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p>A star of the hit TV-show Dragons’ Den has plunged into financial trouble after failing to meet the demands of a £122 million worth of property loan debts.
Duncan Bannatyne, who owns the Bannatyne health club chain, has plummeted out of the Rich List after struggling to repay the £180 million loan he took out to purchase a further 24 clubs from the Hilton Group in 2006.
The health club tycoon, who was once the program’s richest businessman, has been repaying £10 million a year to now collapsed Anglo Irish Bank, until company losses and a costly divorce, drove the Scot into financial pressure.
Financial experts, KPMG, have been employed to administrate the magnate’s multi-million pound portfolio; however experts have been unable to rescue Mr. Bannatyne from having to sell his personal £875,000 property.
Bannatyne told the Daily Mail: "Everything else is on hold until I sort this out. It’s a very tense period for me at the moment and is taking up all my time. I have spent half a million pounds trying to sort my affairs out - that’s a lot of people to pay."
The 64-year-old Scot currently owns 60 gyms across Britain, which houses over 180,000 members, contributing to his £420 million fortune, pre financial turmoil.
His recent divorce from second wife Joanne McCue has proved significantly costly for the former ice-cream salesman, with a series of unfortunate company losses and the divorce resulting in his fortune dramatically decreasing to just £85 million last year.
The father of-six will now sell his Billingham home, bought for £800,000 in 2011, which boasts golf course views, a large 19ft maple-floors lounge and five bedrooms.
Bannatyne was subsequently dropped from the Rich List, a list he has inhabited for some time, with the list’s complier, Phillip Beresford telling the Daily Mail: “When I looked at his accounts I could not find enough assets to justify his inclusion.”
A star of the hit TV-show Dragons' Den has plunged into financial trouble after failing to meet the demands of a £122 million worth of property loan debts.
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