There are at least eight names in the fray to be named the next leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister. Some of the contenders to succeed Boris Johnson are also extremely wealthy.
We've looked at what's known about the finances of the candidates as Tory MPs whittle down the full list of candidates to a final two who will be put to the party membership to decide a winner. Not for the first time, the public will have a leader imposed upon them who they did not directly elect to the post. As such there is a real public interest in knowing the background of the next leader of our country.
This is not to say there is something intrinsically wrong with someone having financial success outside of politics. Just that with businesses and financial can come accusations both of conflicts of interest, but also a detachment from the vast majority of people whom they intend to govern.
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To provide some insight WalesOnline has gone through all of the Tory leadership hopefuls assess their next worth. Bear in mind that these are only estimates and in the case of some lesser known candidates all that can be done is list their previous occupations and ventures without necessarily putting definitive figure on it.
Rishi Sunak
Rishi Sunak is one of the wealthiest MPs in the House of Commons. Privately educated at the boarding school Winchester College he was, according to The Times, a "multimillionaire in his mid-twenties".
In the early noughties, he spent four years working as an analyst for Goldman Sachs investment bank and was later a partner in two hedge funds. He became an MP in 2015 and since he became Chancellor, his salary is £151,649.
His family are believed to own four properties including a grade II-listed manor house in the village of Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton, in his Richmond constituency, which was bought for £1.5m in 2015 and a five-bedroom townhouse in South Kensington, London, which records show was last sold for £4.5m in 2010. He is also believed to own a flat in South Kensington in addition to a penthouse apartment with views of the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, California.
However, the overwhelming majority of the Sunak family wealth comes from his wife Akshata Murty who he married in 2009. She is the daughter of one of India’s most successful entrepreneurs. Her father is the co-founder of Indian tech giant Infosys and her shares in the company are believed to be worth around £430 million. This would make her richer than the Queen. The i reported that her family also has a £900 million joint venture with Amazon in India while Ms Murty herself owns a UK-based venture capital company called Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, and she uses it to store her private wealth, and is a director or direct shareholder at five other UK companies. Rishi Sunak owned shares in the company which he transferred over to his wife before he entered the House of Commons.
Nadhim Zahawi
Nadhim Zahawi, his wife and their companies have built a £100million property portfolio with more than half of it bought while Mr Zahawi has served as a government minister, a Mirror investigation found.
The portfolio includes a country mansion with stables, a £20m London townhouse, a string of high street properties and an industrial estate. The Zahawis personally own five residential properties worth at least £17m – three in London, one in Warwickshire and one in Dubai.
According to The Mirror, documents show their constituency home near Warwick, a country house and stable block bought for £875,000 in 2011, was purchased with a loan from offshore company Berkford Investments. It is not known who owns Berkford but it is based in the same office as another firm controlled by Mr Zahawi’s dad. Mr Zahawi has said: “I have no involvement with any decision-making process by Berkford Investments.” In the past six years, companies set up by the Zahawis have spent more than £80m on commercial properties.
A probe by the Mirror previously revealed that more than half were purchased while Mr Zahawi has served as a government minister. Seven of the properties purchased for more than £10m are mortgage-free, while two more were partially-funded by £10m of loans from Mr Zahawi’s wife Lana.
One of Mrs Zahawi’s firms purchased the £3.5m Chunnel industrial estate in Ashford, Kent, by the Eurotunnel train station, and the Zahawi's personally own five residential properties. These are worth at least £17m – three in London, one in Warwickshire (where his constituency is) and one in Dubai.
Sajid Javid
Estimates put Sajid Javid's wealth at around £8m. Much of this was accrued during his banking career before he became an MP.
During 18 years working in finance, he started to work at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City and during that period he rose to become the bank’s youngest vice-president. In 1997, Sajid Javid relocated to Chase’s London office before he was headhunted by Deutsche Bank. When he left this role his annual salary was about £3 million. Javid applied for and held non-domicile status for six years during this banking career which allowed him to avoid paying tax in the UK on overseas earnings.
Liz Truss
A renowned hater of cheese imports, it is hard to put a definitive figure on Liz Truss' net worth.
She had ministerial duties since 2012, has co-authored several books. She worked in sales and as an economist, and was deputy director at the think tank Reform, before becoming a member of parliament at the 2010 general election After graduating in 1996, she was a commercial manager at Shell as well as the economics director at Cable & Wireless as economics director as well as becoming qualified management accountant. She is married to fellow accountant Hugh O'Leary.
Jeremy Hunt
After finishing university, the longest service health secretary in British history worked for two years as a management consultant at OC&C Strategy Consultants. He had a series of failed business forays including including an attempt to export marmalade to Japan.
He found success with his company Hotcourses which was sold in 2017 pocketing him a cool £14m.
Tom Tugendhat
Educated at one of the UK's top fee-paying public schools St Paul's School, London, Mr Tugendhat was a journalist, worked in a PR agency, was a management consultant and energy analyst before entering politics. He also served as a part-time reservist in the Territorial Army, seeing service in Afghanistan and Iraq and rising to Lieutenant Colonel. He became an MP in 2015 and his wife is a French judge and senior civil servant.
Penny Mordaunt
After leaving university (for which she was the first member of her family to attend) she worked in several positions within politics. She was Head of Youth for the Conservative Party, before working for two years as Head of Broadcasting for the party under party leader William Hague.
Kemi Badenoch
Daughter to a GP and professor of philosophy she studied computer systems engineering before becoming a software engineer at Logica (later CGI Group). She later because a systems analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group before pursuing a career in consultancy and financial services. She then worked as an associate director of private bank and wealth manager Coutts from 2006 to 2013 and later a digital director at The Spectator from 2015 to 2016.
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