Andrew
Mountbatten Windsor applies to shut down business interests
Former
prince seeks to dissolve Dragons’ Den-style startup competition and his
innovation company
Nadeem
Badshah
Tue 11
Nov 2025 20.33 GMT
Andrew
Mountbatten Windsor has applied to shut down some of his last remaining
business interests including the Dragons’ Den-style startup competition
Pitch@Palace Global.
A
document announcing the application to dissolve the firm was filed with
Companies House on Tuesday, signed by its sole director, Arthur Lancaster.
Pitch@Palace
held its first event in 2014 and involved entrepreneurs presenting their ideas
to potential investors at locations including St James’s Palace.
It
suspended operations in 2019 after the interview Mountbatten Windsor gave to
BBC Newsnight about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and in which he denied
having any sexual contact with Virginia Giuffre.
The UK
side of the business was wound up in 2021 but the international part,
Pitch@Palace Global, remained open.
The
latest set of accounts showed that the business had £10,965 at the end of
March, down from £220,990 the year before, the BBC reported.
Last
year, the founder of the Chinese arm of Pitch@Palace, Yang Tengbo, was accused
of being a spy, which he denied.
The UK’s
semi-secret national security court upheld a 2023 ban on Tengbo entering the
country. The businessman had gone to the special immigration appeals commission
to appeal against the decision but it ruled that the ban should remain in
place.
Another
company with links to the former prince, Innovate Global Ltd, also began the
process of closing down, according to documents filed at Companies House.
Last
month, King Charles stripped his younger brother of his titles and honours and
moved to force him out of his 30-room Windsor mansion after months of pressure
over his ties to the convicted sex offender Epstein and the allegations made by
Giuffre. He has always denied any wrongdoing.
The
removal process applies to the titles of Prince, Duke of York, Earl of
Inverness, Baron Killyleagh and the style His Royal Highness. The honours
affected are Andrew’s Order of the Garter and Knight Grand Cross of the Royal
Victorian Order. He had ceased to use the HRH style in 2022 but it had not been
formally removed.
It is
understood that Andrew, 64, will move next year to a property on the private
Sandringham estate in Norfolk, to be privately funded by the king.
His
ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, will also move out of the Windsor property and will
make her own living arrangements.
Mountbatten
Windsor and Lancaster were both contacted for comment.
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