The Hinduja brothers, Gopichand and Srichand, have reclaimed their crown as the UK’s wealthiest people, according to the annual Rich List survey.
The Indian-born, London-based industrialists are estimated to be worth £22bn, up £1.35bn on last year’s list.
The brothers knocked British businessman Sir Jim Ratcliffe from the top spot. The controversial chemicals entrepreneur, boss of Ineos, who is leading the drive to develop fracking in the UK, has dropped to third, with an estimated fortune of £18.1bn, down £2.9bn in the past 12 months.
He was also overtaken by David and Simon Reuben, the property developers, whose net worth was estimated by the Sunday Times to be £18.6bn, up £3.5bn on last year’s total. Soviet-born businessman Sir Len Blavatnik was fourth-wealthiest, with a fortune put at £14.8bn.
The inventor Sir James Dyson was the biggest winner in the list. His wealth grew to £12.6bn, a rise of £3.1bn in a year, sending him from 12th-richest person in the UK to fifth. Sir James recently faced criticism after it was revealed he was moving his corporate head office to Singapore.
The wealthiest woman in Britain is Sigrid Rausing, granddaughter of the man who invented the Tetra Pak packaging fortune. She is reportedly worth £12.2bn and ranked sixth.
Brewing heir Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, who is London-based, is seventh with a £12bn fortune.
The Arsenal football club shareholder Alisher Usmanov, whose fortune comes from mining and finance, is ranked eighth on £11.3bn, narrowly edging him past rival oil oligarch and Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich on £11.2bn.
Fellow Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman is a new entry to the top 10 with a fortune put at £10.69bn. Fridman, who is said to have close links to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, moved to the UK in 2015.
The list reveals that retailer Sir Philip Green has lost his billionaire status; his fortune is believed to have halved in a year because of a pension black hole in his Arcadia empire. The Sunday Times Rich List has Green’s total wealth free-falling £1.05bn in a year to £950m.
