The Creative Entrepreneur - Duncan Bannatyne - July 2025

Jul, 1 2025

Duncan Walker Bannatyne is the focus for this month’s ‘Creative Entrepreneur’. But as we will see in the following 9 minute 57 second film he came from humble beginnings and he had to work hard to get where he is today -

And keep going he did! Following his stint with care homes Duncan invested some serious money into expanding a series of health clubs under the title ‘Bannatyne Health Club & Spa’ as well as hotels and property. He acquired 26 health clubs from Hilton Hotels in August 2006 at a price of £92 million. The Bannatyne Group is now the largest independent chain of health clubs in the United Kingdom with 69 sites. As of February 2025, Bannatyne has 69 health clubs, 45 spas and three hotels across the UK.

For more information on his health clubs simply visit the following website link -https://www.bannatyne.co.uk/health-club/skelmersdale

Duncan’s motivational drive to change his life following his unfortunate past is an inspiring story. It’s very much a rags to riches and prison to prosperity ideology. He got off his backside and made a fortune. Once he got the bug there was no stopping him.

His business experience allowed him to be a strong contributor during his stint on the television series ‘Dragons’ Den’ (2005 -2015). During that decade he invested in 36 businesses as brave entrepreneur’s pitched their ideas to the dragons.

You can catch up on the series here –

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006vq92/episodes/player

Following Dragons he appeared on the 15th series of I’m a Celebrity..Get me out of Here! But instead of selfishly indulging in the fee he donated it all to the Operation Smile charity, a charity which provides cleft lip and palate repair surgeries to children worldwide.

His philanthropic work didn’t end there. Bannatyne received an OBE in recognition for his work with charities such as Mary’s Meals – a charity which sets up school feeding programmes in some of the world’s poorest communities.

He has funded several projects over a ten-year period in Romania, including Casa Bannatyne in Târgu-Mureş, a hospice for orphans with HIV and AIDS in which he invested £80,000. He established the Bannatyne Charitable Trust in March 2008.

He also –

Supported the launch of the Geared for Giving campaign – to encourage UK business leaders to set up and promote a Workplace Giving scheme to benefit UK registered charities with tax effective donations through employees' pay.
Appeared on ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire? – raising £20,000 for charity NCH – helping vulnerable children and young people and their families in the UK.
Became president of the charity No Smoking Day – October 2008 – to help people quit smoking
Became Patron of PC David Rathband's Blue Lamp Foundation, a charity established by the Northumbria Police Constable David Rathband, who was blinded by gunshot wounds in the 2010 Northumbria Police manhunt.

Clearly this is somebody who has been at rock bottom, climbed himself back up and instead of pursuing selfish riches he has identified how he can help by his many celebrated charity work. Bannatyne knows what it’s like to be so low you can feel like there’s no way out, but he wants to bring hope and light to people. In the video we saw how he believes anyone can do what he has achieved and with the right motivational mindset, anything is possible. If we could all have the Bannatyne outlook there would be less people out of work and more people making an amazing difference to people’s lives.

^Alex Ashworth CCG UK Blogger