How do you go about ranking the richest people in the country? The answer, it seems, is patiently trawling through Companies House documents and using a huge network of people to measure identifiable wealth, whether that be land, property, racehorses or art.
According to Robert Watts, the man responsible for compiling the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List, people are actually quite keen to see their names in black and white and it's been known for some to send a bank balance in the hundreds of thousands of pounds on their smart phones as evidence of their wealth.
On the flip side of that, there are individuals who'd rather stay anonymous: "There are certainly people who want that anonymity and don't want us to do what we do," said Mr Watts. Yet he believes his work has an important role: "We think it's very important in a functioning democracy that it's known where wealth lies and where it's accumulated," he added.
In Wales, there are five billionaires on the list this year, worth in excess of a whopping £9bn between them. Top of that select group are Sir Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman. Moritz's wealth had grown by half a billion last year taking his worth to £4bn. This year however, it has gone down by £667m to £3.333bn. How does someone lose all that money in just 12 months?
Mr Watts explained: "Michael Moritz has built his fortune on investing in technology firms and household names like Netflix. But we've almost had a second dot com crash in the last 18 months and he has been one of the losers with that."
Then there's the likes of Gareth Bale, the Welsh footballing legend who has been named as one of the richest people in the UK under 35, with his £70 million pound fortune stemming from his 17-year football career, during which he reportedly earned £600,000 a week. How did Mr Watts find that out?
"We do have an established methodology," Mr Watts explained. "We have a network of contacts, built over the decades, who help us with our valuations. It's about trawling through documents of holding companies. A lot of people on the list talk to us. They want the number next to their name to be correct."
Just like all good journalism however, the team double source and check everything they're sent. The valuations were carried out between February 1 and May 1 and they've adjusted values where there have been significant movements in the share prices of quoted companies during this time, or when new annual reports have been filed at Companies House.
"There are a lot of people who would like to make their way up the rich list," Mr Watts added. "There are people who we've excluded because they don't meet our criteria." The minimum threshold to make the list this year is £350m. Roman Abramovich was a "Rich List regular" for many years but he's been struck off this year as one of those sanctioned in the wake of the Ukrainian war. He is still "very very wealthy", Mr Watts said. It's just not much of his wealth is in the UK.
Launched in 1989, the Sunday Times’s wealth rankings have shone a light on the fortunes of Britain for 35 years. Many of those on the list have inspiring stories and Mr Watts said he's noticed a "sea change" in who's included over the years. In the early days, the list comprised mainly of "inherited wealth" he said. But the list has become increasingly diverse with more women and ethnic minorities and young entrepreneurs, like the owners of Swansea-based AU Vodka, Charlie Morgan and Jackson Quinn. Or Mel and Dan Marsden, the married couple behind Lounge Underwear.
It wasn't until the mid-nineties that the Queen was knocked off the top spot, he added. "It's changed out of sight since then," he said. "There are some who see it as an important social document. It's certainly charted the global rich coming to the UK."
Yet while governments are quick to herald the benefits that these companies can bring to our country, that's not always the case said Mr Watts. "Often these people come to the UK, they might have a nice estate or house in London, they educate their children here but they often keep their business back home and they're not actually paying a huge amount of tax," he said. "But others come to the UK and create jobs and pay tax. It's a real mix."
With over 20 years in journalism, Mr Watts believes the Sunday Times does a "very important job" in funding his research. This year he's been particularly surprised at how the rich seem to get richer. Although the number of billionaires in the UK has fallen by six, their collective wealth has increased by £30.734 billion or 4.5 per cent on the total wealth of billionaires in last year's Rich List. It's notable that 2023 marks the first time in 14 years that the billionaire count has gone down. He was also "surprised" at the likes of Richard Branson losing 40% of his wealth in just one year.
"The party is over," said Mr Watts. "Two years ago we raised concerns about an unsettling boom in the fortunes of the very wealthy that continued unchecked during the political instability around Brexit and the pandemic. This is not a crash - but there are household names who have lost vast sums over the past year. The bursting of the tech bubble, the end of rock bottom interests and the jitters creeping through the banking industry have all taken their toll."
He added: "These people are still extremely wealthy but there are implications for the likes of us. Our pension funds invest in these companies. They provide jobs. It's tempting to think it almost amusing that these billionaires have lost money. It's easy to think billionaires operate in a vacuum. But where there is a public market there will be public losers too."
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