswear into the informal future", says Troy Patterson in Bloomberg Pursuits. Grant, 44, grew up in Edinburgh in awe of his father's "modish" Sixties suits, which he began wearing aged 14.
He studied engineering at Leeds, before doing an MBA that "he had no specific plan to use" at Oxford's Sad Business School. Leafing through the Financial Times after graduating, he saw that Savile Row tailor Norton & Sons, founded in 1821, was up for sale so he bought the firm, and revived its fortunes with a more modern style of tailoring. "His ability to discern what he calls the subtle difference between a cloth that feels contemporary and one that feels old-fashioned' has made Norton a favourite among the style cognoscenti", says Patterson.
Norton & Sons makes fewer than 300 suits a year, but its attention to craftsmanship is winning fans at home and abroad. When Grant wears a suit, "he is promoting his brand and a certain quintessential Britishness", says Esme Young, his fellow judge on the BBC's The Great British Sewing Bee.
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Dundee: the new Silicon Valley?
Douglas and Richard Hare made their first fortune in California when they sold their majority stake in the computer-games company they founded, Foundation 9 Entertainment, to a private-equity firm. But Douglas, who was interested in moving into mobile-phone gaming, felt constrained by the new owners, and the brothers left to start a new firm.
There were already too many software publishers in southern California, Douglas tells The Sunday Telegraph's Matthew Caines, so they moved to a less fashionable destination for a tech firm: Dundee in Scotland.
"The city boasted a growing games industry, cheap rent, and thanks to the strong local university courses, a healthy supply of developer talent," says Caines. Outplay, the firm the brothers set up in 2010, produces games for mobile phones. These games are free to download, but players spend between 80p and £40 to unlock upgrades. It's proved a popular move. Last year, Outplay's revenues hit £6.3m, while in October, it celebrated 50 million downloads of its games worldwide.
How Zwift made the gym less dull
don ten years ago," says New Yorker and cycling enthusiast Eric Min, quoted in The Times. "I resorted to indoor training, but that can be a very dull experience."
Then two years ago, when Min decided to leave the energy trading and risk management company he founded, Sakonnet Technology, he spied an opportunity to work on something "more fun", says Tech Crunch the answer to his cycling woes: Zwift. Using a bike "trainer" stand, which keeps outdoor bikes stationary, Zwift's video gaming software allows cyclists to exercise and compete online with other riders following virtual courses shown on a screen. They can even monitor their heart rate as they ride.
Charging £9.49 a month, Zwift now has 220,000 users in 125 countries, including 36,000 in Britain, and $45m in funding. The device is for "anyone who wants to be more fit", says Min. "Anyone who buys a Fitbit device is our target market."
The wrestling magnates in Trump's corner
Linda McMahon, who co-created World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) with her husband Vince, will feel "right at home in Washington" after being picked to run the Small Business Administration says Rhys Blakely in The Times. The 68-year-old "hails from a world of ridiculous, over-the-top theatre in which grown men scream and rant like toddlers".
Not that the McMahons' business acumen is anything to be sniffed at. They've come a long way from when they bought Vince's father's "ailing" wrestling firm, then known as World Wrestling Federation (WWF), in 1982, says The Wall Street Journal.
A large dose of American razzamatazz, and "a cast of larger-than-life chiselled villains and heroes who seemed drawn from comic books", transformed the business into a global sports entertainment franchise with a turnover of $659m by 2015. The New York-listed holding company now renamed WWE as a result of a long-running trademark dispute with the World Wide Fund for Nature is today worth $1.45bn, with the McMahon family owing more than 50%.
In 2009, Linda stepped down as WWE chief executive in an effort to build a political career. Two unsuccessful bids in 2010 and 2012 for a Senate seat in Connecticut left her $100m out of pocket, after which she focused her energy on getting Donald Trump elected, donating $7m in total to his campaign.
The relationship between the McMahons and Donald Trump is close and, as is usual with Trump, larger than life. The president-elect has appeared at a number of WWE events, culminating with the so-called "Battle of the Billionaires" in 2007, when "The Donald" wrestled Vince to the ground and, bizarrely, shaved his opponent's head (pictured). Expect the next four years to be nothing if not entertaining.
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Water companies blocked from using customer money to pay “undeserved” bonusesThe regulator has blocked three water companies from using billpayer money to pay £1.5 million in exec bonuses
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Will the Bitcoin price hit $100,000?With Bitcoin prices trading just below $100,000, we explore whether the cryptocurrency can hit the milestone.
