The wealth of Britain’s richest has risen again, at least according to the Sunday Times Rich List – with a change at the top. But it is the newcomer in 222nd place that makes you sit up and take notice.
Finance Minister Rishi Sunak (42) is the first British politician to be on the Sunday Times Rich List of the richest people in Great Britain.
The newspaper “Sunday Times” estimates the fortune of the conservative politician and his wife Akshata Murty at a total of 730 million pounds (861 million euros). This puts the couple in 222nd place in the rankings. Murty’s £690million stake in Indian IT giant Infosys, owned by her father N.R. Narayana Murty co-founded, the newspaper reported on Friday.
Politik in der Critical
Sunak was long considered the most promising successor to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had also come under heavy pressure within the party in the “Partygate” affair. Recently, however, his reputation had suffered, also because, according to experts, he was not taking consistent action against the cost of living crisis with skyrocketing prices for food and energy.
Above all, legal tax tricks by his wife caused outrage. Murty is non-British and permanently resident abroad. That’s why she hasn’t paid any taxes on income abroad in Great Britain so far – and thus legally saved around 2.1 million pounds in 2021, according to research by the BBC. After severe criticism, Murty announced that all income would be taxed in Great Britain.
According to the Sunday Times, the richest people in Britain are now the brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja, heads of the British-Indian conglomerate Hinduja Group. Her estimated fortune grew by £11 billion to £28.47 billion. They are followed in the list of vacuum cleaner entrepreneurs by James Dyson, whose family fortune is estimated at £23 billion. The Russian oligarchs Leonard Blavatnik and Roman Abramovich each lost several billion and slipped from first and eighth place respectively.
Overall, the 250 richest people in Great Britain are now 710.72 billion pounds, 8 percent more than in the previous year and more than the combined assets of the first 1000 in 2017. The “Sunday Times” made the big plus mainly the strong stock market and the bulging coffers of private equity funds, which in turn would have further boosted company values. 177 billionaires are on the “Rich List” – six more than in 2021 and more than ever before.