Indian-origin families were prominent in the well-known and long established 2019 Sunday Times Rich List, which details the UK’s 1,000 wealthiest individuals.
The Hinduja brothers were ranked highest having amassed £22bn followed by Mumbai-born Reuben brothers in second place with £18.6bn.
London-based Gopi Hinduja, 79, and Sri, 83, and their brothers Prakash, 73, and Ashok, 68, who live in Geneva and Mumbai respectively, control more than 50 companies with a total turnover of nearly £40bn in 2018, the report said.
The family occupies four interconnected London homes in Carlton House Terrace, bought from queen Elizabeth II in 2006.
Another Indian-origin billionaire, Rajasthan-born Lakshmi N Mittal, incurred losses of £3.99bn pounds to slip down to 11th in this year rich list, from 5th in 2018.
His ArcelorMittal business is the world’s largest steel maker, and over the last year Mittal has been attempting to buy Essar Steel in a $5.9bn deal.
Mittal is followed in the list by Indian mining magnate Anil Agarwal, who moved up the rankings to 12th with worth estimated at £10.57bn.
Other big names with India connections included textiles and plastics industrialist Sri Prakash Lohia, sitting at 26th in the list with £5.4bn and non-resident Indian Lord Swraj Paul who moved up from 90th in 2018 to 69th this year, with £2bn.
There were a few new Indian-origin entries to this year’s list, including Sunil Vaswani who has interests in transport and food industries. Ranked 75, India-born Vaswani clocked a fortune of £1.9bn via his frozen food and car-making empire working alongside brothers Mahesh and Haresh.
Another new entry is Lord Dolar Popat, who runs care homes and hotels in the UK, and described as the first Tory of Gujarati descent in the House of Lords.
Net wealth of fund managers
The Schroders family shaved £1.2bn off their wealth over the last 12 months putting them among the biggest losers.
The family behind the £556bn asset manager are still the wealthiest in the investment industry but now have £4bn in their bank account.
The family has been in the spotlight in 2019, following the death of patriarch Bruno Schroder and the appointment of his daughter Leonie Schroder to the board of directors of the business, despite her lack of experience attracting criticism from proxy advisers.
Only the Mittals and chemicals billionaire Jim Ratcliffe lost more money than the Schroder family, suffering losses of £4bn and £2.9bn respectively.
Constituents of this year’s rich list needed at least £120m to make the cut, up from £115m last year.
Terry Smith was among the wealthiest fund managers listed on the Sunday Times ranking, while Neil Woodford continues to be absent from the Rich List.
Smith’s wealth climbed by a fifth to £300m in a year where his firm Fundsmith welcomed the largest UK-domiciled investment trust launch ever.
In contrast, the wealth of Jonathan Ruffer, chairman of the eponymous investment boutique, fell £274m, in part due to a charitable donation, and he now ranks 786 on the list, compared to 301 previously. His net worth currently stands at £151m.
Ruffer has been particularly bearish of late and recently revealed his firm holds £2.5bn in inflation-linked securities to prepare for a coming inflection point in markets.
Ashmore boss Mark Coombs also saw his wealth shift down over the year losing £62m, although that is small fry given his £1.5bn total net worth.
Coombs faced a shareholder revolt in October as proxy advisers raised concerns that he and his spouse were gaining “creeping” control of the company via share buybacks.
