The 2022 Sunday Times Rich List has revealed that billionaire brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja are the wealthiest people in the UK. The brothers are two of four siblings who control the sprawling industrial empire set up by their dad in Mumbai, India.
There are a record 177 billionaires in the UK, according to the figures. Chancellor Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty were just outside that list at 222nd with a joint fortune of £730m, largely made up of Ms Murty's 0.9% stake in her dad Narayana Murty's IT firm Infosys.
The total wealth of the 250 richest people in the UK is £711billion - an 8% rise on last year's £658bn. At the top of the list Srichand, 86, and Gopichand, 82, Hinduja both live in London where they own valuable buildings including the historic Old War Office in Whitehall. Their other brother Prakash lives in Monaco and younger brother Ashok lives in Mumbai where he oversees a multinational congomerate that makes everything from trucks and lubricant to providing cable TV and banking services.
These are the 19 richest people in the UK according to The Sunday Times Rich List:
1. Sri and Gopi Hinduja and family – £28.47 billion
- Net worth: £28.472 billion - up £11.472bn on 2021
- Source of wealth: Industry and finance
- Rank on the Rich List: 1 - up 2 from 2021
The annual list showed that the pair, who run the Mumbai-based conglomerate Hinduja Group, saw their fortune jump by more than £11 billion. It's now the biggest fortune ever recorded in the list.
The firm is a conglomerate spanning the globe first founded by their father, Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja, who traded in what's now Pakistan before moving to Iran in 1919. Gopi Hinduja is understood to be pushing his family firm to develop electric vehicles and his son Dheeraj, 50, oversees their Leeds-based Switch Mobility, which is developing a new generation of zero-emission buses, vans and trucks.
2. Sir James Dyson and family – £23 billion
- Net worth: £23bn up £6.7bn on 2021
- Source of wealth: Household goods and technology — Dyson
- Rank on the Rich List: 2 up 2 places 2021
Billionaire inventor James Dyson is now 75 years old but remains a key force in the eponymous firm he created making everything from vacuum cleaners to hairdryers. His latest produces include noise cancelling headphones.
3. David and Simon Reuben and family – £22.26 billion
- Net worth: £22.265bn up £800m on 2021
- Source of wealth: Property and internet
- Rank on the Rich List: 3 down one place from on 2021
Brothers born in India, the Reubens now have a large investment portfolio in the UK that includes a stake in Newcastle United.
4. Sir Leonard Blavatnik – £20 billion
- Net worth: £20bn down £3bn on 2021
- Source of wealth: Investment, music and media
- Rank on the Rich List: 4 up three places from 2021
Born in Ukraine, Blavatnik emigrated to the U.S. in 1978 and studied computer science at Columbia University. He made a fortune selling his stake in Russian oil company TNK-BP for $7 billion in 2013. He has since gone on to build his fortune through investment firm Access Industries and is a joint UK/US citizen.
5. Guillaume Pousaz – £19.26 billion
- Net worth: £19.259bn up £13.716bn on 2021
- Source of wealth: Online payments — Checkout.com
- Rank on the Rich List: 5 up 28 places from 2021
Pousaz, 40, set up checkout.com which provides financial services for netflix and deliveroo. If you use their services then you will have paid through checkout. A fundraising earlier this year valued his business at £29.6bn and he owns 65% of the shares.
6. Lakshmi Mittal and family – £17 billion
- Net worth: £17bn up £2.32bn on 2021
- Net worth: Steel — ArcelorMittal
- Rank on the Rich List: 6 down one place on 2021
Mittal, 71, is a major steel owner with plants in Ukraine. He was born into an Indian steel family and started his own venture in Indonesia in 1976. He lives in London.
7. Guy, George, Alannah and Galen Weston and family – £13.5 billion
- Net worth: £13.5bn up £2.5bn on 2021
- Source of wealth: Retailing
- Rank on the Rich List: 8 up two places from 2021
The Weston family recently sold Selfridges for £4bn. They are the heirs to a food and retail group founded by George Weston.
8. Kirsten and Jorn Rausing – £12 billion
- Net worth: £12bn down £1bn on 2021
- Source of wealth: Inheritance and investment
- Rank on the Rich List: 9 down 2 on 2021
Kirsten, 69, and her brother Jorn, 62, each own one third of Tetra Laval, the Switzerland-based packaging group founded by Ruben Rausing, their Swedish grandfather. A third sibling owns the rest of the shares.
9. Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken and Michel de Carvalho – £11.42 billion
- Net worth: £11.421bn down £592m on 2021
- Source of wealth: Inheritance, brewing and banking
- Rank on the Rich List: 10 down 1 on 2021
The couple own nearly a quarter of brewing giant Heineken thanks to Charlene's inheritance from father Freddie, the longtime company CEO.
And the next richest 10 people in the UK
- Michael Platt – £10 billion
- Alisher Usmanov – £10 billion
- The Duke of Westminster and the Grosvenor family – £9.73 billion
- Barnaby and Merlin Swire and family – £9.6 billion
- Marit, Lisbet, Sigrid and Hans Rausing – £9.49 billion
- Anil Agarwal – £9.2 billion
- Denise, John and Peter Coates – £8.64 billion
- John Fredriksen and family – £8.31 billion
Christoph Henkel and family – £8.3 billion
- Mikhail Fridman – £8.22 billion
