Who are the top 10 richest people in the UK? And what can we learn from the UK’s top 10 richest people?
Each year, the “Rich List” is released telling us who qualifies as the richest people in the world. Whilst this is usually just an exercise in ego, we believe that this could actually be a good learning exercise and a provide a huge amount of inspiration.
We have therefore taken the UK’s top 10 richest people and put them under the magnifying glass: not only looking at how much net worth they have accumulated, but also asking where their money came from and what do they do with it now.
We have previously looked at the mathematics of becoming a millionaire in 20 years. However, to become a billionaire, we may need to look a little further beyond the maths…
UK Top 10 Richest People – #1 – Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor
How much money has he got?
The very richest of the UK’s top 10 richest people – take a bow son! The formally titled “6th Duke of Westminster” is estimated to be worth a cool $13.1 billion, making him the 89th richest man on the Forbes worldwide list.
What does he do with his money?
Gerald Grosvenor basically owns London. And with London house prices increasing the way they are, there is no surprise that he is surging up the list.
His primary property portfolio consists of 190 acres in Belgravia, which is one of London’s most expensive neighborhoods. Grosvenor saw his fortune increase $400 million alone in 2013 as prices in Belgravia skyrocketed, an area where homes can sell for over $150 million each.
As well as many thousands of acres of land and property in England, Gerald Grosvenor and his family also own 96,000 acres in Scotland and 32,000 acres in Spain.
Altogether, his company, the private Grosvenor Group, owns real estate on five continents and reports just under $20 billion in assets under management – not to be scoffed at.
Where did his money come from?
His education consisted of leaving school with only two O-levels. From here, he joined the army as a trooper, making his way all the way through the ranks to Colonel , Grand Prior, Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff and finally Major-General.
This is clearly a story of hard work and commitment to his profession. However, besides the handsome military pension, this career path probably doesn’t explain his current $13.1 billion fortune.
No, instead, that came down through the generations. Gerald Grosvenor was lucky enough to inherit his wealth from a 400 year old trust set up by very distant ascendants.
However, that said, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor has grown his family’s wealth substantially as head of the Grosvenor Group to levels they have never seen in the past and respect must be given his way for that achievement.
UK Top 10 Richest People – #2 – Hinduja Brothers
How much money have they got?
London-based brothers Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja are placed 101st on the Forbes worldwide rich list. You may feel sorry for them that they missed out on the top 100. However, that sympathy may waive a little when you learn that they have a combined worth of $12 billion.
What do they do with their money?
The Hinduja brothers co-chair the Hinduja Group. The Hinduja Group is a global conglomerate company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, founded in 1914 by Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja, who was from a Hindu family based in Sindh, Pakistan.
The Hinduja Group is a multinational conglomerate of 22 companies, with activities ranging from oil & gas, defence, banking and healthcare.
Their fortune has consistently increased from their business internally in the past few years, but this has been supplemented by the sale of many businesses including a 49% stake in Saudi-based lubricants maker Petromin for over $300 million last year.
The October issue of Forbes Life estimates the Hinduja home in London’s Carlton House Terrace to be worth $ 500 million, making it the 3rd most expensive private home in the world.
Where did their money come from?
As previously noted, The Hinduja Group was founded in 1914, by the father of the brothers.
Therefore, the much of the worth of the business and their wealth was essentially inherited when the brothers took over the business in 1979.
However, they have certainly not sat still since then and have hugely developed the business into what it is today. With the acquisition of Ashok Leyland (from British Leyland) and Gulf Oil (from Chevron) in the 1980s and the establishment of banks in Switzerland and India in the 1990s, The Hinduja Group evolved into what it is today.
In 2012, the Group acquired a 100% stake in the U.S. firm Houghton International, the world’s largest metal fluids manufacturer, for $ 1.045 billion.
UK Top 10 Richest People – #3 – David and Simon Reuben
How much money have they got?
The Reuben brothers are just behind the Hinduja brothers with a net worth of $11.7 billion, granting them 103rd place on the worldwide rich list.
What do they do with their money?
Just like the Briton on the list, Gerald Grosvenor, the Reuben brothers are real estate moguls, with the majority of their property portfolio being based in London, UK. This consists of both residential and commercial property: the brothers currently own Millbank Tower, the John Lewis Partnership headquarters, the American Express headquarters. They also have investments in Merchant Square, Park Plaza Resorts & Hotels, Hampton House, London Oxford Airport and London Heliport.
They also run a data center business, GlobalSwitch, which operates primarily in Hong Kong, Sydney and Amsterdam.
For anyone who likes an investment approach which pays out dividends, David & Simon will be your heroes. In December 2013, GlobalSwitch paid them a one-off special dividend, for a cool $1 billion.
As well as being extremely successful businessmen, the brothers are also philanthropists. Their Reuben Foundation funds health care and educational causes.
David resides in Monaco and Florida and Simon lives in Monaco.
Where did their money come from?
Whilst the brothers were born to a prosperous Baghdadi Jewish family in Bombay, India, in the forties, most of their wealth is self-made through their business ventures.
The family arrived in London when the boys were teenagers, allowing them to be educated in British secondary schools. Simon started out importing carpets and buying real estate; David in metals trading and during the 1970s and 1980s, both became more involved in property investments.
They later joined together in Transworld, a metals trader that invested in Russia and Kazakhstan in the 1990s. Since selling their metals business, the pair have concentrated their resources on property, pubs (they own the The Wellington Pub Group with over 850 tenanted pubs), banking (with investments in Luup and Metro Bank) and natural resources.
UK Top 10 Richest People – #4 – Charles Cadogan
How much money has he got?
You have to go quite a way down the global list to find the next of UK’s top 10 richest people – Charles Cadogan – in 201st place with a net worth of $6.9 billion.
What does he do with his money?
Are you noticing a theme yet? Charles Cadogan shares a lot in common with Charles Grosvenor. Charles Cadogan is the head of one of London’s richest and well-acclaimed real estate dynasties, Cadogan Estates, the 300-year-old family property. He also has a fancy title: Charles Gerald John Cadogan, 8th Earl Cadogan.
Charles Cadogan stepped down as chair of Cadogan Estates in 2012 and the business is now managed by his son Edward, Viscount Chelsea.
The business is currently involved with the redevelopment of Sloane Street, a popular shopping destination with a new piazza of high-end shops.
He also has a 90-acre residential property estate, which spreads over the capital’s most desirable locations in the posh neighborhoods of Chelsea and Knightsbridge.
Where did their money come from?
Again, like Charles Grosvenor, Charles Cadogan’s career began in the military – he was a Second Lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards. His career took a bit of a turn when he became a merchant banker with Schroder Wagg and he also chaired Chelsea Football Club for a year in 1981.
However, the majority of his wealth came when he took over the Cadogan Estates, when his father (the 7th Earl Cardogan – William) passed away in 1997.
There is an interesting fact that most individuals on the Forbes rich list did not inherit the family business but rather made their own fortune (research showed that 69 percent of those on the list in 2011 were self-made).
However, this is currently seemingly the case for Britain’s richest billionaires. Until we reach…
UK Top 10 Richest People – #5 – Michael Ashley
How much money has he got?
As a Newcastle United fan, I’ll try to be a little restrained and remain independent and professional in this summary. Michael Ashley is 218th on the list, with a net worth of $6.5 billion and comes in as the fifth richest person in England.
What does he do with his money?
Mike Ashley is an English billionaire, with his fortune primarily invested within his sports retail empire, Sports Direct, with other investments in businesses in the UK, and a famous investment in Newcastle United FC, which he bought for around £135 million.
Michael’s company, Sports Direct International Plc, headquartered in Shirebrook, Mansfield has over 400 UK stores including the chains Sports World, Lillywhites (acquired in 2002) and Gilesports.
The group employs more than 20,000 people in the UK and has stores in many countries, including Ireland, Belgium and Slovenia, and in 2006, it overtook JJB Sports as the UK’s largest sportswear retailer.
His wealth from Sports Direct Plc has soared in the past few years. He was the sole owner of the business until its IPO in 2007. At the IPO, it is understood that Mike Ashley personally earned $1.8 billion from this transaction.
He also held a majority stake following the IPO, and with Sports Direct shares increasing from 32p in November 2008 to highs of 922p in April 2014. The increase of 2,781% has clearly helped Michael soar up the rich list.
Where did his money come from?
Whilst very few Newcastle United fans will hold Mike Ashley as a role model, entrepreneurs and new businessmen surely will.
Ashley grew up in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, where his parents still live in a modest bungalow. He was educated at Burnham Grammar School. After leaving school at 16, and following an injury, he became a county-level squash coach.
In the 1980s Ashley opened his first Sport & Ski shop in Maidenhead. The chain expanded quickly funded by private money, and by the late 1990s had rebranded the chain Sports Soccer and opened over 100 stores across the United Kingdom.
In short, Mike Ashley is the currently the pinnacle of self-made billionaires in the UK.
UK Top 10 Richest People – #6 – Bruno Schroeder
How much money have he got?
Bruno Schroder, the fourth generation in his banking family to operate their eponymous financial-services company, Schroders, is currently worth $5.6 billion and finds himself 267th on the worldwide rich list and the sixth richest man in England.
What does he do with his money?
Bruno Schroder currently acts as a non-executive director and a member of the nominations committee for Schroders.
The company has around $416 billion in assets under management globally. Shares of the company were at all-time highs at the start of 2014 (highs of £26.90 in March 2014), up from £6.35 November 2008.
Bruno Schroder In his spare time, Schroder flies his private plane and breeds Middle White pigs at his estate, Dunlossit House, in Islay, Scotland. He has given generously to the island of Islay, helping restore an old whiskey distillery, sponsoring the local Highland games, and funding the Islay lifeboat, which has reportedly saved at least 5 lives since its reconstruction.
Where did his money come from?
Born in 1933, Bruno Lionel Schroder was educated at Eton, Oxford, and Harvard Business School. He served in the Life Guards before joining the family firm in 1960. His father Baron Helmut had a heart attack and Bruno, then 27 and doing his MBA at Harvard, was urgently summoned to the firm.
He joined the banking division, but later moved to the more glamorous corporate finance side, advising big companies on takeovers and acquisitions. By 1963 he was elevated to the board.
But he has never played much more than a part-time, ambassadorial role. At company headquarters he was scarcely visible. In the bank’s semi-official history, “Schroders, Merchants and Bankers” by Professor Richard Roberts of Sussex University, he merits just one paragraph.
The baron’s main achievement, says Professor Roberts, was to organise family interests to ensure the continued independence of the firm. A complex two-tier share structure gave the family a disproportionate amount of voting shares and therefore boardroom control. “He was very aware of his birthright,” said another colleague. In an interview he once said he thought only of protecting his fortune so he could pass it on to the children.
UK Top 10 Richest People – #7 – Philip Green
How much money have they got?
Sir Philip Nigel Ross Green is a British businessman and is currently 279th on the worldwide billionaires list with a fortune of $5.3 billion.
What do they do with their money?
Philip Green is the CEO of the Arcadia Group, a retail giant that includes Topshop, BHS and Dorothy Perkins.
He currently lives in Monaco, but spends weeks working in London. He is often criticized for his extravagant spending, but many would say “if you’ve got it, flaunt it”. Among Green’s more extravagant possessions are a £32 million Benetti yacht and a £20 million Gulfstream G550 private jet. For his birthday, his wife bought him a solid gold Monopoly set, featuring his own acquisitions. He also reportedly spent £4m on his son’s bar mitzvah (with sets from Andrea Bocelli & Destiny’s Child), and hosted (at great personal cost) many other events and parties with personal performances by Rihanna, Tom Jones, Rod Stewart and One Direction!
Despite this spending, Green also has a registered philanthropic initiative, the Khan Charitable Trust and a supporter of many other charities, often making very large single donations to charity.
Where did their money come from?
Philip Green is another self-made billionaire through retail. After leaving boarding school at 15, he worked for a shoe importer before travelling to the US, Europe and the Far East. It was on his return that he set up his first business with a £20,000 loan, importing jeans from the Far East to sell on to retailers in London.
In 1979, Green bought up the entire stock of ten designer label clothes sellers who had gone into receivership for extremely low prices. He then had the newly bought clothes sent to the dry cleaners, got them put on hangers, wrapped them in polythene to make them look new, and then bought a place to sell them to the public.
He then ran a series of retail businesses throughout his life: Amber Day, Owen Owen, Lewis’s, Olympus, Sears, BHS, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Outfit, Topshop, Topman, Wallis and Etam.
UK Top 10 Richest People – #8 – Richard Branson
How much money has he got?
Probably Briton’s most famous self-made billionaire entrepreneur, Richard Branson is actually now below fellow entrepreneurs Mike Ashley & Philip Green. However, he is still 301st on the worldwide billionaires list, with a net worth of $5.0 billion.
What does he do with his money?
Richard Branson is best known for being the founder of the Virgin Group, which actually comprises of over 400 companies.
It is difficult to pin Branson down to any one investment – he is very much a jack of all trades, but also can probably claim to be a master of many as well. To summarize, it is probably best to have a look at Branson’s journey to date…
Where did his money come from?
Branson had dyslexia and had poor academic performance as a student, but later discovered his ability to connect with others. On one of Branson’s last days at school, his headmaster, Robert Drayson, told him he would either end up in prison or become a millionaire. Good call Mr. Drayson!
He started his business empire from very humble beginnings: at the age of sixteen his first business venture was a magazine called “Student”.
In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business. In 1972, he opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records, later known as Virgin Megastores. Branson’s Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he set up Virgin Atlantic and expanded the Virgin Records music label.
In 1992, to keep his airline company afloat, Branson sold the Virgin label to EMI for £500 million. Branson said that he wept when the sale was completed because the record business had been the very start of the Virgin empire; with some reports stating that he ran down London’s Ladbroke Grove in tears as a result.
He also created Virgin Mobile (telecommunicaitons), Virgin Blue (airlines), Virgin Express (airlines), Virgin Trains (trains), Virgin American (airlines), Virgin Galactic (space tourism), Virgin Fuels (energy efficient fuels), Virgin Media (media), Virgin Money (banking). The list could go on all day!
UK Top 10 Richest People – #9 – Joe Lewis
How much money has he got?
Joe Lewis, a British businessman currently living in the Bahamas, is currently worth $4.9 billion and is 316th on the worldwide billionaires list, making him the UK’s 9th richest man.
What does he do with his money?
Joe Lewis is the majority investor in the Tavistock Group, which owns more than 200 companies. The portfolio includes healthcare residences, manufacturing and distribution companies, oil, gas and energy businesses, financial services, restaurants, commercial property, private luxury residential property and resort property.
Lewis hosts the Tavistock Cup tournament every March in Florida, raising millions of dollars for charity.
Lewis also owns a vast art collection, estimated to be worth $1 billion, including pieces by Picasso, Matisse and Lucian Freud.
Where did his money come from?
You’ll be pleased to know that Joe Lewis’ story is another inspirational one – another “rags to riches” tale!
Lewis was born to a Jewish family above a public house in London. He left school at 15 to help run his father’s West End of London catering business, starting out as a waiter.
When he took the reins, he quickly expanded it by selling luxury goods to American tourists, and also owned West End club the Hanover Grand. He later sold the business in 1979 to make his initial wealth.
Lewis then moved into currency trading in the 1980s and 1990s. In September 1992, Lewis made a big bet on the pound crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. The event, which was dubbed Black Wednesday, made Lewis very wealthy.
UK Top 10 Richest People – #10 – Laurence Graff
How much money have they got?
The 10th richest man in England who makes the list, and the last in our detailed profile, is Laurence Graff who is worth $4.8 billion and is 326th on the total worldwide billionaires list.
What do they do with their money?
Laurence Graff (OBE) is an English Jeweller and the founder of Graff Diamonds. Graff Diamonds is a worldwide company, with high-end jewellery stores in across the globe. The group continues to expand, opening new stores in prime locations in major world cities every year (the latest being in Zurich & London).
Where did their money come from?
Great news – we get to finish with another self-made billionaire.
Graff was born in Stepney in 1938 into a Jewish family, the son of a Romanian mother, Rebecca Segal, and a Russian father, Harry Graff. His father made suits off the Commercial Road while his mother ran a tobacconist and newsagents.
Graff left school and became an apprentice when he was 15. He soon went into partnership with Schindler, a jeweller, repairing rings and creating small pieces of jewellery in a small shop.
That shop went out of business and so Graff began selling his jewellery designs independently to jewellers all over England. By 1962, he had two jewellery shops.
In 1960, he founded the Graff Diamonds company. By 1974, he had begun specializing in selling to newly rich buyers from the Middle East. In particular, he supplied many jewels for the Sultan of Brunei, who became a lifelong client and friend. One day, Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz walked into the shop and bought everything including a 14 carat diamond. Graff is expanding his company in across the world with over 35 stores now covering US, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Thanks for sharing this! I always love reading these things to see how the rich made their money. Surprisingly, I would have thought Richard Branson would be higher on the list!
I think he used to be, but there are some new names on the list. Branson is still probably the most famous billionaire in the UK though I would say.
Always interesting to see how much people have, how they got it and what they tend to do with their money. Thanks for sharing.
Pleasure. I personally find these things absolutely fascinating. Often we see lists of the top ten richest people in England or something similar, but I find it much more productive to find out where these British billionaires earned their money, and more importantly, what they are doing today in order to keep it growing!