UK rich list published, showing Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty lost £200m in a year – business live

We also have a new breakdown of the wealthiest 35 Brits under the age of 35.

It’s topped by the Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor, who announced his engagement to Olivia Henson last month. He has a weath of £9.878bn.

Grosvenor, 32, owns more than 300 acres in London’s in Mayfair and Belgravia within a global, family-owned property empire which, luckily for him, is held in trust so avoided inheritance tax.

The Sunday Times has more detail on “Hughie”, as he’s apparently known to friends:

The duke, 32, was educated at the Shropshire private school Ellesmere College and studied real estate management at Newcastle University. After graduating he worked for Bio-bean, the London-based eco-business which has since become the world’s largest recycler of coffee grounds into efficient and sustainable products. His fiancée is a senior account manager for Belazu, a food importer.

These days the duke focuses on overseeing his family’s charitable foundation, which has a focus on the mental health of children, and the property empire that includes 300 acres of Mayfair and Belgravia as well as buildings in more than 40 cities around the world.

Today’s Rich List reports that nepotism helped nine people get on the list, but most made their millions on their own.

It says:

• The majority made millions on their own, but nine were born into money.

• Those who inherited wealth are worth much more. So, 33 out of 38 individuals on this list built their fortunes themselves, a combined total of £5.8 billion; the other five, who owe at least some of their wealth to inheritance, account for £13.1 billion.

• Four of the 35 under 35 were born outside the UK, the others mostly come from London or Worcestershire.

• About half attended state schools, and at least a third didn’t go on to further education.

• Five were friends at the same school, South Bromsgrove High School, including Ben Francis, 30, co-founder of the sportswear brand Gymshark

Hughie Grovesnor is followed on the list by Lady Charlotte Wellesley (£2.167bn), the daughter of the Duke of Wellington, who has married into a South American brewing dynasty, Johnny Boufarhat (£1.714bn) who built the video-conference app Hopin, Ben Francis (£900m), and India Rose James (£758m) the granddaughter of the property magnate and porn publisher Paul Raymond.

James, who founded the art gallery Soho Revue, insists her financial success shouldn’t be put down to nepotism. In an interview published this morning, the ‘Princess of Soho’ says:

At a party recently someone was complaining about “nepo babies” and a few faces turned to me. What can I say? I was left money, which undoubtedly gave me a leg up. But I set up the gallery on my own; I pay a higher percentage to the artists than most galleries because I want to invest in the creative community.

If I inherit some money, does that make me a nepo baby? I don’t think so.

Famous names on the 35-under-35 list include Ed Sheeran (£300m), Rory McIlroy (£200m), Adele (£165m), Harry Styles (£150m), Daniel Radcliffe (£92m), Dua Lipa (£75m), Gareth Bale (£70m), Raheem Sterling (£61m), Emma Watson (£60m), Niall Horan (£54m), Louis Tomlinson (£54m), Harry Kane (£51m) and Cara Delevingne (£50m).

Today’s Rich List, which shows Britain’s 171 billionaires collectively own over £683.8bn, shows the urgent need to tackle inequality, the IPPR thinktank say.

Dr George Dibb, head of the centre for economic justice at IPPR, says:

“While a rising number of households on the lowest incomes simply cannot pay their bills, the fact that a few of the UK’s richest people have seen dips in their wealth is outweighed by the growth in combined wealth of the 171 billionaires.

“Sky-high energy bills have fed into record profits for oil firms, who have passed this directly to those lucky enough to be shareholders, funnelling higher bill payments by everyone into the wealth of the richest.

“It’s more urgent than ever to address rising inequality in our economy: income from wealth should be taxed at the same rate as income from work, and we must ensure everyone benefits from a growing economy, not just a lucky few.

“That means aligning rates of income tax, capital gains tax, and tax on dividends. It’s also time for a fair, proportional property tax to replace the regressive system of council tax. And it’s long past time to ditch non-dom status.”

You can see the Rich List online here: The Sunday Times Rich List 2023 revealed.

They’ve tweeted the key points too:

Other fallers on this year’s UK Rich List include Matt Moulding, the founder of the online retailer THG, and Mike Lynch, who cofounded the cybersecurity firm Darktrace.

Moulding and his wife Jodie have fallen to 254th, from 230th, with their wealth dropping by £70m to £630m.

Shares in THG dropped by over 70% in 2022, as the company failed to meet the expectations set when it floated at a £5.4bn valuation in 2020. Its value has shrunk by almost 90% since.

Darktrace’s float has been volatile too – after an early surge, the stock has dropped back towards its IPO price in 2021.

Lynch, and wife Angela Bacares, together own around 10% of Darktrace. They dropped to 199 on this year’s Rich List, from 179, with their net worth down £136m to £852m.

That’s not Lynch’s only problem, though. Last week he was extradited to the US to face criminal fraud charges, which he denies, of duping the US firm Hewlett-Packard into overpaying when it struck an $11bn deal for his software firm Autonomy in 2011.

Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty aren’t along in becoming poorer last year, and are far from the biggest fallers.

The Sunday Times reports:

In 12 months Sir Richard Branson’s fortune has shrunk by 42.6% to £2.41bn. Shares in his satellite venture, Virgin Orbit, have collapsed.

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, easyJet’s founder, is another high-profile faller. The budget airline’s share price has continued to lose altitude and the other lines in his easy empire have failed to make up for it.

A year ago, Branson and family were 44th on the Rich List, with a fortune of £4.2bn.

This time, they’ve dropped to 77th with a net worth of £2.41bn.

Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty saw their wealth slide last year, the Sunday Times Rich List shows.

The prime minister and his wife made their Rich List debut in 2022 thanks to the near-1% stake Murty owns in Infosys, the Indian IT giant co-founded by her father.

But this time round, the prime minister and his wife’s wealth is estimated at £201m less than 12 months ago. That works out as an average daily loss of more than £500,000.

This is due to a slide in Infosys’s share price, which fell by over a fifth during 2022, as the boom in tech stocks unravelled.

But Infosys has continued to swell the Sunak-Murty coffers – Akshata will receive nearly £6.7m in dividend payments from the company this summer,

These are the 20 richest people and families in the UK, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, released this morning.

1. Gopi Hinduja and family – £35bn

2. Sir Jim Ratcliffe – £29.7bn

3. Sir Leonard Blavatnik – £28.6bn

4. David and Simon Reuben and family – £24.4bn

5. Sir James Dyson and family – £23bn

6. Lakshmi Mittal and family – £16bn

7. Guy, George, Alannah and Galen Weston and family – £14.5bn

8. Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken and Michel de Carvalho – £13.1bn

9. Kirsten and Jorn Rausing – £12bn

10. Michael Platt – £11.5bn

11. The Duke of Westminster and the Grosvenor family – £9.9bn

12. Marit, Lisbet, Sigrid and Hans Rausing – £9.3bn

13. Andy Currie – £9.2bn

14. John Reece – £9.1bn

15. Alex Gerko – £9.1bn

16. Denise, John and Peter Coates and family – £8.8bn

17. Anders Holch Povlsen £8.5bn

18. Barnaby and Merlin Swire and family – £8.4bn

19. John Fredriksen and family – £8.3bn

20. Mikhail Fridman – £8.2bn

The billionaire Hinduja family have topped the Sunday Times Rich List again as their fortune jumped by more than £6bn last year.

The annual assessment of the UK’s wealthiest people, just released, found that Gopi Hinduja and his family, which is behind the Indian conglomerate Hinduja Group, are Britain’s richest.

This comes just days after Mr Hinduja’s brother Sri died.

This is the fifth time the Indian-born family have topped the Rich List, making them the UK’s wealthiest dynasty.

The Hindujas were followed by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the boss of the INEOS chemicals company, who is now bidding to take control of Manchester United.

But for the first time in 14 years, the number of billionaires on the list has fallen, by six to 171.

That’s the first top drop since the 2007-08 financial crisis, after heavy falls in international markets last year.

However, those whose wealth clocked in at at least 8-digits have grown even richer. The amount of wealth shared by UK billionaires climbed to £683.8bn, which is almost £31bn more than last year.

But, with inflation in double digits, that 4.5% rise represents a fall in real terms.

The Sunday Times, which has been weighing the wallets of the wealthy for many years, reports that the boomtime is over:

The Rich List has laid bare a golden era for Britain’s most minted for more than a decade. Each year the billionaire count rose. Each year their fortunes soared ever higher. The question was not whether the boom would end, but when — and what it would mean for the rest of us. That time has come. The party is over and it’s time to sober up.

“Years of cheap, cheap money ramped up the value of our companies and made it easier to expand,” said one anonymous billionaire retailer who has seen his wealth clipped in this year’s Rich List.

“A lot of us did very well out of it. The recession never turned up and I don’t think it will. Time for everyone to get back to work, get their heads down and frankly be a bit more sensible.”

The UK has finally announced its strategy to support the semiconductor industry, but the plan has been quickly criticised for being too small.

The 20-year National Semiconductor Strategy will “double down on design, research and advanced chip leadership”, to secure the UK’s position as a global science and technology superpower, the government says.

The package will aim to boost the UK’s strengths and skills in design, R&D and compound semiconductors, and grow UK chip firms.

As the government points out, the semiconductor marketis set to grow to $1 trillion by 2030, which is why other countries have been offering large subsidies to their industries.

And the UK’s package, worth £1bn over the next decade, isn’t enough, according to some experts.

Cambridge-based startup, Paragraf, which claims to be the only company in the world capable of manufacturing graphene to mass-produce semiconductors, said the taxpayer commitment would not cover a basic chip plant. Its founder and chief executive, Simon Thomas, said the content of the strategy revealed so far was “frankly flaccid”.

Thomas said:

“The strategy continues the trend of this Conservative administration proclaiming superlatives like ‘becoming a technology superpower’ without defining what ‘superpower’ actually means or delivering a plan of how we will even begin to reach this objective.”

Confidence among UK consumers is recovering, as people grow more optimistic over their personal financial situation and the economic outlook.

GfK’s Consumer Confidence Index, released overnight, has risen by three points this month to -27 – the fourth monthly increase in a row.

Although still negative, the outlook has improved since January when the index clocked in at -45.

Confidence in personal finances over the coming 12 months jumped by five points, to -8, which is 17 points higher than this time last year.

Joe Staton, client strategy director at GfK, says:

“The cost-of-living crisis has been part of our daily financial reality for a long time, with double-digit inflation and record-high food prices. But despite those pressures, May sees an encouraging three-point uptick in consumer confidence.

This is the fourth monthly increase in a row from January’s score of -45. While Brits have little control over the general economy, it’s good to see further improvement in how people view their personal finances in the next 12 months with a robust five-point jump to -8. This measure most keenly reflects our hopes and fears for the coming year, and it underpins our ability to spend on goods and services that drive our economy.

Of course, confidence is still far from the ‘sunny uplands’ territory, Staton adds:

However, the overall trajectory this year is positive and might reflect a stronger underlying financial picture across the UK than many would think. But everybody must hold on tight as it could still be a rocky ride out of these tough times.”

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

Japan’s blue-chip stock index has climbed to a 33-year high today, lifted by optimism over the US debt ceiling deadlock.

The Nikkei climbed by another 0.77% today to close at 30,808.35 today. That’s its highest level since August 1990, when Japan’s stock market bubble was bursting.

Today’s rally came amid rising hopes that US politicians will hammer out a deal on the debt ceiling to avoid a catastrophic default.

Last night, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck an optimistic tone about reaching a deal with President Biden to raise the debt ceiling in time to avoid a default.

McCarthy told reporters that “We’re not there,” adding:

“But I see the path that we can come to an agreement, and I think we have a structure now.”

McCarthy, who met with the president and other congressional leaders earlier this week, said talks are in “a much better place” than they were a week ago.

“I know and I can see where a deal can come together, and I think that’s important.”

McCarthy’s Republicans had been demanding hefty spending cuts in return for approving a lifting of the debt ceiling.

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has repeatedly warned that the consequences of not increasing the debt limit could be disastrous. Yesterday, Yellen told bank CEOs that failing to raise or suspend the debt limit would be “catastrophic” for the financial system, families and businesses.

So far this year, the Nikkei has gained around 19%, outpacing other major markets – which are also looking calmer today.

Reuters points out that a series of strong corporate results, an economy that is showing signs of a revival and a renewed interest from foreign investors in the wake of increased investment by Warrant Buffett has also boosted the Nikkei.

But despite the recent rally, the Nikkei is still below its alltime peak over 36,000 set in 1989.

The agenda

• 7am BST: German PPI index of producer prices in April

• 11am BST: Spanish consumer confidence for April

• 4pm BST: US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks on a ‘Perspectives on Monetary Policy’ panel