Surprise as Sugar's Amshold FD steps down

The long-serving finance director of Lord Sugar's private holding company, Amshold, has stepped down and left the board in a surprise move.

Colin Sandy left on 21 February, according to a filing at Companies House. Mr Sandy has worked with Lord Sugar, who is known for his TV catchphrase "you're fired!" on BBC1's The Apprentice, for decades.

He featured in Lord Sugar's autobiography What You See is What You Get, when he refers to "receiv[ing] a phone call from Colin Sandy (the finance director I'd appointed)" about a transfer fee request for Teddy Sheringham when Lord Sugar was chairman of Tottenham Hotspur.

An Amshold spokesman said: "The movement on the board has been part of an Amshold group corporate reorganisation. Colin remains at the company and is still very much involved." The spokesman added that Mike Ray — previously finance director of real estate vehicle Amsprop, a subsidiary of Amshold — had taken up the post of finance director at the holding company as well as joining its board.

Lord Sugar is the chairman of Amshold, which owns Amscreen, a digital sign-maker, computing group Viglen and real-estate company Amsprop, which has a portfolio including the IBM building on the South Bank in London and a five-acre site next to Luton airport.

Amshold accounts posted at the start of 2012 showed Lord Sugar sold sold two properties for £86.6m in the financial year to June, helping property investment company Amshold Group post a profit of £22.9m. Rental income on its estate, which is worth £278m, fell from £18.7m to £15. 8m because of those sales.