UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has overtaken King Charles in terms of personal wealth, as revealed by the latest Sunday Times Rich List.
Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, have seen their wealth increase by more than £120 million ($152 million) over the past year, bringing their total fortune to £651 million ($827 million).
In contrast, King Charles’ wealth increased from £600 million ($762 million) to £610 million ($775 million).
The report accompanying the list highlighted that the UK’s “billionaire boom has come to an end,” noting a reduction in the number of billionaires from 177 in 2022 to 165 in 2024. The combined wealth of the list’s 350 individuals and families amounts to £795.361 billion, exceeding Poland’s annual GDP.
Topping the list is British-Indian businessman Gopi Hinduja and his family with a record-breaking fortune of £37.2 billion ($47.2 billion). Other notable figures include steel magnate Lakshmi N. Mittal at No. 8 and industrialist Anil Agarwal of Vedanta Resources at No. 23 with an estimated £7 billion.
Prominent Indian-origin billionaires on the list include:
- Prakash Lohia (No. 30) with £6.23 billion
- Mohsin and Zuber Issa (No. 39) with £5 billion
- Navin and Varsha Engineer (No. 58) with £3 billion
- Simon, Bobby, and Robin Arora (No. 65) with £2.682 billion
- Lord Swraj Paul and family (No. 67) with £2.6 billion
The Rich List also features UK musicians and celebrities, with Paul McCartney becoming the first UK musician to achieve billionaire status.
Robert Watts, the compiler of the Sunday Times Rich List, commented on the apparent end of the billionaire boom in the UK: “Many of our home-grown entrepreneurs have seen their fortunes fall and some of the global super-rich who came here are moving away. Thousands of British livelihoods rely on the super-rich to some extent. We’ll have to wait and see whether we have now reached peak billionaire status, and what that means for our economy.”
Impact Shorts
View AllTop 10 on the 2024 Sunday Times Rich List:
1. Gopi Hinduja – £37.2 billion
2. Sir Leonard Blavatnik – £29.2 billion
3. David and Simon Reuben and family – £24.9 billion
4. Jim Ratcliffe – £23.5 billion
5. James Dyson and family – £20.8 billion
6. Barnaby and Merlin Swire and family – £17.2 billion
7. Idan Ofer – £14.9 billion
8. Lakshmi Mittal and family – £14.9 billion
9. Guy, George, Alannah and Galen Weston and family – £14.4 billion
10. John Fredriksen and family – £12.8 billion
The minimum entry threshold for this year’s list was £350 million, illustrating the significant wealth concentration among the UK’s richest individuals and families.