Sir Alan Sugar departs Amstrad

Surrallen leaves Amstrad
Surrallen leaves Amstrad

Surrallen, as the tabloids have labelled him since the Apprentice made him a household name, has left the company that he founded way back in 1968.

Amstrad (Alan Michael Sugar TRADing) grew as a company in the '80s when it started to manufacture computers to rival the big guns of Sinclair and Commodore.

In the '90s, Amstrad began on portable computers but its real success came in the manufacturing of Sky set-top boxes, a business the company still holds onto today.

Last year Sugar sold Amstrad to BSkyB for £125 million. His departure has been described by the man himself as a "planning" move.

From Alan to Alun

Speaking about his exit, Sir Alan Sugar said: "This is a move that has been planned for a while and it's the right time for me to step down from my role at Amstrad.

"The past 40 years have seen Amstrad grow from a start-up business to the success story that it is today, which is credit to the talented and loyal team here."

Amstrad Managing Director Alun Webber who took over the day-to-day running of the company when it moved to BSkyB is to take control.

This won't be the last we see of the Sugar, though, as he still has a number of business with prefix Ams (Amshold, Amsprop, Amsair) and there's the little thing of The Apprentice which, a show which shows no signs of abating.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.