The founder of ill-fated used car retail group Big Cars, Adam Stott, took centre stage in the first episode of the new series of Channel 5 Rich House, Poor House last night.

Stott, described in the programme as a “millionaire business consultant” traded places with a widowed single mum who had just £70-per-week to live in after losing her job in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in an emotionally-charged episode of the programme.

Struggling Kiptieu, who fled war-torn Sierra Leone and is now a widow bringing up her three daughters in a two-bedroom ground-floor flat in Abbey Wood, London, could not believe her luck when she traded places with Stott.

Her weekly budget soared to £1,700 as she moved into the four-bedroomed Essex mansion he shares with his father Ian – who also took part in the programme – and she ended the programme by going into business with the Stotts.

Kiptieu burst into tears at the end of the episode as the father and son cleared her £25,000 debt and backed her to develop a business cooking African food for a takeaway service.

In a pep talk at the end of the episode, Adam Stott said: “When you focus on one area you can take it a long way."

Stott’s fortunes appear to have turned around since he blamed major changes to his Big Cars business’ stock and finance provision for creating the “unsustainable trading conditions” that forced its closure back in 2018.

The sudden closure of Big Cars - the subject of an AM car dealer profile feature back in 2015 - marked a dramatic change of fortune for the business which had seen its turnover rise from £1m to £25m in the space of just six years and been placed in the London Stock Exchange annual list of 1,000 companies to inspire Britain for a third time the previous summer.

The used car business became one of 69 companies featured three times nine years after Stott quit his sales job at a BMW dealership to start the business in his mum’s spare bedroom.

Eight years later, in 2016, the business had 100 employees and generated an annual turnover of £30m.

As AM reported back in 2019, Stott started a corporate events business following the failure of the Big Cars business, organising large-scale events at which he offered business coaching advice and interviewed A-list celebrities to share the key to their success.

Among Stott’s interviewees have been fashion designer Calvin Klein, boxers Floyd Mayweather and Anthony Joshua and movie stars Al Pacino and John Travolta.