Every spring since 1989, the Sunday British newspaper The Sunday Times compiles its list – Rich List – of the estimated assets of the richest people living in Great Britain.
According to the summary prepared for the 35th time – whose top 350 field was announced by the paper already on Friday – there are 171 billionaires living in Great Britain, six less than a year ago.
The compilers of the Rich List 2023 emphasize that the number of British billionaires has decreased for the first time since the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. Their total assets are currently 683.86 billion pounds (almost 300 thousand billion forints), 30.7 billion pounds or 4.5 percent more than last year.
However, the twelve-month inflation rate in Great Britain has been above ten percent for months, so the nominal increase of 4.5 percent means that the aggregate wealth of billionaires has actually decreased in real terms.
The total assets of the top 350 field as a whole is almost 800 billion pounds (nearly 346 thousand billion forints), more than the value of Switzerland’s annual gross domestic product (GDP).
It is listed for the first time in III. King Charles, whose mother, II. Queen Elizabeth has been the monarch of the United Kingdom since her death last September. This year’s Rich List shows Károly a fortune of 600 million pounds, significantly more than the amount with which the queen was last listed last year. The late monarch’s fortune was estimated at 370 million pounds by the Rich List 2022. According to the editors of the Rich List 2023, among the biggest losers in this year’s list is the great entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin company empire, whose estimated fortune increased by 46.2 percent to 2.41 billion pounds fell. The primary reason for this is that one of Branson’s businesses, Virgin Orbit, recently collapsed.
Conservative British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, are also among the big losers.
This year’s list of billionaires is still led by the Hinduja business dynasty. According to calculations by The Sunday Times, the family’s wealth increased from 28.5 billion pounds last year to 35 billion pounds.
The Hinduja dynasty is at the top of the Rich List for the fifth time, and they have the largest individual wealth in the history of the index. Their corporate empire employs a quarter of a million employees in 48 countries.
The list of writers’ fortunes is still headed by Joanne K. Rowling, the Scottish author of the Harry Potter novel series, which has sold more than 600 million copies and is worth 875 million pounds (380 billion forints), 25 million pounds more than the editors of the Rich List 2023. like last year. JK Rowling, who in the early 1990s lived in a social tenement flat in Edinburgh as an unemployed person on £70 a week from the council, is now by far the richest novelist in the world. This year’s list of the richest British musicians and composers is still led by Sir Paul McCartney, whose fortune is now also close to one billion pounds. The 81-year-old former Beatles bassist and songwriter now has £950m in his bank account, £85m more than last year, according to estimates by the editors of the Rich List 2023.
The names of several leading musicians and singers can also be found on a separate list of the young British super-rich under the age of 35. Ed Sheeran’s fortune is estimated by the authors of Rich List 2023 at 300 million pounds. Adele is on this list with £165 million, Harry Styles with £150 million and Dua Lipa with £75 million.
Cover image source: Getty Images
