There are now a record 88 billionaires among the country’s wealthiest, according to the Sunday Times Rich List
Britain’s richest keep getting richer but the richest of them all is not steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal anymore. Alisher Usmanov, who has a near 30% stake in Arsenal Football Club, has kicked Mittal off the top spot with his £13.3bn fortune.
According to the Sunday Times Rich List, the 1,000 richest people in Britain have wealth totalling almost £450bn compared to £414bn last year.
But what we at LondonlovesBusiness.com are excited about is all the billionaires that got the top 10 spots are Londoners, they either have a home in London or are based in the capital.
#1 Alisher Usmanov
Wealth: £13.3bn
Sector: Mining and investment
The 59-year-old Russian oligarch has had a good weekend. On Saturday, his team Arsenal moved into third place in the English Premier League and on Sunday, he topped the Rich List as his assets rose by £985m.
Usmanov is Russia’s richest man and owns a major stake in mobile phone operator MegaFon, a share in internet group mail.ru and a major holding in Metalloinvest, Russia’s biggest iron ore producer. Last year, he raked in £1.6bn by selling Facebook shares when the social network debuted on the stock market.
His list of riches also include a £48m London mansion and Sutton Place, the former Surrey home of the late oil baron J Paul Getty.
#2 Len Blavatnik
Wealth pile: £11bn
Sector: Investment, music and media
Another Russian ruling the list is Len Blavatnik, owner of Warner Music. Known for his zero-to-hero story, Blavatnik came to the US in the seventies penniless and went onto become a millionaire with his private equity firm Access Industries.
Just last month, Blavatnik got a £2bn windfall for his stake in TNK-BP. He’s also invested $130m (£81m) in Spotify-rival Deezer.
His home in London? Where else, Kensington Palace Gardens.
#3 Sri and Gopi Hinduja
Wealth: £10.6bn
Sector: Industry and finance
Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja with Geneva-based brother Prakash and Mumbai-based Ashok own Carlton Terrace House, a 70,000 square foot mansion near Buckingham Palace in which they all have apartments. Their business pans oil, banking, defence, energy, petroleum, media and technology.
#4 Lakshmi Mittal and family
Wealth: £10bn
Sector: Steel
Mittal, who is named after Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, has toppled to fourth place after topping the Rich List for eight consecutive years. The plummet in his wealth is attributed to Mittal’s 40% stake in ArcelorMittal – which has fallen from a peak of £28bn to £5.95bn.
Last year, Mittal unveiled the £23m ArcelorMittal Orbit in Stratford with London mayor Boris Johnson. Another football enthusiast, he owns a 20% stake in West London’s Queens Park Rangers football club.
A 12-bedroom mansion which comes with an indoor pool studded with stones taken from the Taj Mahal quarry, Turkish baths and parking for 20 cars, is what he calls home.
#5 Roman Abramovich
Wealth: £9.3bn
Sector: Oil and industry
The third Russian on the top 10 list, Abramovich won a legal claim brought against him by now-deceased Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky last year. Owner of Chelsea football club, the owner recently got the go ahead to build a £100m home in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.
His new superhome will come with an art studio, a garden inspired by previous owner James Whistler’s paintings of the Thames Embankment, and a “secondary building for staff and guests”. Known to be a yacht lover, his 533ft Eclipse is the second-largest in world.
#6 John Fredriksen and family
Wealth: £8.8bn
Sector: Oil and industry
Shipping boss John Fredriken’s companies Frontline, the biggest tanker operator in the world, Arcadia Petroleum and Seawell have made his fortunes rise by £2.2bn last year. He was the richest man in Norway until he abandoned his Norwegian citizenship for the tax haven Cyprus.
He owns a 30,000 square foot house in London’s Chelsea and others in Oslo and Cyprus. His daughter Kathrine made headlines all over the world for getting a swarovski-studded plaster when she fractured her leg in 2009.
#7 David and Simon Reuben
Wealth: £8.2bn
Sector: Property and internet
Dubbed the ‘metal czars’, the brothers made their fortune through metal trading and property development. They together now own 48% of all horseracing in the UK and plan to expand their data center business, GlobalSwitch, to Hong Kong, Sydney and Singapore.
Last week, the duo won permission to turn Picadilly’s In and Out Club into a £200m home with 11-bedrooms, an underground swimming pool, an 85 ft ballroom and a 35,000-bottle wine cellar. The brothers also own the Connaught House on Berkeley Square, the John Lewis headquarters in Victoria and a number of properties on Sloane Street.
#8 The Duke of Westminster
Wealth: £7.8bn
Sector: Property
Duke of Westminster Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor
The Duke of Westminster, Gerald Grosvenor, owns rows of properties in London’s Mayfair and Belgravia through his property giant Grosvenor Estates. Last week, he turned down a dividend for the second year in a row.
He’s the highest placed Briton on the list and has seen his wealth rise by £450m last year.
#9 Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli
Wealth: £7.4bn
Sector: Pharmaceuticals
Kirsty Bertarelli
Italian-born Swiss businessman Ernesto Bertarelli’s riches are attributed to Serono, a pharmaceutical company, which was sold in 2006 for £8.7bn.
Investment management group Kedge Capital and Ares Life Sciences, which has invested in healthcare and pharmaceuticals and asset management business Northill Capital have also contributed to his wealth.
Ernesto’s wife and former Miss UK Kirsty Bertarelli plans to relaunch her pop career this year and has already recorded an album, Love Is, which includes a duet with Boyzone’s Ronan Keating.
#10 Charlene and Michel de Carvalho
Wealth: £7bn
Industry: Inheritance, brewing and banking
The de Carvalhos owe their wealth to Charlene’s father, the late Freddy Heineken. Charlene inherited the business from her father which at present has more than 170 premium brands in more than 65 countries. Michel’s the vice-chairman of the US banking giant Citigroup and as a child he appeared in the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia. The couple, who live in Knightsbridge, have five children together.
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