Duncan Bannatyne

Scottish entrepreneur, television presenter, philanthropist and writer.

His business interests include hotels, health clubs, spas, media, TV, stage schools, property and transport. He is most famous for his appearance as a business angel on the BBC programme Dragons' Den. He was appointed an OBE for his contribution to charity. He has written seven books.

Bannatyne spent his twenties moving from one job to another. He has stated that he was poor and did not have a bank account until the age of 30. His business career began almost immediately after his move to Stockton-on-Tees with an ice cream van purchased for £450. He sold the business for £28,000, founding a nursing home business called Quality Care Homes which he then sold for £26 million. He has since expanded into health clubs, with Bannatyne's Health Clubs chain, and also bars, hotels and property. He acquired 26 health clubs from Hilton Hotels in August 2006 at a price of £92 million. Bannatyne's is now the largest independent chain of health clubs in the United Kingdom. His wealth as of 2016 was estimated at £200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List.

From 2005 until 2015, Duncan was a Dragon on the BBC television series Dragons' Den. During his time on the show he invested in 36 businesses.

He has funded several projects over a ten-year period in Romania, notably Casa Bannatyne in Târgu-Mureş, a hospice for orphans with HIV and AIDS in which he invested £80,000. In March 2008, he established the Bannatyne Charitable Foundation with a personal injection of £1,000,000. Bannatyne is a trustee of Comic Relief and in November 2008 he travelled to Ethiopia with other trustees.

He is politically active, but has frequently changed his party allegiance.

In 2011, he revealed that he suffers from prosopagnosia, a cognitive disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face (self-recognition), is impaired.