Business
Born in Cudworth near Barnsley, South Yorkshire, Sykes was the son of a miner and left school with no qualifications. He had various manual jobs before setting up a business at the age of 18 to dismantle old buses and sell the engines as scrap to developing countries in the Far East. He later moved into property development and built the Meadowhall shopping complex in Sheffield. His internet firm Planet Online was for a time Britain's largest internet service provider. In 1998 Sykes sold it for £85 million to Energis.
In 2004, his wealth was estimated at some £650 million.
Read more about this topic: Paul Sykes (businessman)
Famous quotes containing the word business:
“Oh, I realize it’s a penny here and a penny there, but look at me: I’ve worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.”
—Arthur Sheekman, U.S. screenwriter. Norman McLeod. Groucho Marx as himself, in Monkey Business (film)
“On the most profitable lie, the course of events presently lays a destructive tax; whilst frankness invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient footing, and makes their business a friendship.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Faultless honesty is a sine qua non of business life. Not alone the honesty according to the moral code and the Bible. When I speak of honesty I refer to the small, hidden, evasive meannesses of our natures. I speak of the honesty of ourselves to ourselves.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)