Miss Sixty The denim specialist Energie and the Sixty company were established in 1989, and Miss Sixty - the Italian high street label associated with fashionable 20-somethings - was launched in 1991. Since then Miss Sixty has opened 380 stores worldwide and last year added a hotel in Riccione, Italy, to its long list of businesses.

Cobra Shortly after finishing university and £20,000 in debt, Karan Bilimori, then a 24-year-old Cambridge graduate, launched Cobra because he found British beer too gassy to accompany Indian food. Cobra now has a retail turnover of £126m and is sold in 6,000 bars, pubs and clubs in the UK.

The Sunday Correspondent Billed as the UK’s first new quality Sunday broadsheet in 28 years, it rolled off the presses in 1989, relaunched as a tabloid in August 1990 and shut down three months later. Founder editor Peter Cole is now head of journalism at Sheffield University, while its sports editor, Simon Kelner, is the Independent’s editor-in-chief.

Sky TV The UK’s largest digital pay-TV platform was launched with only four channels and a rival called BSB. However, BSB failed and Sky took over, becoming BSkyB. It now has 28 channels and 8 million subscribers in the UK and Ireland - equivalent to one in three households

First Direct The UK’s first mass market telephone bank was set up by Midland - then one of the big four banks - and became part of the HSBC group when Midland was acquired in 1992. It began piloting internet banking in the late 90s. It has 1.2 million customers.

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