UPDATE: |Lord Sugar crowns The Apprentice 2025 winner News

Lord Sugar congratulated his new business partner after a gruelling final

Lord Sugar has chosen Dean Franklin as the winner of The Apprentice 2025, after he had to make a “tough decision” between the final two.

Following Dean’s win, Lord Alan Sugar will now go into business with him and invest £250,000 into his air conditioning business. He beat fellow finalist Anisa Khan, owner of an Indian-Italian fusion pizza company Thursday’s (17th April) final of the BBC business show.

Struggling to hold back his excitement, Dean said: “I can’t believe I’ve just won The Apprentice. This is going to mean the world to me and my family. My kids are going to be over the moon.”

In the final, Lord Sugar, 78, met his two contestants at The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn, in central London, where he gave them the final challenge of launching businesses. Lord Sugar told them they would need to create a new brand for their companies, and produce an advertising campaign, which would then be pitched to him and a group of industry figures.

Lord Sugar told Anisa that pizza was a “crowded market” and food businesses “go bust every day”, so she would need to prove that her business could “stand out in the face of tough competition”.

Meanwhile, Dean was told that air conditioning made him an “honest living” but he needed to show a “scalable proposition”.

Lord Sugar’s adviser, Baroness Brady, said Dean’s comedy skit advert missed the mark and made “no sense at all”, and that it focused on the “secondary use” of an air conditioning unit.

As Dean set about to make some impromptu changes, he called the team and told them it needed to focus more on customers who are too hot.

Anisa went down a different route for her pizza empire, as her advert was shot at a football ground. Previously fired candidate Amber-Rose Badrudin directed her former candidate actors to pretend to be fans of India and Italy enjoying the finalist’s pizza, fusing pizza with Indian cuisine, at a match.

Later the contestants pitched their businesses. Anisa told the group to try her pizza and Lord Sugar, after taking a bite, was asked if he thought it was nice. He replied: “Oh blimey, yes, this is very good.”

After the pitch Lord Sugar said he was concerned about how Anisa would attract people to her dark kitchen business model, in which food is delivered from a kitchen with no shop front.

Later, when entering his pitch Dean said he wanted home-owners to know how “quick and easy” it is for them to get an air conditioning unit installed by his Domesticool company, saying he understood customers wanted it “there and then”.

In a question and answer session during the pitch, Lord Sugar asked how much it would cost to have a unit put in his bedroom. Dean replied: “For you Lord Sugar, it would be free.” Lord Sugar wasn’t impressed, however, as he replied: “Well then you won’t be hired by me if you’re giving things away.”

Before he announced Dean as the winner, Lord Sugar said they were both “very, very incredible” and the decision was “tough”.

Baroness Brady added: “I like Dean. I think the issue for him is he doesn’t know how to scale up. This is where he needs you. He’s lacking that bit of confidence on if the decisions he’s making are the right decisions. And I think you’ll give him that push that you need.

“I think the difference between the two candidates is this – Dean’s got a business. You’re investing in that business and helping him scale up. Anisa, yes she has a business. It’s tiny but you’re really investing in her.”

The two contestants made their final impassioned pitch to Lord Sugar before he made his final decision.

Lord Sugar said: “This is the way I see it. Dean, through the process you’ve been quite good. There have been a few rocky moments where you remained in it by the skin of your teeth, but do I have the confidence in the residential market?”

He continued: “As opposed to food, where everyone’s got to eat, and a £10, £12 pizza is affordable to most people. That’s where I am at the moment. Giving it deep consideration, I’m going to say that Dean, you’re going to be my business partner.”