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)
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