THE new owner of the Palace Pier has an extraordinary CV that would make even the most successful business men and women weep with envy.

With a track record of running popular bars and clubs across the UK, Eclectic Bar Group will be expected to bring some glitz and glamour to the traditional attraction.

At venues such as Dirty Blonde, Lola Lo and Coalition, Eclectic Bar Group targets “sophisticated students” and “stylish young professionals”.

But it is group executive chairman and serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson whose involvement in the takeover will merit the most interest.

With 36 years in hospitality, Johnson, 54, ran his first club as an 18-year-old student in Oxford.

Now worth an estimated £220 million, so-called Cool Hand Luke has founded, built up and sold scores of household-name businesses for hundreds of millions of pounds.

Inspired by Richard Branson after interviewing him as a student, by the time Johnson had graduated from Oxford he had already run a series of businesses and clubs.

Working as a stockbroker for a few years after university, he took the plunge as an entrepreneur at the age 27.

Making his name in pizza, he and university friend Hugh Osmond, who later founded Punch Taverns, took over Pizza Express and built it up from 12 restaurants to 150.

He described pizza as the perfect business because of its high profit margins and enduring popularity.

He then started the Strada restaurant chain from scratch and built it up to 30 restaurants.

He also founded Signature Restaurants, a crown jewels collection of high-end restaurants including The Ivy and Le Caprice, netting him a combined £90 million.

In 2004, Luke became chairman and part-owner of family restaurant chain Giraffe Restaurants but stepped down in 2013 when it was sold to Tesco for £50 million.

Though residing in London, the takeover of the Palace Pier is part of a pattern of interest in Brighton that is personal as well as professional, leading some to suggest a new nickname, Mr Brighton.

He was a regular visitor to the city since childhood. Then in his student days he came down for wild nights out before having a flat here in the 1980s.

He believes the city has “broken the mould” of seaside resorts with its diversity, creativity and unique atmosphere.

But this is more than flattery. The private equity house he founded, Risk Capital Partners LLP, has made significant investments in two established success stories.

In 2014 it took a large stake in pub group InnBrighton, now known as The Laine Pub Company.

This allowed the group to revamp its 39-strong Brighton and Hove estate and expand with eight openings in London.

More recently Risk Capital bought a majority stake in independent city coffee group Small Batch from co-founder Brad Jacobsen, with plans to roll out its successful model beyond the city boundaries.

His is also chairman of Bread Limited, the owner of the artisan bakery chain Gail’s and Patisserie Holdings.

Married with three children, he is a self-styled workaholic who says “the greatest enemy is boredom and idleness”.

He also has experience in broadcast having been chairman of Channel 4 Television for six years. Not only that, he is chairman of The Institute of Cancer Research, owns online holiday website Cruise.co.uk and Neilson Active Holidays and serves on the board of sporting goods company Zoggs and Brompton Bicycles.

Outside hospitality, he founded Integrated Dental Holdings, which became the largest chain of dentists in the country, which he sold for £100 million in 2006.

Failure is rare on his CV but his takeover of New York mussels and frites restaurant Belgo did not go to plan after he underestimated the power of a unionised workforce.

He also admits his ill-fated purchase of bookstore chain Borders was influenced by his love of books, which was liquidated in 2011, losing him £2 million.

He is also an author, with several titles including Start It Up: Why Running Your Own Business is Easier Than You Think and The Maverick.

He has spoken and written about his belief that successful companies unwittingly follow kaizen, the Japanese management philosophy of constant, incremental improvements, often driven from the bottom up.

He is a self-described “unrepentant capitalist” and believes in entrepreneurs and risk-takers – not big business or government.

In his most recent Sunday Times business column he is scathing about the stultifying effect of red tape on enterprise, writing: “The rising ride of bureaucracy, regulation, compliance and litigation inhibits modern business. Too many private sector initiatives suffer death by a thousand cuts from the small-minded official who venerate petty rules and the precautionary principle.”

He is also a supporter of the Vote Leave campaign and is an outspoken critic of the EU, describing it as “backward looking” and dismissing the idea trade would be negatively impacted by leaving as “fantasy”.

So whatever happens with the Palace Pier, it is not going to be boring.