BBCs Apprentice Final Eyes IBM Building

BBCs Apprentice Final Eyes IBM Building


For the final of the BBC's popular television programme, the Apprentice, it seems that the challenge for the two remaining contestants will centre around the development of a key site in central London.

Alan Sugar, the central character in the show, has been heavily investing for some years now in property, so much so that he has made a second fortune dwarfing his original Amstrad profits.

Sugar's property investment vehicle, Amsprop, which he runs jointly with his son, bought the infamous IBM Building on the South Bank in London back in September 2006 for £115 million eyeing it up for redevelopment.

Sitting next to Kent House and the planned Doon Street Tower, the plot represents the perfect opportunity for a new high-rise luxury residential building like the Beetham Tower. It will be grappling with the potential options that will be the challenge for contestants Simon Ambrose and Kristina Grimes as they battle it out for a £100,000 a year job working for Sugar.

It's a particularly embarassing move for the Conservative Party who have been arguing that such tall buildings have no business case for them and are now faced with one of the most popular representations of capitalism in British media doing an episode on just that.

The programme in-case you're not familiar, is about a group of yuppies who each week are given jobs by Sugar to see how well they perform and gradually whittled down - a sort of extended reality tv interview.

The Apprentice was originally brought over from the USA by the BBC where it was popularised by property mogul, Donald Trump, who also coined the phrases he uses each week to pick and eliminate contestants - "you're hired" and "you're fired".

It should be interesting to see how a couple of amateurs approach this problem and what the end results are not to mention revealing some of the usually closed development process to the public. Whether Amsprop build it is another thing entirely.

The Final will be shown on BBC1 at 9.00 p.m next Wednesday and a follow on on BBC2 immediately after at 10p.m.

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