The Apprentice's fine wine hedge fund man is fired

Tom Gearing, with his fine wine hedge fund business plan, made it to the final of the BBC's TV show The Apprentice but was runner-up to Ricky Martin whose much safer, ethical recruitment business idea will be backed with £250,000 of Alan Sugar's own cash. Lord Sugar deemed Gearing's plan to raise £25m of funds from outside investors as too risky an investment that could damage his reputation, saying he had never risked other people's money and with his position in society he couldn't afford to be involved in something that goes wrong, despite having made lots and lots of mistakes of his own.

Gearing is a director and co-founder of Cult Wines, which he plans to expand and says he has already received interest in fine wine investment from several institutional investors. For now he is on holiday in Greece to relax and contemplate the future.